Donald H. Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defence once said,  “If you are not criticised, you may not be doing much.” 

As a double amputee in a wheelchair, access is paramount and something I am passionate about. Many a time I have been criticised for speaking out on this basic right… but here’s the thing.. most people tend to sit back and say nothing. I can’t do that.

For the past 6 months, I have spent a fair amount of time travelling. Access is a big thing to one such as myself… Hotels, airlines, trains, buses, footpaths, shops let alone bathrooms and public conveniences! Where do I start? Let’s just look at getting from the Gold Coast to Coolangatta airport for starters.  The airport bus works fine…when the bus is capable of lowering the ramp! Sadly this does not happen all of the time… They simply do not work! My argument here, is simple…they should not be on the road! They are defective. Same applies with “wheelchair taxis” if defective, they need to be withdrawn from service and repaired…simple as that! Now, I’m probably going to upset a few of you… Gold Coast Airport, as you know, has no air-bridge. Some will argue this is a good thing. Try it from a wheelchair and you soon realise it is not! It is that simple! For this reason, I choose to travel up to Brisbane and fly from there… The trains are fantastic and very accessible and personally, I have never encountered a problem. Now to the airlines… I could not believe that the particular airline I choose to fly did not have an aisle chair on board the aircraft…UNBELIEVABLE!! I immediately addressed the issue with this carrier and I am happy to say, whilst there is still no chair on board, they are working toward a solution.. You see, no one had ever bothered to point it out to them, so they were unaware of the problem. The thing here is, they took OWNERSHIP and are working to resolve this issue. I continue to fly with them and have nothing but praise for the way in which they have addressed the issue… No need to jump up and down and create a scene at the airport.. I just don’t have that chip on my shoulder…

Most accommodations these days, must provide an accessible room. The definition of accessible varies considerably and this is where the problem arises.. What you and I call accessible, I am sure is poles apart. It’s simple…Access into the bathroom, shower and wide enough to cater for most wheelchairs. With the Commonwealth Games upon us, we need to be thinking about total access now. I put my hand up to advise and assist the GCCC in this process.. It simply must be right! In the United States, nothing is left to chance…NOTHING! Ok, I grant you that the laws there allow for an individual to sue the pants off whoever gets it wrong.. They pretty much have it right. Sadly the privilege is abused when it comes to cruises, as laws there do not allow them to question your right to an accessible cabin on a ship. What annoyed me there, was the number of people that abused the right… Climbed into a wheelchair, just to get to the front of the queue, then walked to the buffet or took the lift, simply because they were obese, or just plain lazy.. Harsh yes, but fact! Did I get angry, speak out….absolutely! Was I criticised for doing so, yes! Would I stop and sit back and let this happen, NO! Again, here’s the thing, I don’t care too much about myself, I can and have been speaking out for nearly 40 years as a Broadcaster and  Journalist. I have helped implement change and am proud of that achievement. The people I care about are our “Diggers, the elderly & frail, those that can’t speak out, simply  because they are struggling to cope with their daily existence..

This brings me to the point I wish to hammer home…Right now, there is a lot of construction taking place on the Gold Coast. With the building of the “LITE RAIL” access for anyone is difficult, let alone those who are frail, elderly, young families with strollers and of course those of us confined to a wheelchair…  I have addressed the issue and whilst the authorities are concerned, sadly they just play “lip service” to the problem and throw a bit of hot mix over the paths with no consideration to those that have to struggle on a daily basis, just to get to their corner store… It needs to be changed…Attitudes need to change as does the planners thinking…

No doubt I will be criticised once again for speaking out, but as I said at the start of this article, quoting from Donald H Rumsfeld… “If you are not criticised, you may not be doing much.”

I hope I am doing something!

Welcome to everyone, thank you for attending, and a special thanks to the Mayoral candidates who have been able to make their way here this morning (Dean sends his apologies he is working on cruise and was unable to attend).

The Gold Coast is 40 kilometres long at about five people wide so I know most of you here today, for those that I do not I would like to provide just a quick background. Last week the Gold Coast Bulletin ran a story on Lex Bell being 66 and I found myself unexpectedly having to defend a position of being the youngest candidate.

The Bully allows feedback to stories online with 500 characters. This was me in a nutshell:-

At 41 I am older than Lex was when he was first elected, but eight years younger than Dawn would have been (20 years ago). I went to school in Pimpama in the old Albert Shire (moving to the “Gold Coast” in ‘95). I have been married for 17 years, have two children so we have to live modestly. I have an accounting degree and one dry sense of humour. I have worked on the Gold Coast for the past 20 years. I have two ears and one mouth and I am happy to use them in that ratio (I prefer beer to champagne).

I might just pause to expand on some of that…like many in the Albert Shire we moved to the Gold Coast via amalgamation. My family ran a fruit shop in Beenleigh from the mid ’70s to the mid ’80s, and as a boy I grew up in small state schools in Cedar Creek and Pimpama.

I attended High School in Beenleigh – when there were only three choices in the district –the new Helensvale High and Beenleigh State High and St Josephs.

I worked at DreamWorld and gardened, while completing a Commerce Degree at Griffith University. I have since completed the CPA program as well as a Graduate Diploma in Accounting.

I have had four jobs. I worked as an accountant in a private accounting practice for four years, as an accountant and manager for a real estate company for five, and as a manager for an industrial property syndicator in Brisbane for a year.

Since the turn of the century I have managed a private investment company here on the Gold Coast called Barkala.

Barkala was owned by George Alexander, who passed away in 2008, at the age of 98.

Over the past eleven years, as well as an equities portfolio, we have held and managed a variety of assets including commercial, industrial and rural properties.

George was a philanthropist and he left his estate to a private charity called the George Alexander Foundation. The Foundation has twin objectives of supporting education and the environment.

Here on the Gold Coast the foundation is the largest private benefactor to Griffith University’s scholarship program.

When I started with George he had approximately $10m of assets, during the past eleven years we have made and donated over $10m to charity, however there remains $15m of assets still on hand. And just for the record – during the term of the current Council I have been involved in three town planning applications.

One was the Gold Coast’s most expensive on-grade carpark, where we added 30 car spaces to an existing office property at Varsity Lakes.

The second was the Gold Coast’s most expensive two-lot sub-division for our family home; where Jessica Watson managed to sail single-handed around the world and back faster than we could get an approval out of this Council.

More recently we have lodged the first Master Planning unit for the Coomera Town centre on George’s former principal place of residence.

Thanks to those three recent experiences with dealing with the City’s Planning Department, I have a pretty good understanding of the frustrations involved in dealing with this Council.

But Council is not about making money or profits, Council should be about spending money as wisely and prudently as possible.

I have nothing against Councillor John Wayne personally.

However if we do not like the decisions that are being made, we need to change the decision makers.

Unfortunately, it is an adversarial process and I have chosen to run against him. There will be no dirt sheets from me, no dirty tricks.

What I bring to the table is a fresh set of eyes and the ability to ask the tough questions of the Administration and understand the answers. Sometimes those answers are not black or white – they are grey and they require analytic problem solving abilities.

I have a desire to see a much more open and transparent Council, we can make far better decisions than are being made at the moment. I want to be part of the change needed.

I come with no baggage, no alliances or involvement in mini blocs or school yards grudges. There is nothing in my past that I am uncomfortable with.

Whilst I am currently a Director on George’s companies, in order to ensure that there is no misunderstanding or confusion at the end of this month, after 11 years, I will be stepping down from Barkala.

I will work fulltime for the next four months on the campaign and I am not interested in coming second.

Divisions 2, 3 and Susie’s Division 7 are the only Divisions currently being contested. The reality is that in five months there is a good chance that there will be no major shift in the majority of Councillors appointed.

Accordingly Division 2 represents an opportunity for change and supporting my campaign provides one of the few opportunities to inject fresh thinking people into the Council.

Since January I have sat in on all but two of the Full Council meetings. Folks, currently the tail is wagging the dog in our city.

Councillors do not appear to be making or determining policy. I believe that there has been and enormous abdication of responsibility to the Administration and deferring to the crutch of reports and external advice.

Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers. Conversely if you ask no questions, you will get no answers, and it is pretty hard to succeed. For the record:

Councillor Wayne, in the month of October, asked no questions and spoke at Full Council only four times, in total for less than five minutes.

* 27 seconds on Tipplers

* 1 minute 9 seconds on dog registration and the Animal Welfare League

* 1 minute on Bulls on the Beach

* 1 minute 7 seconds on the benefits of the coffee table magazine

Every Monday afternoon a full suite of Directors attends Council, why? I do not know because they certainly are not being asked any difficult or probing questions.

Since January, Cr Wayne has not asked one question of the Directors.

Why Division 2 – having spent 10 months sitting in on the Full Council meetings, I am pretty confident that I could do a better job at representing our area than the incumbent Councillor.

I have spent the best part of the last 40 years living in the northern area of the Gold Coast, it is the area of the Gold Coast I have the most affinity with, and my family represents the demographic, and I bring a set of skills that are currently absent from the Council Chambers.

If we want to change the direction of the City – this is where we have to do it.

Allconnex is a classic example. It was not three good or bad decisions over the last six months but four or five years of poor decisions. We lost $1.5 billion of our City’s balance sheet when the assets were stripped by the State into the retail entity. We did not dig in and fight at the start and in the end it turned into a farce of misinformation and in-fighting.

Quite frankly, I – like many others – think that it is time that this City stops being run like a rural town. We have an almost $1 billion budget; and over $10 billion in assets. We need to put a bit of starch back into our Council.

Alone, I am not the silver bullet; I do not pretend to have all the answers, but I am pretty sure I have some better questions.

If we do not step forward – we will stay in the same place. So I am stepping forward because I would like to offer a fresh alternative, I want to get involved in being part of the solution to what ails our City. I would hope to be a reasonable voice and a voice of reason for the residents of Division 2, and the Gold Coast at large.

In this City at the moment we have paralysis by analysis, and that has to stop. We need far less navel gazing, planning, and reporting, and far more doing. If it is too hard, stop warming the seat, stand aside. We need fresh thinking and we need fresh representation.

We need Councillors who represent the Community to Council; not Council to the Community.

However I am not here to rail against the sitting Councillors, I believe they all have their heart in the right place. In a City of over 530,000 when less than 30 to 40 people put themselves forward. I think each of one of the candidates genuinely wants to serve the community in their own way and I respect that.

Last month the Mayor said that the Gold Coast has a record number of people employed – 306,000 (full and part-time) and that with 10,000 new construction jobs we are nearing the 2007 peak in the construction industry.

I’m sorry but I just do not believe the ABS sample of 700 Gold Coasters represents what is happening in our City.

Here are the uncomfortable facts – our City has 22% office vacancy; our City has retail vacancy. It has it at Pacific Fair for the first time in my life – it has it in Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach, Southport, and everywhere in-between. Our City has Building Approvals down 45%…Our City’s Tourism, Education and Marine industries have all been hit hard by the exchange rate and the GFC.

How can we ever be serious about fixing a problem if we refuse to acknowledge it exists?

Council cannot fix unemployment, or the Australian dollar, they are all things out of the direct control of Council.

However the most powerful tool the Council has is the town plan – how we use it, and how it is used goes a long way towards encouraging business to again flourish in our City. Small, medium, and large businesses employee people here on the Gold Coast.

This City was built on the back of people having a go and that is the spirit we need to nurture and encourage once again. We need Council to get out of the way.

Abe Lincoln said he only ever had one policy and that was common sense. But what is common sense? Is it common at all? Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done.

In September the State Government held a seminar in Nerang called “Way to Grow”. The State wanted to prepare a list of key infrastructure projects to strengthen regional Queensland.

I was one of about 60-odd who attended, along with only one GCCC councillor. That Councillor asked about the climate in tropical far north Queensland.

Common sense would have been to ask a question about – Exit 54, or the next stage of the Light Rail from Griffith University to Helensvale, or to ask after a social infrastructure for the Northern Suburbs or funding a Cultural Centre.

We need to apply more common sense, we need to ask better questions.

What we have at the moment is a council that is under siege.

It is under siege with its community that it should be representing as was evidenced in the AllConnex and the Tipplers choices that were made.

It is under siege with the construction industry as is evidenced by the defensive press releases regarding the way its own information was repeated and reported.

It has convinced itself that it is so under siege from the media that in effectively a one paper town, it has decided that the way to lift the pressure is to allocate $400,000 towards a glossy magazine that will have a limited two edition run before the March elections. If I have anything to do with it – there will not be a third edition.

But with our new Mayor, and at least a couple of new Councillors we do have the chance to grab this City and help it grow up by changing the culture.

Mayoral candidates – you need seven other votes to get your mandate across the line. I am here to tell you that I will be there to help not hinder you get on with the job of running this City.

In all likelihood one of you will be the Mayor in April, and together we need to:-

* Acknowledge and help with the Cost of living pressures.

* We need, as a City, to live within our means. We cannot promise a rates freeze but we can promise to improve the value for money.

* We need to stop the waste and we need to spend as much time questioning the big ticket items as we do approving the transfer of $101 in divisional budgets for community functions.

* We need to re-engage with the State Government (we need to rescind the motion that currently prevents Councillors from meeting with State Government Ministers without the Mayor’s approval).

* We need the culture of Council to be open and transparent. We need a culture that has officers “On tap not on top”.

* We need reform (I do not care if it is two directorates or five directorates – we need to snap the culture with change. Control, alt, delete – we need to reboot).

It is not by accident we find ourselves here in Helensvale, the heart of Division 2, this morning. Just down the road in the heart of Helensvale itself is the Golf Club. It has had a drainage problem ever since the rail was extended from Beenleigh to Helensvale in 1990s.

Last year the City Council endorsed a “Coomabah Wetlands master plan” – the problems at the Golf Club rated a small one paragraph mention. That document was the perfect opportunity to set the platform to address the drainage problem.

I have been down and walked the rail line. The bush engineer in me says it looks like a $50,000 civil engineering job, and bush town planner in me guesses about $500,000 in consultants and reports.

Bob Hall, we have four Mayoral candidates in the room – here is your chance for a commitment from them all – we fix the drainage issue this term. We negotiate with the State and the Department of NO, sorry I mean DERM, and we get it done. No more excuses, no more “it’s too hard”, no more “they will not let me do it”.

What we will do is work with the State, not against it, and we will fix the problem.

At the recent “Turning Point” session the point was raised – if the City of the Gold Coast is not being run by the 15 elected Councillors and Mayor and the 10 State MPs – who is running it?

In 2008 the Council prepared a “Northern Social Infrastructure plan” – it remains in draft form, endorsed but unfunded. This week the Council advised that it passed through the State interest tests. 2008 to 2011 is unacceptable.

Yet despite having a social infrastructure plan that says we desperately need community halls and meeting places. We have built a temporary library facility, we are then knocking down the existing building, to build a $20m community hub, then we are going to pull down the temporary facility. Smells like waste to me.

I would have thought a more common sense approach would have been to keep the old Library, build a new one with suitable parking and access for the community and then re-use the original building to start plugging the needs identified in the social infrastructure plan.

If we continue to put one foot in front of the other, but not look up and look ahead, we can and will still walk over the cliff.

Finally, Transport linkages – we need to advocate for the Griffith University to Helensvale extension to the Light Rail. We need to link the Northern areas to the Coastal strip by efficient public transport.

Those linkages need to planned, designed and costed, sitting on our hands and saying we will look into it maybe in 2021. That is not the answer.

Politics is the art of compromise and negotiation. We need to get to the point where the City comes first; but we also need a strong voice for the Northern Growth Corridor. I want to be one of those strong voices (there will be no laryngitis here).

I have called the tables here today after the suite of words that we need to invoke if we are going to get our City out of the funk that it is in at the moment. Have a look around and note that none of the tables have been called:-

* “It’s too hard”

* “Red Tape”

* “Impossible”

* “It’s not that easy”

* “It’s the state’s fault”

* “Bold or future”

And I have also left – “Working for tomorrow…today” in the cupboard.

It is time for a change – here is my task.

20,000 residents; 18,000 voted; 8,000 voted for the incumbent; boils down to 9 possibly 10 booths to be manned and trying to get past 1 incumbent (and maybe a dose of apathy).

1 vote out of 15; 1 vote for change.

This is John Wayne’s third election, and my first. What I have worked out pretty quickly is that everything involves finding funds.

I have been fortunate enough to receive campaign contributions so far from an – airline pilot, retail consultant, environment planner, lawyer (thanks Frank for upgrading everyone to a round table this morning), sign writer, industrial estate agent and the Gold Coast’s best cake decorator. Thank you.

Council is much more than Rates, Road and Rubbish. It is about reading, here are the minutes and agendas for the past six months.

I am under no illusions that the role of a Councillor is an easy one. But I am prepared to put my hand up, stop throwing stones from the sidelines and at least have a crack.

Thanks for coming – and if anyone is looking for a gig with how to vote cards on the 31st March 2011 – feel free to let me know. I am hoping for a new mayor, a new Councillor or two in the New Year.

It’s time for change, it’s time for fresh thinking, it’s time for fresh representation.

Proper planning for the future of Southport has never been more critical.

In the past few decades Southport has unfortunately transformed from a suburb of opportunity to a suburb of ongoing neglect and it is imperative that we work together to change this.

I plan to once again resurrect Southport’s reputation as a key business and activity centre and this Thursday I am holding the first ever ‘Southport Forum’ where I would like to invite members of the local community to attend the evening to discuss the future of Southport.

The Southport Forum has been designed to offer the local community a voice and give them the opportunity to express concerns or ideas and I have a vision that together we can work at restoring Southport to the enviable suburb it has the potential to be.

At this Thursday’s Southport Forum, together with the Gold Coast City Council, we will outline the Central Southport Master Plan (CSMP).

The CSMP is a document that ultimately provides the framework and direction for the overall growth and development of the Southport electorate.

In addition, the Gold Coast Rapid Transit Corridor (GCRT) study will be on the agenda with a representative from the Gold Coast City Council providing a detailed presentation.

Supported by significant retail, commercial, health care, education, community, recreation and personal services it is essential that proper planning is put in place so the future of Southport is a bright one.

If elected as the Member for Southport, I will operate in a way that connects with the community so key issues surrounding the electorate are dealt with accordingly and the Southport Forum is just one initiative I have designed to engage with the community.

I have also been out almost every Saturday this year door knocking and listening to the concerns of residents and business people, and I can see that most of you are concerned about employment, rising living costs and the future for your kids and families.  Together we can work at eliminating these burdens.

Once again, I would like to encourage the community to attend the Southport Forum where you will have the opportunity to raise key issues surrounding your local area and respond to the proposed Master Plan.

For more information about the evening call me on 0430 209995

It’s going to cost $1.6 Billion for the Gold Coast’s Light Rail project to run from the new Parkwood hospital site through to the southern end of Broadbeach. Council is putting up $120 Million plus staff and technical engineering support for the project and to date Council’s moola seems to represent the lion’s share of money being spent on the project.

The State Government’s total contribution isn’t even mentioned in State budget papers and it remains to be seen if Treasurer Andrew Fraser includes a serious budget line item in this June’s Queensland budget for the project when so many other repair bills are pulling at the Government’s purse strings.

The light rail route caused considerable controversy throughout the genesis of the project. I know personally as, up until yesterday, I was on the Rapid Transit Business Advisory Board and we gave a fair amount of feedback in regards to the route. Council had by far the most influence on picking the final route so it should know exactly where the project route was going.

I was politely asked to resign from that Business Advisory Board this week reflecting the fact that I only had a year to go to the Council election in March 2012 and it was felt by some State Government bureaucrats in Brisbane that I might become a controversial figure in my own right during my mayoral run! The one nice thing about that is now I can speak my mind publicly about the Light Rail project as I am no longer bound by the confidentially agreement that all board members had to sign when first asked to join the board all those years ago.

I am a supporter of a rapid transport project on the Gold Coast however I still feel uneasy with the business model that was put up to justify using light rail, the short route from Parkwood to Broadbeach and lack of proper integration with our existing bus network. I do fear we might be creating a public transport white elephant and avoiding that will depend on the depth of commercial and residential project investments along its 13.2 kilometer route.

What I can’t understand is why council intends to throw away its investment in this $1.6 billion dollar Light Rail project by planning to build its brand new office complex at Robina, ‘light years’ away from the Light Rail route or any rapid transit station. It’s not even that close to the heavy rail stop. Is this madness or is it a tacit acknowledgment that Council itself does not believe in the rapid transit project? It has $120 million reasons to back the project yet it wants to throw away a golden opportunity to show investors the benefits of building close to the light rail route and particularly its stations.

First and foremost, why do we need to build a new $130~$265 Million building for Council in the first place when we have so much commercial office vacancies here on the Gold Coast. The Property Council of Australia’s Office Market Report for January 2011 lists the Gold Coast as the country’s worst performer with nearly a quarter of offices empty. Vacancies have increased from 23.2 to 24 % on the Gold Coast followed closely for 2nd place by “daylight” and then Chatswood in Sydney at just over 18% vacancy.

But that’s not the point, believe it or not. The point is Council’s assessment of HQ locations has not taken into consideration this city’s single largest public transport investment. Its like it doesn’t exist to them. Surely Southport would be the most sensible location for Council’s latest satellite HQ if at all? If we truly need more space for the Council bureaucrats then surely some of the vacant office space can be purchased at bargain basement prices right now in Southport or other locations along the light rail route. Maybe a good hard look needs to be taken on the actual space requirements at Council & AllConnex before we leap into building a brand new HQ miles away from our most important public transport project.