Advancing 2024: Towards a More Inclusive Agenda at all Levels of Government
By Denis Bright
Amidst the usual tensions associated with Australia Day, there was an underlying commitment to a more progressive national consensus after the unfortunate defeat of last year’s Voice referendum.
The eve of Australia Day brought the announcement of progressive tax rate changes as summarised by Lowe Lippmann-Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors.
The long delay in implementing these tax changes was a painful but politically strategic move. Lesser national leaders could have acted more spontaneously to break election commitments to Stage 3 Tax Cuts soon after 22 May 2022. An even more foolish errand would have opposed the Stage 3 Tax Cuts from Opposition. This would have provided oxygen for a federal LNP campaign on aspirational rewards for middle income Australians.
After almost two years in government, the Albanese Government has proved that it can operate a neoliberal economy more effectively than the LNP. The MYEFO statement from December 2023 offered that capacity to review Stage 3 Tax changes with a high degree of popular support.
Having inherited a quite unequal neoliberal economy in 2022, the Albanese Government can also work to attain a more equitable society as measured by current levels of Gini coefficients for comparative developed countries as estimated by OECD data.
Action on this cost-of-living problems is popular with the electorate and restores faith in mainstream political processes. My previous article on Queensland’s state government initiatives was covered for The AIMN (13 December 2023).
Not surprisingly, this commitment to the politics of improvements to cost-of-living challenges has been incorporated into Tracey Price’s campaign to become Lord Mayor of Brisbane on 16 March 2024.
Tracey Price is reaching out to the remnants of Labor heartland base which failed to respond more decisively to Labor’s BCC Campaign in 2020 in Municipal Wards like Northgate, Doboy, Bracken Ridge and Brisbane Central. Although there were significant swings to Labor through Green preferences in 2020, there were no increases in Labor’s representation on Council.
This local campaign initiative contrasts with austerity measures from the long-surviving LNP administration in Brisbane. Budgetary problems have resulted in urgent austerity measures:
“Brisbane City Council will reduce its budget by hundreds of millions of dollars in a cost cutting exercise by Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner to deal with inflation.
The move, which comes just months after the budget was handed down in June, will equate to a 10 per cent reduction in council spending.
Mr Schrinner said about $400 million would be cut from the budget but the decision was necessary to keep rates down.
The savings measure will include putting a pause on the Toowong to West End green bridge, delaying the delivery of $5 million in shade on Victoria Bridge, and cutting the public art component of the Brisbane Metro line.”
This emergent BCC Council Budget deficit should have been corrected in the 2023-24 budget as presented on 14 June 2024. Despite generous state government support to the BCC which amounted to 15 per cent of total income, Council proceeded with a budget deficit of $1.1 billion that needed to be trimmed back some months later:
From the BCC’s Budget Papers for 2023-24: Emergent Budgetary Problems
In contrast, Labor’s lord mayoral candidate Tracey Price has announced a raft of new transport policies, including a $1 billion investment in road infrastructure over the next year.
Labor’s Fare Reduction Initiative
In a move that Labor says could save commuters about $1,000 per year, zone one and zone two bus fares, which include all of Brisbane, would be reduced by 50 per cent over the next four years.
Opening public pools throughout the summer holidays with just a two-dollar entry fee has been a popular move. The offer will expire at the end of February. It is within the resources of the BCC to adjust rates and changes so that this offer can be extended permanently. Recreational facilities at some BCC swimming pools are outstanding and are a solace to families who were experiencing cost-of-living challenges at the end of the holidays when accounts were due at public schools for computers and other essential resources for school children.
If Labor wants to win by a landslide as in some of the iconic election results from Labor’s long period in office after the 1960 credit squeeze under Lord Mayor Clem Jones era (1961-75), consideration could be given to a restructuring of rates and charges which provide most of the cash flows for BCC’s $4.3 billion dollar budget. BCC is too soft on levying rates and charges for major high rise commercial developments. These developments distort traffic flows and add to other infrastructure expenses. Developer contributions were projected to fall by almost 30 per cent. Rates and utility charges rose by 5.4 per cent since the 2022-23 budget. Labor’s alternative costings could be part of a very credible election campaign strategy for 16 March 2024.
This year’s BCC election is a test of Labor grassroots agendas for responsible changes in the revenue base and service delivery options. The results will have great implications for future state and federal election campaigns to roll back the heavy emphasis on more elitist rhetorical agendas. Such approaches brought poor election results in Queensland at federal and local government levels across Queensland for a decade.
Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building in these difficult times. Your feedback from readers advances the cause of citizens’ journalism. Full names are not required when making comments. However, a valid email must be submitted if you decide to hit the Replies Button.
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James Dean@Senior High
Return to home pageIs there any reason why I can’t look at Rossleigh’s post yesterday “The Framing of a broken Promise” on either my phone or laptop?
Good to see local government issues being covered by AIM Network articles. The budget of Brisbane city is almost half the spending level of the Tasmanian Government. LNP grants to Tasmania were so generous during the days of the federal LNP. But does Brisbane Council under LNP rule run a good budget.? Wishing you well Tracey Price. Hope you will go down in future history like Clem Jones, Jim Soorley and especially the battlers’ friend Frank Sleeman.
Brisbane’s LNP Council team members break promises even before they plan for yet another four years in office. What happened to the Toowong-West End Green Bridge, free fares for seniors on Citycats at weekends and heavier charges on developers for the disruptions that are permanently caused in suburban traffic flows?
Geoff, for legal reasons that had to be removed.
@ Michael Taylor: Thank you for the explanation. I was also disappointed by Rossleigh being censored.
NEC, the couple the original Murdoch article was about say they were taken out of context and that the photo the Murdoch mob used was unauthorised (I believe it was taken from Facebook). The couple are now considering legal action against Murdoch, and as a result they have taken their article down.
We were first contacted by the mother of the children asking us to remove their photo. We then heard from her husband with the pleasant request that we remove the whole post. I consulted our legal eagle and she said it would be wise to remove the post considering the new developments.
There’s no way that Rossleigh was being censored. We just didn’t want ourselves or Rossleigh getting entangled in the affair.
Relying too much on Green preferences over an improved primary vote is not the best strategy for future Labor campaigns.
There is a reptilian rodentlike remnant called D Littleplop, brown and malodorous, saying that “aspirational people deserve some imaginary fair go”. Australia needs a fair go, but Littleplop’s donors and supporters, undoubtedly some being foreign and of corporate background, always want supremacy, preference, advantage, by any means. Tax dodging from powerful organised turds behind Littleplop deny others a fair go, and we all suffer from stunted progress. These tax scale revisions are fair, balanced, honest. And the rotten run of rubbish we suffered from Harlotised Howard, Anality Abbott, Turgid Turnbull, Madasameataxe Morrison has knackered the nation. They, as mentioned are a blot, a curse, a smear, and Littleplop is part of the the succession,
Best wishes to Tracey Price and her Labor team in Brisbane. The Brisbane City Budget equals about half the Tasmanian Budget for 2023-24 in Australia’s only LNP state. Over 60 percent of Tasmania’s revenue came from the federal government in the LNP decade. Budgets for the City of Brisbane were short on federal funding over these years. The Queensland Government was left to meet the cost of cross-river rail when Premier Campbell Newman failed to speak up for Queensland. on this issue.
So Dinky Littlebrain (but he has a big dick, that’s why his brain is so small) reckons $190k isn’t much money so I guess that means the pension, which is approximately 1/7th the size, must be just about worthless. “Waah…waah…we want our $9,000 and screw the poor and low paid workers. Waah…waah…I’ll never be able to buy another set of gold monogrammed Egyptian cotton towels now.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/29/david-littleproud-accuses-labor-of-class-warfare-over-stage-three-tax-changes-saying-190000-is-not-a-lot
All this bullshit about class warfare from the chorus of the past masters of the pedestal dwellers who are the LNP. They have developed a terminal case of selective amnesia this time around.
Denis, thank you for an interesting article on the forthcoming council election.
Agreed Isabel: Local government should have a strong policy focus. Brisbane City is a very complex and dynamic urban system. It is ridiculous to think that it should be managed by a group of independents with a LNP brand name.
So, they are getting spiteful..
@ Michael Taylor: Editors do what editors do. Most successful editors cover their backsides at all times. I look forward to Rossleigh’s next insights on Australian politics and culture with some excited anticipation.
@ Even Stephen: Agreed. Local government, the unconstitutional addition to the cost of living, needs far more media coverage.
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The reason is simple: It is common knowledge in NSW recruiting circles that the political appointments go to the Department of Premier & Cabinet (DPC), the next most competent recruits go to Treasury & Finance, the bulk number are distributed among the other departments and the donkeys are sent to the now Office of Local Government (OLG), now a subset of DPC where they can do least damage to the political scene.
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Unfortunately, our recent experience (2019) in the Armidale Regional Council (NSW) elections was that OLG desk jockeys did not know the NSW Constitution, or chose to ignore it, did not enforce the conditions of employment on the government appointed Administrator and forgave the failure to complete fuel dockets for about 26,000 km of travel in the Mayoral vehicle. And that was only the first steps in an ongoing ”jobs for the boys” scam that continues to this day.
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The next local government elections in NSW are scheduled for September 2024.
Even the mainstream media tried to make this year’s Australia Day more inclusive. People like to be involved in their national celebrations and recognition of 60,000 years of indigenous history.
Brisbane is governed by an ideological LNP council. It is soft on charging the right amount of rates and development charges for the top end of town.
The financial accountability of all that tunnelling is also subterranean
Definitely more rapid transit public transport is the best option
Thanks for those responses.
The LNP professionally harvests political vote applications with unsolicited letters to households that invite responses to a so-called Brisbane City Council PVA Centre in Spring Hill using a Reply Paid envelope. This is a politically motivated exercise as the covering letter calls for a vote for the LNP. The right number of Electoral Commission application forms are enclosed. Two forms were enclosed for our household.
In state elections, the PVA Centre for similar correspondence to constituents was located in Archerfield.
I have been in contact with the Electoral Commission of Queensland to find out who is actually paying for the operations of this so-called PVA Centre.
Is this Centre funded by the ratepayers through allowances available to Councillors and the Lord Mayor?
I covered this practice in a previous election in 2020 for AIM Network:
If the LNP is paying for this slick operation to harvest postal votes, the financial costs show show up in the returns to the Electoral Commission of Queensland in those state and local government elections.
24.2 percent of all valid votes in Q at the previous BCC election in 2020 were postal votes so this operation can affect outcomes in key electoral Wards.
I will let everyone know how the Electoral Commission of Queensland replies to my inquiry.
Harvesting postal votes by the LNP in Brisbane seems to operate in the old traditions of the Bjelke-Petersen era.
Editorial support also continues from the Murdoch Press for the LNP at Council levels. Looks like many aspects of the old Deep North continue in Brisbane with Royal Crowns on those British-styled red telephone boxes serving as local book exchanges.
Best wishes to Labor’s Tracey Price in her campaign to become the People’s Mayor in the traditions of Clem Jones, Frank Sleeman and Jim Soorley. Tracey was not the favourite candidate but momentum is developing for a big change as in 1961 and 1990.
Being an articulate and well educated woman is a big plus in this new age of gender equality.
Hope that the Electoral Commissioner responds to your request, Denis This secrecy is unacceptable. Elites take the electorate for a free ride to retain office.