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Cr Cassidy requests to suspend standing orders so he can move an urgency motion asking the Lord Mayor to explain why the LNP is cutting $500 million from the budget. He justifies it as an urgency motion (rather than being put on the notice paper) because there was an amended notice paper at 4pm yesterday, and he was saying he thought the Lord Mayor might put it on the notice paper himself.
The thing he wants to debate is laudable, but the idea that it qualifies as an urgency motion is ridiculous.
It fails, and he immediately tries again, this time asking the Lord Mayor to provide an itemised list of what will be cut. That fails too.
Chair of Council, Cr Toomey is now flat-out refusing to make a ruling on Cr Johnston’s points of order. Every time she gets up to make a point of order, he just extends a hand out at her (without even looking) and says “in a moment, Cr Johnston. Lord Mayor, you have the call.”
This is some pretty fucking appalling unprofessional behaviour, and I’m pretty sure it violates the rules under which BCC is supposed to operate.
The Lord Mayor points out that 96% of housing is provided by the private market. He says that their amended motion refocusing on the private sector is reasonable because of this. You don’t fix the housing crisis by focusing on the 4%, he says. I guess he thinks that 4% is the right figure and the government shouldn’t be allowed to build more?
He hits back at Cr Cassidy’s criticism by saying he doesn’t think all social housing is slums. He just believes it should be dispersed throughout the community, and not all concentrated in one area. Which is indeed considered best practice.
Cr Cassidy hits back, quoting the Lord Mayor:
Carina Heights could become a slum if the state government goes ahead with plans to increase public housing
Cr Cassidy quotes from an article.
He says that the Lord Mayor’s own policy rules out social and affordable housing in low and medium density, so says that it will end up concentrated, precisely the opposite of what the Lord Mayor said in his speech he believes should be the case.
Wow this debate is frustrating.
Months ago, Cr Cassidy brought a motion calling on BCC to express its support for the federal Housing Australia Future Fund. The LNP tabled it, as they usually do when they don’t want to support something Labor brought, but it would be politically inexpedient to actually vote against it. Today, the LNP brought it back off the table, so they could amend it to make their support contingent on if they decide they like what it will do. The amended motion is incredibly wishy-washy, and basically means nothing.
what does anything the Deputy Mayor just said then mean? That was an exercise in just some…waffle, to fill some space and to move an amendment to not commit to something. To anything at all. So this amended motion now will say “Brisbane City Council supports the development of 30,000 new social and affordable homes…maybe.” That’s what this motion now reads.
Cr Cassidy says, in his response to the amendment to his motion.
He repeatedly accuses the Lord Mayor of having called social housing “slums”. He says the Deputy Mayor is the person taking point on this, rather than the Lord Mayor, precisely because the Lord Mayor thinks affordable housing is slums.
Cr Johnston points out that Labor has repeatedly tried to bring this motion back off the table in the 5 months since the motion was first tabled, and the LNP has repeatedly voted them down. 5 weeks ago the federal bill was ironed out and we have known what it will look at, and even after that the LNP has refused to allow debate on it here.
The Deputy Mayor’s amendment today before us is completely dishonest. … It wants to say "we note that the housing fund is there, but until you tell us what we’re getting out of it we don’t want to see it. We don’t really care about it. We don’t care if it helps people in the Gold Coast or Logan or Redlands or Cairns or Townsville or Mt Isa … we don’t care about those people. We only live in a community where what the LNP wants in Brisbane City Council matters, but for everybody else, we don’t care.
Well, not only am I part of a community here in Brisbane, I am part of a state and a country that wants to make good polciy decisions for people. Investing more money in social and affordable housing is critical. And all this Deputy Mayor wants to do is hold out her hand and say “what’s in it for me? And if there’s nothing in it for me, I don’t want any part of it.” That’s what the LNP are like here in Brisbane.
that’s what they’re like. Not good policy. Not good planning. Not working in a cooperative way to make sure that this city and its residents, and the other people of the state and the country we live in are going to be supported, but playing politics, “what’s in it for me?” That is dishonest.
That’s what the LNP are like
here in Brisbaneeverywhere.Fixed that for her.
Cr Johnston further criticises the LNP for the fact that their TLPI in the Kurilpa precinct didn’t include any affordable housing until the state government forced them to. The Deputy Mayor tries to get her silenced through the chair, saying it’s “impugning motive” and “misleading the chamber”. The LNP clearly doesn’t support social and affordable housing, Cr Johnston says.
The Lord Mayor claims James Mackay would have “won easily” had he not chosen to step down as Councillor for Walter Taylor Ward.
Pretty hard to believe, considering his area overlaps with the Maiwar state electorate, and Ryan federal division, both of which are held by the Greens. The 2020 Walter Taylor result was fairly close between Greens and LNP, and the trend has seemingly been in the Greens’ favour.
The new councillor being approved is a “true blue liberal”, according to the Lord Mayor.
Earlier, Councillor Johnston made reference to the claim that she is not actually local to the Walter Taylor area.
Cr Johnston says (in not quite so many words) “good riddance” to James Mackay. She calls out his misogyny. From when he was blowing raspberries at her, to repeatedly turning his back every time she spoke, to a frightening incident shortly after he started where he seemed to be stalking her in the Town Hall carpark.
The Deputy Mayor says “the only thing that isn’t anti-sprawl is density coming to a suburb near you”.
The LNP very clearly laying down their position. High density inner-city. Sprawling low-density outer suburbs. There can be no midpoint.
