I’m running to become Mayor of Brisbane, because I think we can transform this city for the better, and in so doing, fundamentally transform the entire Australian political system. But I need your help.
The next Brisbane City Council election is coming up in March 2024, and represents a crucial turning point in Australian politics…
Will the LNP retain power, and build on this base to drag state and federal political discourse back to the extreme right, leading to Peter Dutton becoming our next Prime Minister?
Or will we get a bunch of Greens councillors elected to Brisbane City Council, ending 20+ years of LNP dominance in Brisbane and creating a sustainable, democratic, equitable blueprint for urban life that can be emulated across Australia?
Some of you receiving this email are already actively supporting the Greens council campaign, while others might have voted Greens in the past, but perhaps aren’t sure exactly what we stand for at the local government level. So this letter is an overview of what we’re fighting for and how you can help. If you feel like you’re already across all this, please forward this email on to a friend who might be interested.
If you don’t have time to read any further, but would like to get more involved, you can donate via this link or sign up to volunteer at this link. And please come along to our campaign launch party this Sunday, 22 October if you can!
A local Greens surge
After our inspiring victories in the 2022 federal election, winning three House of Representative seats right here in Brisbane, we estimate that a whopping 1 in 4 Brissie residents are now voting Greens.
To win the mayoralty, and knock the LNP out of their majority on Brisbane City council, we would need to increase that to 1 in 3 residents voting Green, which would allow us to outpoll Labor and beat the LNP with Labor preferences. But even on current numbers, we are well placed to win at least 4 or 5 wards.
Support for the Greens is growing not just in the inner-city, but further out in the suburbs too, and even mainstream journalists are now talking seriously about our chances of winning. But the key challenge we face is actually getting our message out there, to as many people as possible.
Our vision
The Greens platform for Brisbane City Council isn’t just about planting street trees and installing more bike lanes (although those things are definitely part of it, and very important!)… We want to transform this city’s housing, transport, development planning and food systems, so that we can put serious downward pressure on living costs, reduce traffic congestion, end homelessness, lower our society’s carbon footprint and adapt to a rapidly changing climate.
We’ve already announced an initiative to crack down on the conversion of residential homes into Airbnb investment properties, and a bold proposal to transform the Eagle Farm horsetrack into 25 hectares of parkland and sports fields and 4000 dwellings of medium-density, publicly-owned housing. But that’s just the beginning…
Over the coming months, we’ll be announcing a range of campaign initiatives that reimagine the urban environment we inhabit to create a city that’s more sustainable, equitable and beautiful. Perhaps most importantly, we want to reimagine democracy itself, so that decisions about the future of our communities are made by the people who actually live and work in them, rather than by disconnected politicians and senior bureaucrats in city hall. To hear more about our vision, make sure you’re signed up for email updates via www.jonathansri.com/updates
About me
My decision to run for Mayor of Brisbane wasn’t made lightly. After winning the Gabba Ward back in 2016 (our first Greens seat in Brisbane), I served as a Brisbane City Councillor for 7 years, representing the city’s inner-south side (from West End to Woolloongabba and Kangaroo Point) until I stepped down in April this year. This was a full-time role that has given me an excellent understanding of the challenges our city is facing and the way the council works, equipping me with the experience necessary to step up into the role of mayor.
Prior to becoming a councillor, I worked in a range of frontline community development roles, and also as a musician and poet. I graduated from UQ over a decade ago now, with degrees in law and the arts (but no, I’ve never actually practised as a solicitor).
I’m excited about representing the Greens at a citywide level, working alongside an amazing team of ward candidates to help take our message outside existing bubbles, and using my profile to help us win as many as 10 to 12 seats. If you’d like to learn more about me and my background, check out this video documentary or read more at this link.
Please donate if you can
Our campaign for Brisbane City Council is entirely funded by supporters like you. Our local council campaigns don’t receive any government funding or accept any business donations, so in order to produce materials to help swing votes, we need your help. Can you chip in a few bucks to support our campaign? We plan to use most of this money to print letters that we will hand-deliver to voters, and to hire organisers to help mobilise our massive crew of volunteers. Every dollar helps!
Get active on our campaigns!
If you’d like to volunteer specifically on our mayoral campaign, here’s the link to do so.
This election, we’re running Greens candidates in all 26 wards across the city. We’ve publicly announced a dozen candidates so far, with more to come. You can use this link to find your local councillor candidate and volunteer for them directly. There are heaps of different roles to help with, from answering emails to organising fundraising parties to doorknocking voters. Even if you can only give a couple hours per month, we would love your help!
Stay in the loop
Even if you can’t volunteer or donate, you can stay up to date with our election campaign and the local government issues we’re talking about by signing up for email updates at this link. You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok, and I occasionally also post on Twitter and LinkedIn.
You’re invited to our party!
This Sunday evening (22 October), at Jagera Hall in South Brisbane, we’re holding a massive launch party to kick off our election campaign. This will be a good chance to meet or reconnect with like-minded folks, hear from Greens candidates from across the city, and have a dance to some great local bands such as TYDE and Accomplice Collective, as well as DJs Neesha (from House of Alexandra) and Winona Router. Entry is free or pay-what-you-can-afford. There’ll also be drinks and merchandise for sale, plus a free vego BBQ.
The party kicks off at 4pm with a First Nations speakout session, where we’ll be hearing from a range of different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander speakers about what’s important to them at the local government level, and what they’d like to see the Greens focus on over the coming months.
You can register for the event (and read more details) at this link. Please help us out by inviting your friends!
Change is coming – it’s up to us decide what kind of change
It’s clear that we’re living in a time of great upheaval – from global warming and skyrocketing housing costs, to mass displacement of refugees, increasingly unreliable food supply chains, rising incarceration rates and worsening mental health across society.
What comes next is up to us. Many of the necessary responses and solutions are local. They rely on all of us collaborating to build stronger communities and applying pressure from the bottom up to transform unjust systems.
This council election campaign is definitely not just about collecting rubbish and fixing potholes. It’s about transforming everything that’s wrong about our current society for the better, and ensuring that the fear and uncertainty of the times we’re living in isn’t weaponised by the far-right with Peter Dutton and Pauline Hanson leading us down the road to fascism.
We have a huge opportunity to turn Brisbane into Australia’s greenest city, not just ecologically, but politically. I’m excited about stepping up to run for mayor, but I can’t do it alone. So hopefully I’ll see you on the campaign trail!
Warm regards,
Jonathan Sriranganathan
Queensland Greens
P.S. Even if you can’t volunteer, donate, or come to our launch party, please do at least jump onto our mailing list for email updates.This email was sent to iancurr@bigpond.com on October 19th, 2023.
Authorised by K Carra, Queensland Greens
Suite 1A 47 Park Road
MILTON QLD 4064 You can unsubscribe from this list or remove your address from all of the Qld Greens email lists. Our privacy policy is here.