The Brisbane City Council election is coming up on Saturday, 16 March, with prepolling opening on Monday, 4 March 2024.
In the upcoming local government elections in Brisbane, WBT recommends a vote for Jonathan Sriranganathan because he is the best local councillor we have ever had. He supports grassroots projects like Food not Bombs plus he lives on a houseboat in Norman Creek!
Jonno is running for the Greens who have some excellent ideas for change in Brisbane.
Joanthan Sriranganathan did not just come out of the blue. Jonno emerged with others (Abe O’Neill, Max Chandler-Mather et al) from a struggle for democratic rights at the University of Queensland Student Union. In 2012 the Liberal National Party had rigged the student union election with a last minute rule change. The students objected and revolted and tossed them out.
Likewise corruption is rife at City Hall, its time to do the same thing in 2024 and vote for change. Cosy relationships with developers have resulted in high rise on the flood plain. The LNP dominated council forced the eviction of people from ninety (90) homes in East Brisbane just so that developers could make profit on buildings next to its Lytton Road widening at a cost of over $300 million.
The commercialisation of public places like King George Square, Reddacliff Place and Queens Park has taken away traditional meeting places in Brisbane where demonstrations for change occurred during the dark days of the National Party Bjelke-Petersen era. People oppose the privatisation of public parks and the building of high rise towers over Davies Park (Souths) and the construction of mega-sports stadium at the Gabba for the 2032 Olympics. For 7 years as a councillor for the Gabba ward Jonathan Sriranganathan opposed these changes often as a lone voice. He has stood up against homelessness and rent increases to such an extent the LNP emailed to electors a YouTube video of Jonno riding a bicycle that is almost a satire of itself.
“Food Not Bombs is one of my favourite local institutions in West End … Restaurants come and go but this crew is here every Friday regardless of the weather. It’s a good reminder that people CAN do nice things for each other even if they’re not motivated by the pursuit of individual financial gain. Take that capitalism!” – Jonathan Sriranganathan
Food not Bombs is an excellent idea for a world on the brink of war. The United States has expanded its war on terror to assist Israel’s genocide in Gaza and is threatening Russia in Europe, Iran in the Middle East and China in the South China Sea. Meanwhile 2.4 million Palestinians are starving, as are the people of Yemen and the Sudan.
WBT is not a big fan of change through the ballot box, but at local government levels some necessary changes are possible. Our best bet for positive change is on Jonathan Sriranganathan and his team. His election as mayor would be a big shake up of city hall, just what the Magan-djin (Brisbane) needs right now.
Ian Curr
17 Feb 2024
We need more independent media that is going to print factual material.
Here is a letter from Jonathan Sriranganathan to the Courier Mail editors citing numerous its lies and distortions of Greens policies for local government elections on the 16th march 2024.
Dear Courier Mail editors,
I write to express my anger and frustration at the numerous blatant lies the Courier Mail has printed today in the purported list of Greens policies for the 2024 Brisbane City Council election. A more cynical person would suspect that this list was compiled by the Liberal National Party’s smear team.
Our policies are outlined in detail at http://www.jonathansri.com/platform and http://www.jonathansri.com/key_priorities
These links have repeatedly been provided to your team, so any suggestion that you didn’t know or couldn’t confirm what our policies are for the 2024 election is laughable.
I’ve listed the most glaring lies and inaccuracies below, and I respectfully request a full retraction and correction in subsequent editions of both print and online editions of the Courier Mail. I’ve always had a low opinion of the Courier’s journalistic standards, but the glaring inaccuracies in today’s reporting, which could have been rectified by the most basic fact-checking, are an embarrassment to every editor and journalist who works for News Corp.
Blatant lies
Contrary to your reporting, and repeated misleading claims by the Liberal National Party, we have not proposed to “Introduce a 30km/h speed limit on to every suburban street in Brisbane.” Our policy of introducing 30km/h speed limits to just half a dozen streets in the Brisbane CBD is clearly explained at http://www.jonathansri.com/greenercbd – This needs to be corrected.
We have not proposed to pay $40m to ‘First Nations groups.’ We have proposed to allocate 1% of council’s rates revenue to local First Nations non-profit community organisations. Council collects approximately $1.3 billion in rates per year, so this amounts to $13 million. That’s really basic maths that your journalists should have double-checked.
You printed that we want a 750 per cent increase on a rates bill if the property is tenanted. That’s ridiculously inaccurate. We are proposing that for the next two years, we would increase rates for tenanted properties only if the owners increase the rent.
We have not proposed to ‘Ban Riverfire.’ This isn’t listed anywhere in our policy platform which, I repeat, is clearly available on our website: http://www.jonathansri.com/platform
Misrepresentations by omission
You claimed our vacancy levy would apply to properties left empty for more than six months. This omits the crucial detail that this proposal would only apply to investment properties – not residents’ own homes – and would only apply if the investor did not have a valid reason for leaving a property empty – these valid reasons are clearly listed as http://www.jonathansri.com/vacant
You suggested we want to create ‘Free long-distance public transport services for
First Nations groups.’
In fact, these proposed long-distance services would also be available to non-Indigenous commuters. Your choice of wording implies that we are proposing that these services would only be available to First Nations passengers, which is grossly misleading, and I would go so far as to suggest even risks fueling racism.
You also printed that we want to shut down Eagle Farm Racecourse and convert it to public housing. But we have proposed that only 10 hectares of the 40+ hectare site could be converted to public housing, and while 5+ hectares would be used for schools and community facilities and 25 hectares – the majority of it – would be converted to public parkland and native forest. Mentioning only the public housing but ignoring the much larger component of public green space is a grossly misleading omission.
I would also be interested to understand what your source is for the claim that we want to ‘Remove traffic lanes on busy corridors and replace them with bike lanes.’ There may in future be some very specific locations where Greens councillors might consider removing one lane from a multi-lane road to create bike lanes, but we have not been calling for this during the election, and your decision to list it as a discrete policy wrongly implies that this is something we would seek to do on multiple road corridors across the city.
Every journalist at the Courier Mail has easy access to my personal phone number. Over the past 8 years I have consistently made myself available to Courier Mail journalists for comment on a wide range of issues, and I am deeply disappointed that you couldn’t offer me the most basic courtesy of contacting me before printing so many outright lies. After today’s story, I will seriously consider ignoring all future phone calls from News Corp journalists until these lies have been rectified and a full public apology issued.
To correct the public record, I believe corrections to these blatant lies need to be printed with equal prominence to the original articles, and a new list should be published that accurately reflects the policies we have announced.
Regards,
Jonathan
Jonathan Sriranganathan
Greens Candidate for Mayor of Brisbane City Council
E: office@jonathansri.com
W: http://www.jonathansri.com