Brisbane City Council Meeting

Cr Johnston brings a motion to abolish the Better Suburbs Initiative Board, a secretive board that enables developers to lobby directly to Council. The board is unelected, appointed by the Lord Mayor and made up of ex-LNP members and property developers, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. The reports and projects they endorse are not taken to Council, the meetings of this board are not available to the public. It happens completely separate to the usual public consultation processes. There is no transparency or accountability in how it functions.

Cr Massey speaks in strong support of it. Labor speaks in support of it. ("It" being "the motion to abolish this board".)

The LNP prefers to go and blame Labor for some long-past administration's actions, and to make lies about Cr Johnston and Cr Massey's stance, and to use the Chair to force Cr Johnston into retracting statements. They will be voting down this motion shortly.

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Cr Johnston seems to slip up. "The 800...oops, the hundreds of thousands of dollars". Not clear if this was a slip of memory, or if she accidentally revealed a figure that is Commercial In Confidence (and which Councillors are allowed to know, but not mention in public).

She says the hundreds of thousands of dollars would be better spent on public housing, rather than paying the Lord Mayor's mates.

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- What part would even be commercial in confidence? What a rort
  
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Far out, that’s dodgy. Thanks as always for posting these notes.

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Labor tries to bring a motion to say that BCC supports the federal Government's Housing Australia Future Fund. The LNP votes it down, with Greens Cr Massey abstaining.

In his speech afterwards, the Lord Mayor criticises the fund for the fact that the plan is to borrow money and invest it, and hope that it sees some return. Just last week, the Lord Mayor was extolling the virtues of the City of Brisbane Investment Corporation, which does exactly the same thing for BCC.

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Loving these write-ups!

You manage to capture the content and the vibe.

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Thanks!

Fwiw on the content I leave out a lot. I only talk about the bits that are actually interesting to me, either because I care a lot about the subject matter, or I think it’s particularly unusual, or because something procedurally interesting happened (like the bullying behaviour). But a lot more gets left uncommented-on.

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- No worries. I don't think anyone here is expecting a word for word transcript.
  
  Your editorialising is part of the appeal.
  
  I don't really want to hear about Mr Smith and his complaints about his wheely bin.
  
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Oooh this is a new one. One LNP Councillor is conflicting out, and only one. Never seen that before.

Even more new though, the entire Labor Party is conflicting out here. Donations from the Suncorp Group.

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Cr Johnston is very sus about this. She thinks the rest of the LNP might have failed to declare a conflict of interest.

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Hope nothing interesting happens in general business. I need to leave to get to the shops before they close. Cr Dixon makes her maiden speech as Councillor for Hamilton Ward. She compliments Cr McLachlan—the former chief anti-bike NIMBY of the LNP—and says that he left the ward in a good state.

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Julia Dixon, Senior Policy Advisor at Property Council of Australia. She'll fit right in.

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- Well why is that not a surprise. 🙄
  
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The LNP actually supports an amendment to a motion brought by Councillor Johnston. She moved to increase transparency in where CEF funding goes, and they supported it without debate.

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Cr Johnston is speaking to a report "on how the Olympic Games are going to be delivered". She's criticising the decision to demolish and move the East Brisbane State School—a project made necessary by the expansion of the Gabba for the Olympics—when she gets interrupted and told that what she's saying is "not relevant to the report".

Deputy Mayor says it's about "transport, accommodation, and accessibility", and that EBSS is a State Government project.

Cr Johnston later retorts that the report does in fact mention "infrastructure" and "stakeholders", among many other things.

So I wonder what these stakeholders might be planning to deliver from an infrastructure point of view... Could it be that they're going to knock down the Gabba and raze a heritaged-listed school in East Brisbane, so they can make a slightly bigger stadium for a successful delivery of the games? Would that be infrastructure?

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The Chair, Cr Toomey; Deputy Mayor, Cr Adams; and Cr Murphy work together to stifle her criticism.

But of course the LNP don't want you talking about "what infrastructure?"

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- The Chair eventually uses his formal powers of reprimand to force Cr Johnston to stop talking about EBSS. Cr Johnston moves dissent. Labor and the Greens abstain from the dissent motion, which is voted down by the LNP 18-1.
  
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Brisbane City Council Meeting - 15 August 2023