Ipswich election watch: Hear why David Martin is running again for mayor

Coming up, David Martin missed out on the top job in 2020. Can he win enough votes this time to become the next mayor of Ipswich? In this episode, some of his key policies, including infrastructure, environment, economy, and built heritage. It's Monday, February 19, 2024, and I'm Allan Roebuck. Welcome to Ipswich today, which acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land on which it is produced and pays respects to elders past, present, and emerging.

My pleasure, Alan.

It's 4 years since you first run for mayor of the city of Ipswich. Why are you lining up again?

I love this city, and I'm disappointed at what I see. But once again, our city's in the news for wrong reasons. We seem to be the butt of jokes. We seem to be anytime you look at the news, Ipswich, there's a problem here. I wanna see that addressed. I love this place. And there's so much potential, so much opportunity, and I wanna see that explored, enhanced, and activated.

Can I go straight to your campaign website? There's a lot there that you want to do. Have you costed your promises?

Most of those promises well, they're not promises. They're things I wanna do as you just said. Most of those things, they will require funding from state and federal government, and I've spoken to all of our members. And what I'm going to do, if I am elected, we will be having regular meetings, at least bimonthly, asking what we need to do to articulate State and Federal Government to be able to actually go to Parliament and to be asked for these things we want. For example, the Norman Street Bridge, but we've been talking about that since I was a kid, Alan.

Many, as you say, have been on council's wish list for years. Is the Norman Street Bridge your number one priority?

That'll be one of them. Yeah. I just think our traffic's becoming increasingly hectic going through the CBD. As you know, the David Trumpey Bridge is over 50 years old now and that's ridiculous, the city our size, and we still only have the one bridge through town. There are a number of development applications in place for Council with high rise living.

Why do you think you could make a breakthrough on funding and others haven't?

Well, the current mayor, the LNP mayor, throws the ALP members under the bus at every opportunity as a true independent. I'm certainly not gonna play the political card, and I won't be waiting till after a budget to throw them under the bus. I'll be negotiating and talking with them before the budget to see, as I said, what we need to do to get these things actually happen and become a reality. For too long, we just get told, oh, you haven't got the Norman Street Bridge. The business case isn't up to scratch or the business plan isn't done for the football stadium.

I'm not an engineer, but looking at your, list there, I think the Springfield Central to Ipswich rail line might be the biggest ticket item, and the growth of Ripley and Redbank Plains, everyone says it must happen, but when?

That's an excellent question. Once again, that's up to our state government. So I know there have been comprehensive plans and whatnot done. However, with a population of 150 cows that's supposed to be moving to Ripley in the next 20 years, we need to be in front of the curve rather than behind. I just can't believe how we planned for yesterday and we build for yesterday instead of planning for tomorrow and building for tomorrow.

Back to your campaign website, your environment list, What are your plans for a green waste facility and recycle center?

Well, we'd be, engaging experts on that, Alan, in terms of green waste. I know some councils are in the place. I know Noosa used to be able to take a load of green waste, and you could take away a trailer load of mulch when you left the place. I would like to investigate the possibility of us doing that in here, so our own green waste. There's a lot of issues, as you know, particularly with New Gro at the moment with their, mulching plant, and I'd like to investigate the possibility of Council being able to do their own, composting in house.

Have you had a look, Dave David Martin, have you had a look at council's planned replacement for Riverview, which is going to be called a resource recovery and animal management centre at Red Bank Plains. That's a fairly impressive plan. Have you had had a close look at that?

I've had a look at it. Jacob Madsen said he's gonna take me through, step by step and look at it. So I do wanna, tease that out and investigate that a lot more. Yes.

Part of your platform, you say plant more trees. Have you thought about how many, where, and when?

Yeah. I'd like to see well, pardon me, getting back to planning, if you go to Forest Lake or even Springfield Lake, some of the developments there, there's tree lined streets leading into them, so certainly a lot more tree lined streetscape, When we have divided roads where there's concrete in the middle, I'd certainly rather see trees there, and I'd like to see parks with more trees as well. Like, we're obviously in a hot climate. We have a number of days throughout a year. They're over 30 degrees, and their shade seems to be inadequate in a lot of these parks.

Onto the economy. On your website, you say you want to encourage support for local businesses and local business tenders. How would this be different to Council's current policy?

Well, funny enough, I've spoken last week to 2 large businesses in Ipswich, and one of them supplies, I won't say who, but they supply services to businesses across Southeast Queensland. They have no relationship with council, and council, in fact, uses the services of one of the businesses that they actually get their stuff off this particular business, which is amazing, and another business make a particular brand of items, and Council, again, doesn't use any of those. So in terms of the, support local, do that at every opportunity. If you're on my Facebook page, you know, I'm always supporting local business. A number of business owners have told me of the red tape and the troubles they have trying to come to Ipswich.

I think we're talking about 2 different things here. That that that sounds like a planning application you're talking about there. Is that right?

Well, his is a planning application.

I just wanna go back to asking about the the tenders and council supporting local business. Council's policy states it will only seek quotes from local businesses in the first instance for contracts for less than 50,000 so first local businesses get first dibs on that and it will provide a 20% local contact preferential weighting to items less than 200,000 and then there's another criteria for 15% local economy support. Do they need to be stronger?

I would like to say that they may have those things in place, Alan. I don't believe they're being followed to the letter of the law. Certainly don't. So I know a lot of out of town providers come to markets at the mall, and I'd like to see that exclusive for Ipswitch store holders. I believe we're Ipswich markets, so I don't think we should be propping up other businesses in Southeast Queensland, particularly when we have businesses at Ipswich that can't get a gong at the markets.

Onto your community platform, David Martin. You say you wanna deliver basic services on time. What specifically is not being done on time now?

Well, have a look at the mowing roster around the place like we're really behind, notwithstanding we've had a lot of rain, Alan. However, I believe council certainly needs to be invested in community with our parks and open spaces, having them maintained so that people can get out and enjoy them. On a number of community committees, as you know, and one particular community group I was on, we were applying for funding for a particular event, and we didn't get approval of the funding till shortly before the event. So I'd like to see community groups having knowledge and certainty and security about funding way before an event is to happen.

On your campaign website, you've highlighted the North Ipswich Woollan Mills not once, but twice. Now the purchase of this site by council was probably well intentioned in 2015 to preserve another part of the city's built heritage. What do you want to do with it if you get elected mayor?

Alan, I'd love to see that as our 8th Street Markets. I'd love to see it open to the public. Have the arts community over there. I'd love to see gets it for work involved to restore certain facets, and I'd love to see the, River Hart Parkland extend through there. So I'd love to see hard shoreline through the CBD with a park path on both sides with a little low bridge to cross over. So I think our river is certainly underutilized, and that asset has so much potential.

Do you know the current state of the buildings?

No. I don't know. Just locked up since pretty well 2015, I believe. There was supposed to be some markets there at one stage, and I know Council once had it open. I saw a lot of pictures during the galvanized vessel, but I believe it's pretty well been shut up since then. I did speak with Timilo briefly about it, but he didn't have any plans. He just said he was, you know, just the administrator.

It was purchased under a previously elected council. He was just in a holding pattern, I guess.

That's that's what he said. I know there was talk. The last dancer, male dancer, he was talking at one stage. We're pretty excited. That was 2018 shortly before we were, going into receivership for administration. So there were talks of him coming and doing something, which would have been really good. But, yeah, once we're getting sacked, well, they wouldn't buy the buy as well, unfortunately. So we're talking about Queensland Ballet coming and utilizing it.

Yes. Well, not being an engineer, I I couldn't hazard it to guess what the repair bill would be, but it would have to be in the millions to restore it to a, a safe state. And finally, David Martin, access to counsellors. You've put it out there on social media to have counsellors' offices in the 4 libraries. Why is it you want to bring back counsellor offices in libraries?

One of the many things people say when I'm out and about in community, Alan, is they don't know who their local councilor is, and they have no access to them. If you have a look at our state representatives, we have 4. Well, Jim's just leaving, but his office was at Brasil. Jen is at Beville. Lance is at Goodna, and Charisse is at Springfield.

The vast majority of customer calls to councils are received by a dedicated customer call center, and you'd be familiar with that. Were divisional officers in their previous form value for money?

Well, I believe so. As you know, I was in council for 10 months, and I can only speak on behalf of what I saw. I know I was always busy. I'd be fielding a lot of concerns and complaints and issues with local residents. If you ring the call center, or you do, at the moment, a Snap send, you know, the photo app, if you do that, you don't really talk to anybody personally.

I I don't think they can't engage. I think it's just not having a street frontage, which may be a psychological thing because people can ring and email and make appointments. I'm hearing that many of the councillors do go out to, resident homes. Is that not good enough?

I'm just relaying what I'm hearing across the board, Allan. I get asked so many times, who is my local councillor? So I don't even know who their local councillors are anymore. So back in the day with local officers, people knew who their local councillor was. It doesn't necessarily mean you like them, but you knew who your local councillor was.

David Martin, we'll leave it there. Thanks for the catch up, and thanks for speaking with Ipswich today.

Thanks so much, Allan.

And that's it for this episode. Just a reminder, you'll find handy links in the show notes. Ipswich Ipswich today is supported by Conetix, people powered web hosting trusted by Australian businesses since 1999. This podcast is listener supported. Please make a once only gift or regular donation to help keep it online.