Ipswich election watch: Teresa Harding seeks second term as mayor

Coming up, Teresa Harding wants a second term as mayor of Ipswich. In this episode, the unanticipated events in this term, and if reelected, commitments for the next 4 years. It's Sunday, February 25, 2024, and I'm Allan Roebuck. Welcome to Ipswich today, which acknowledges the custodians of the land on which it is produced and pays respects to elders past, present, and emerging. This podcast is supported by Conetix, people powered web hosting trusted by Australian businesses since 1999.

Oh, thank you, Allan, and thank you to all the listeners.

In 2020, you were elected the 1st female mayor of Ipswich. There were several tumultuous periods in that 4 years and some of the most public were on show during council meetings. In hindsight, is there anything you would have done differently?

Oh, that's a that that is a good question. 4 years ago, I I promised a fresh start. And as, we came out of administration and basically the darkest days our council's ever seen with the, with all sorts of, with corruption and, and the dodgy deals all came out public. So I guess in moving forward, I think I've got to be very proud of what we've done as a council. We've achieved a lot.

Excluding COVID, how would you describe that period? What was the most unexpected thing to happen during the 4 years?

I think having 2 dismissed councilors coming in, that's had a a huge impact on the culture of, the council itself as well as a huge impact on the council organization. But probably more importantly, it's just in the community, and also with the in attracting investment. I get told time and time again while I'm outside of Ipswich trying to look for investment for business to come here and set up their businesses here, that while we have dismissed councilors on our council, they won't look at Ipswich. So it's been, I guess, a real, spanner in the works. But, Alan, I think it's really important that we respect democracy.

There have been some good news stories though. The, Frucore Suntory factory is something rather massive. That opens, later this year, doesn't it?

It is. I mean, we're very fortunate, the state government contributed and and supported, Suntory coming up here as well. And it's a a really great organization, and they are, they're hiring now if people are looking for a job there.

Okay. Let's let's move on to your campaign proper. And looking at your campaign website, you've committed to 4 main issues. Let's examine those. Firstly, reducing the cost of living pressures. Local government's got limited options. What can a council do?

Look, my vision is for a sustainable growth in Ipswich. We have we are the fastest growing city in Queensland. So we need to look at what those challenges are, what are those opportunities, and how do we get the best out of that? So my platform and my vision of a sustainable growth through Ipswich has, a 6 point plan, and one of those is the cost of living and affordability. The other is a fair share for Ipswitch, also looking at environmental protections.

But what can a council do to directly minimise the hip pocket pain?

Yeah. Certainly, this council, over the last 5 budgets, 4 of them have the rate rise has been below inflation, and we also brought in part pension concessions. And in the 2022, 2023 budget, The Courier Mail did an analysis of all the rates of South East Queensland Ipswich came out first for the best value rates. But looking going forward, for me as as part of my campaign, I'm committing to 10 free tip vouchers per year from 2027. Our Riverview and Rosewood tips are completely full and and over capacity.

Can I pick you up on a couple of those things you've just raised? Firstly, that $8,000,000 how realistic is it that the state government's gonna cough up 8,000,000?

Well, can I be be be frank? We just recently the the state coughed up, $2,000,000 to assist us with SOGO. You know, we're in litigation with with Newgar at the moment and that the state have come to the party to to support us in moving forward with how our FOGO will be done in the future. So, look, the state I've chatted with the Environment Minister, the Shadow Environment Minister, the Director General of the Department And, look, I think we push pretty hard. It's, it's a lot of money for us in council, but it's really a drop in the bucket for the state government.

Just going back to the TIP vouchers, they've been ruled out for years. Successive councils have said no no no, and and one of the reasons that was floated years ago was that Brisbane City Council residents were forging and counterfeiting vouchers to give to friends. How can that be overcome? I I get that Riverview's been hammered. So why wait until 20 27 to do the tip vouchers? Yeah.

At the moment, the Riverview and Rosewood are well over capacity. We have real traffic management problems there. We can't, from a workplace health and safety, at the moment introduce a scheme which will increase traffic. That would be, you know, negligent of us, especially if there's an accident and so on. So that's why in 2021, this Council adopted a new resource recovery strategy and as part of that, we said that we would investigate tip vouchers moving forward.

Going back to your campaign website, those, items I mentioned at the start, you also highlight expanding the road and transport network. Major roads like the Cunningham and Warrego and a lot of state roads within Ipswich, their state and federal responsibilities. What specifically are you talking about when you want to expand the road and transport network?

Yes, certainly, we had a real vision here in Council of accepting the responsibilities. We really very much looked at our budget and made sure we cut out things we didn't need to do. So, for instance, we've maintained the decision by the Inter Administrator to not have divisional council officers that was costing over $8,000,000 per term. So that $1,000,000 goes straight towards our capital program, which delivers better roads and curb and channelling. So becoming a more efficient organisation means we can do those major road projects like the Redback Plains Road Upgrade, the Springfield Parkway, the Springfield Greenback arterial duplication project.

You say you wanna deliver more for our suburbs. What do you have in mind here?

Look, a a few things here. 1 is grassroots sports. We have had an underinvestment when it comes to grassroots sports, and we know that Ipswich City Council spends more per resident per capita than any other council in South East Queensland. So we really need to turn to being quite strategic and leveraging opportunities. We know at the moment, for instance, USQ and Brahma Stay High, have bid for some funding to build a synthetic athletics track.

Your social media tells us you've been darting all over the city. What issues are residents raising with you 1 on 1?

1 on 1 is cost of living. People are saying they're having and I guess not not unusual in January. After Christmas, people are really struggling. But after Christmas, school, but people are just very worried about how they're gonna pay their rent, how they're going to pay their mortgage. They're very worried about, interest rate rises.

Feedback on the CBD redevelopment. It's coming to the end of the 10 to 15 year time frame initially outlined in 2,009. Is it still an issue with the majority of voters?

No. You if you look at social media on on certain areas, I've got to say the people that what people come up to me, they want the CBD. They want a CBD that they can be proud of. They want one that they can enjoy. They wanna come in on the weekend or after hours and have fun.

There's been a lot of chatter about people not knowing who their local councilors are. What's your take on it?

When I go out door knocking, I people don't know who Shane Newman is, and I think, hang on. He's been around for 17 years, and and he advertised, and he's very active in the community. So, I mean, I guess it's up to each person. I think with the Queensland Times, not printing a a daily paper anymore, has had a a really good big impact. People often tell me that they don't know what's happening in our city.

Councillors though are really responsible for promoting themselves, aren't they? And not relying a 100% on on council media releases, or other promotional material. How have you found, getting around the city? Because you've gotta cover the whole city. Are you finding people who don't know who you are?

Oh, absolutely. And there's a 100 253,000 people, Ellen, and over 80,000 homes. So, you know, as part of my election campaign and even last time, I'm doing direct mail to every single house. I have 5 billboards. I've advertised in every, newspaper, every radio, and there'll be people on Colinday who will say, say, I don't know who you are.

You raised councilor officers in the suburbs a little while ago. Prior to 2004, there might have been one in Rosewood. Apart from Brisbane, I don't think any council in Queensland has dedicated individual offices for Councillors. You can correct me if I'm wrong. Administrator Greg Tumello closed them down to save money. What is your current view? I I think you've touched on the possibility of some meeting rooms in libraries, but I thought that had already happened.

No other council in Queensland has divisional offices, only Brisbane City Council. And one of the changes made under administration is for all our libraries to have what's called a Council Connect so they can do all the services that you can do at 1 Nicholas Street, except for lodge a DA. So whether you wanna pay for pet registration, something to do with the libraries, or pay a fee or apply for something, that can all be done at every single library. What I'd like to see moving forward is as we build new libraries, we do know going forward in Springfield Central, for instance, we've grown out of that library there, and we do spend a fair whack of money on the lease there, but where the playground is currently, at Springfield Orion, is actually council land, so that would be slated for future library there. We do know we have to build, should be building a library in Ripley, and we do know that, we need to build a larger community centre in Rosewood.

Teresa Harding, let's talk about a couple of more specific issues. The Norman Street Bridge, it was 9 years ago that council made a big push, including a dedicated website, which has since been shut down. You pushed for funding yourself in 2022. Why is it that successive councils have been unable to secure funding for such an important piece of infrastructure?

It I think it's the cost, is probably the the number one thing because it is going to be a a 200 or a $300,000,000, bridge. It is something that we do need. Our city timed out of that bridge in 2015. It is costing over $30,000,000 a year in productivity. Certainly when I ran federally in 2016, I were chatting with the CEO then asking for the business case so I could see if I could get some money from the feds.

Here's something I've, written about in a in a recent edition of Local Ipswich News, and that's the need for the city to have a dedicated high capacity performing arts centre. I think Ipswich has been hard done by similar and smaller cities across the state have fit for purpose venues. Even Mount Isa has a bigger capacity theatre than the Ipswich Civic Centre. I'm not I'm not slamming the Civic Centre, it has its purpose and a need. We haven't heard much from anybody, the current council included, about the push for a dedicated IPAC.

Alan, I think every regional city in Queensland has a better performing arts center than what we have in Ipswich from Cannes to Rockhampton to MacKay to How

do we

fix that?

How do we fix that?

The proposal that was there, and I think there was a pretty specky model that was done up, would cost over $200,000,000 And you'll note that in Brisbane, they've done a and QPAC have done a huge upgrade, there. There just seems to be no appetite from the state or the feds for any money there. So we worked on, especially with the showgrounds building their convention exhibition centre, if that happens, that'll be a facility that can hold, you know, a few 100 people for dinner, whether it's 3, 4, 500 people for dinner because at the moment, the Civic Centre is the only place in Ipswich that can seat about 300 people for dinner. But if we have another facility in Ipswich that can do that, we can actually turn the Civic Centre into a performing arts centre as well as take over the car park there on Limestone Street and build a black box theatre there that can seat about 200 people so it's much cheaper to run events there as well. And look, I think that'll get us through the next 20 or 30 years.

The same can be said for the need for a major sports stadium in Ipswich in Ipswich Central. North Ipswich Reserve is the logical choice for an upgrade. Again, much has been promised, but no action on the ground.

Yeah. Certainly, the North Ipswich Sport Entertainment Precinct has been talked about for a long, long time, and it's a great rectangular facility and it will be not just for, rugby league, it'd be also for soccer. It'll also be a great entertainment venue for for music acts. We know we could have, motocross there as well. So and I think going into the into the future of the Olympics as well and the Paralympics would be be great there.

Let's look at your signature election promise in 2020. That was the council website known under the somewhat clunky name of Transparency and Integrity Hub. Now this details expenditure by councilors, tenders, and the like. Has it met your expectations?

Has it delivered the transparency, that this community deserves? Absolutely. We are still the only council in Australia where the councils publish their expenses by transaction. I know of no other jurisdiction or the state or federal or council that does that. We have all our, contracts, that are over $10,000 or more published there.

There's been the odd criticism that the current form of the hub is a little too difficult to navigate. Now you come from a data background, so it might be really easy, for yourself, but for for people who are strangers to those sorts of websites, if reelected, would you push for a review of its functionality?

I'm more than happy to do that. There are some tutorials on there. Actually, it's one thing I did suggest in the very beginning is to hold some workshops up at Fire Station 101 and do it to do that, but with COVID, we never did. So thank you for the reminder. I figured that's a terrific idea, Alan.

And finally, Theresa Harding, should you be reelected on March 16, what is the one single thing or issue you would like to see implemented or improved?

I think, Alan, just to continue to be available and transparent to the people of Ipswich, to continue to be an honest and hard worker. And I'd love to see, that our community are involved more in decision making. That'll be one thing that I'd really love to see more of.

Teresa Harding will leave it there. Thanks so much for speaking with Ipswich today.

Thank you, Allan.

And that's it for this episode. Don't forget to look for handy links in the show notes. 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.