The Brisbane of tomorrow: Adrian Schrinner prepares to be lord mayor

He’s not yet been sworn in as lord mayor, but Adrian Schrinner is already thinking about his legacy.

Thirteen years ago Cr Schrinner was elected to Brisbane City Council, attracted to the LNP party by its long-term vision for the future of the city he loves.

Brisbane's new lord mayor Adrian Schrinner.Credit: Brisbane City Council

Now, the Chandler councillor and deputy mayor of eight years, is taking on his biggest challenge – steering the city in a new direction as its lord mayor.

On Monday, Cr Schrinner, 41, will be sworn in at a special council meeting as one of the youngest mayors the city has seen, ready to lay out his own long-term vision.

At a press conference last Sunday announcing his selection by the LNP party room to step into the shoes of retiring lord mayor Graham Quirk, Cr Schrinner said there had been too much focus on the short-term, and it was time that changed.

Speaking to Brisbane Times ahead of Monday’s meeting, Cr Schrinner reiterated his new administration’s goals: to build the infrastructure the city needs for a growing population, and to create and protect Brisbane’s green space.

That goal will be a new vision for the next 15 or 20 years - despite the council election in just 12 months time.

“When it comes to what the people of Brisbane expect, there’s two critical things they expect from any level of government,” Cr Schrinner said.

“One is stability. There’s obviously a lot of fatigue in the community about instability in government, and I can understand that.

“They want stability, but they also want a fresh agenda and new ideas, and our team has the right balance of those two things.”

Cr Schrinner said the LNP’s track record of long-term mayors, most recently with Campbell Newman and then Cr Quirk, proved the party had the experience to continue leading the city.

Facing the prospect of having just a year to convince voters to re-elect him and his colleagues, Cr Schrinner said “any administration focused on elections rather than governing is focused on the wrong thing.”

However, he has the new slogans ready – building and protecting Brisbane; a cleaner, greener Brisbane; the Brisbane of tomorrow.

And the council the new lord mayor leads will undoubtedly be a different beast to the institution Cr Quirk led.

Cr Quirk became Brisbane's 16th lord mayor on April 7, 2011. Deputy Adrian Schrinner (right) will take his place on Monday.Credit: Chris Hyde

“We’ve had a continual injection of new people into the team over those years and that will continue as well,” he said.

"Obviously some of our councillors like Julian Simmonds will be standing down. There’ll be new councillors coming in."

His first announcement – the building within the next 10 years of five new green bridges to get pedestrians, cyclists and buses across the city – was met with a mixture of praise and scepticism.

The announcement was fitting for a new lord mayor who has spent several years chairing the public and active transport committee, leading the $900 million Brisbane Metro project to transform the city's central public transport.

With four of the bridges concentrated on inner-city suburbs such as West End and Kangaroo Point, what about the suburbs outside the inner-city ring?

“Every person on foot, on bike or on scooter is potentially taking another car off the road, so that doesn’t just benefit them, it benefits people who have no choice but to drive as well,” he said.

So what kind of Brisbane will lord mayor Schrinner want to leave behind, when some time in the future he too announces his retirement, or his defeat in an election?

As he becomes lord mayor, he leaves his ward of Chandler behind, and the beginning of his legacy.

"In my mind the biggest achievement was the green space we protected in the eastern suburbs, with the ... koala bushland in suburbs like Belmont, Gumdale, Chandler, Burbank," he said.

It's a legacy he hopes to take city-wide.

Infrastructure is an ephemeral thing, always growing, always changing.

But bushland, protecting the increasingly rare natural wildlife that still calls Brisbane home despite increasing pressure from residential, industrial and community needs, is a high priority for Cr Schrinner.

"The existing bushland that we’ve got in the city needs to be protected and we’re doing that," he said.

"That’s really a lasting legacy in the 10 or 20 years down the track.

"People will look back and say we’ve made the right choice to invest in parkland, invest in bushland, saving bushland."

Deputy Mayor Adrian Schrinner speaking to media about the Wynnum Road extention on October 3, 2014.Credit: Glenn Hunt

He hopes, too, to create and lead a city where the character of its suburbs is protected, the "tin-and-timber" beloved by Queenslanders.

Earlier this year the council submitted a request to State Development Minister Cameron Dick to approve a temporary local planning instrument – a two-year order stopping the development of townhouses and apartment blocks in low-density-zoned suburbs.

Labor councillors criticised the LNP for taking action months after the opposition had already raised the issue as an urgency motion in council and the proposal was met with some hesitancy from the state development department.

As public and active transport chair Adrian Schrinner has championed the CityCycle program.Credit: Lucy Stone/Fairfax Media

The two-year ban would influence how Brisbane’s suburbs develop well into the future, potentially halting higher density developments in places traditionally known for big blocks and Queenslander houses.

“This is something I have long felt strongly about,” Cr Schrinner said.

“In many cases the level of concern generated around townhouses is significantly higher than you get for high-rise buildings.”

Brisbane lord mayor Adrian Schrinner and his wife Nina, and children Octavia (6), Nina, Petra (14 months), Wolfgang (4), and Monash (2), in April 2019.Credit: Brisbane City Council

Cr Schrinner said while apartment buildings were often focused more in areas of the city already prepared for high density living, such as the inner city and CBD, townhouse developments were more often suburban.

The state is concerned the proposed two-year ban, and legislative amendment to follow and make the ban permanent, could cause issues in population density and permanently alter the growth of Brisbane’s suburbs.

But Cr Schrinner said he would continue to push the issue, saying the two-year ban “needs to happen”.

“The people of Brisbane want it to happen and it is a shame it’s taking so long at a state government level,” he said.

Outside the harder political issues, taking on the role of lord mayor is not just a change for the council - or for the new lord mayor.

His wife Nina and their children Octavia, 6; Wolfgang, 4; Monash, 2; and Petra, 14 months, are all facing a different life ahead.

A key role for the new lady mayoress will be that of chairing the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Trust, taking the reins from the departing Anne Quirk.

“Nina is really excited about getting involved in the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Trust, she’s really passionate about that,” Cr Schrinner said.

“That’s the thing she’s looking forward to most of all. Anne Quirk has done a fantastic job with that and Nina’s looking forward to continuing on that great work.

“She’ll be very hands-on as well in that role and is very excited about it … we both are excited about the opportunity to make a real difference.”