Big-picture idea will help Condren’s cause

Patrick Condren has done a pretty good job at ramping up his campaign for Brisbane’s top job and landing blows on the LNP administration. But he needs a big idea to capture voters’ imaginations if he is to win, writes Jack McKay.

THERE are only so many times when you are in opposition that you can throw stones from the sidelines before voters start to wonder what alternatives you can serve up.

Since being installed as Labor’s lord mayoral candidate following Rod Harding’s dumping, Patrick Condren has done a pretty good job at ramping up its campaign and landing blows on the LNP administration.

This week, he returned to a project that the Labor opposition at council has been fond of criticising in recent years: the LNP’s much hyped Brisbane Metro.

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Some (but certainly not all) of the concerns and criticisms that Labor has raised about the project have been warranted.

He has called on the administration to release any extra costs associated with the project following a redesign of the Cultural Centre station that came about at the insistence of the State Government.

Condren described the Brisbane Metro vehicles as “big bendy buses”.

Ratepayers should probably know the answer to that question before they head to the polls in March, even if it is an estimate. And Condren often likes to refer to the Metro vehicles as “big bendy buses”, which probably is not that far from the truth given that they run on wheels.

This tendency to hit out at an administration or government is not unusual for an opposition.

This week, Condren promised to “seriously review” the future of Metro if he wins the lord mayoralty, while also ruling out that he would ever scrap it.

But with residents casting their vote in just 10 weeks, it is well and truly time for the Condren campaign to unveil a big picture idea that can transform the city.

Brisbane City Council has a long and proud history of delivering major infrastructure and transport projects that you would not normally expect from local government.

The council truly is unique given its size with a mammoth annual budget of about $3 billion.

In recent times, administrations on both sides of the political divide have used this budget to spearhead infrastructure and transport initiatives (along with other levels of government) that have made a mark on the city.

The Soorley Administration built the transformative inner-city bypass and launched CityCats on the Brisbane River. The Newman Administration kicked off plans to build the tunnels that commuters now use every day to avoid traffic bottlenecks.

And the Quirk Administration took Brisbane Metro to the last election in a bid to give the city a new public transport system.

Labor’s big hope for Brisbane lord mayor, Patrick Condren. Picture: Glenn Hunt

Metro is something that Schrinner will campaign on – and love it or loathe it – he at least has something he can sell to voters, even if it’s something his predecessor began.

It is why if Condren wants to be taken seriously as a lord mayoral candidate, he needs a big picture idea to get his campaign off the ground.

Even the man he replaced, Harding, took up the (light on details) idea of light rail when he ran for the city’s top job in 2016.

Condren needs something he can point to, something that voters can picture in their mind and something that they believe will one day become a reality.

On the flip side, Schrinner cannot pin all of his hopes on Metro as he enters this campaign, and it does not look like he will.

He cannot simply ride on the coat tails of a project that Quirk took to the last election.

Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner.

His announcement on day one of the job that he would build five new green bridges was a good start, and his decision to transform Victoria Park golf course into a mega park shows he is thinking about a vision for the city.

This week, Schrinner took a shot at Condren and his Labor team – insisting none of them had ever been in charge of a project or delivered one.

The same was also probably the case when the LNP was returned to the lord mayoralty in 2004, later regaining a majority in the council chamber in 2008.

They showed that when you have a plan and a vision for a city changing idea, voters can swing behind you.

Condren is good at delivering an attack line. He is good at holding the administration to account. He is good seizing on an issue.

He has also pitched some decent ideas, like giving rates discounts of up to $100 a year for those who pay on time.

But he is yet to prove if he is good at coming up with the big infrastructure and transport ideas that have big impacts on people’s lives.

I understand his resources are limited because he does not have the benefit of being in office.

The clock is ticking, though, and the number of stones that Labor can throw at the LNP could soon run out.