2024 Brisbane City Council election: Labor, LNP and Greens final pitch to voters

The three leaders of the major parties have laid out their plans on why you should vote for them today in the Brisbane council elections.

Final word from Mayoral hopefuls

• Complete Brisbane City election guide

Tracey Price - LABOR :

Brisbane City Council needs a new energy and a different approach.

The leadership Brisbane needs is our team of community champions to address the key challenges our growing city has.

I’ve spent every day of the last year talking to people right across Brisbane, and the message I’m getting is the same over and over.

They tell me they love this city, but they want a Council who actually does things to help, not cut.

Brisbane residents have noticed devastating cuts to road maintenance. Cuts to mowing contracts.

Cuts to mozzie spraying. Cuts to hard-working Brisbane City Council staff. Cuts to flood and drainage works and the SES Depot at Bracken Ridge.

Voters have a choice at this election.

They can vote for a positive vision for Brisbane with new energy in an administration I lead or more cuts, delays, and inaction from the current administration.

I have a real plan to help with cost of living with half price bus fares – whenever you travel, and wherever you travel – right across Brisbane.

We will invest $1 billion to upgrade dangerous intersections and bust traffic congestion in our suburbs.

Tracey Price. Picture: Liam Kidston

I will take immediate action to get more homes built in Brisbane and a record investment of $5 million a year for homelessness support services.

I am backing a vibrant arts scene and 24-hour city where Brisbane’s night-life comes alive in our suburbs, not just investment in the inner city.

I have committed to improved lighting in parks and public spaces and the roll out of new CCTV trailers to make people feel safer getting around their city.

I will ensure real investment in drainage and flood mitigation and restoration of funding for the Bracken Ridge SES Depot.

I will take action to start a permanent and free organic waste recycling program which would see more waste collection and the removal of 100,000 tonnes of organic waste diverted for landfill.

Ensuring that your red bin and your green bin are collected weekly, and your yellow top recycling bin collected every fortnight.

I will give public spaces back to the people. Restoring a cool, green, shady, and inviting King George Square that will once again belong to the people of Brisbane not the concrete wasteland they have now.

I’m not a career politician. I have fought so hard this campaign to share with Brisbane who I am and what I want to achieve when it comes to making this city the absolute best it can be.

I have campaigned with all of our fantastic Labor candidates right across our city, because I believe in each and every one of them.

This election for me is about choice.

Four more years of cuts, suburban neglect, lies and inaction.

Or a positive plan for Brisbane under a Tracey Price led administration.

Tracey Price is right for Brisbane!

Adrian Schrinner - LNP:

Today I’m asking Brisbane residents to Just Vote 1 for Team Schrinner to keep Brisbane moving.

I’m asking residents to Just Vote 1 so we can deliver the critical road and transport projects Brisbane needs.

I’m asking residents to back our team so we can continue to make Brisbane’s lifestyle even better and fight to make our suburbs safer.

I’m asking residents to Just Vote 1 for Team Schrinner so we can keep the

budget balanced and ensure Brisbane residential rates remain the cheapest in south east Queensland.

Our plan is sensible, it’s affordable and it’s all funded from within the existing Council budget.

The only alternative is a radical and risky Green/Labor Coalition of Chaos that

will cut road funding and drive up the rates and rents of every Brisbane resident to pay for their $3.5 billion in big-spending promises.

Our united and experienced team will keep Brisbane moving by delivering important road improvements like the Moggill Road upgrade and Beams Road project.

We’ll continue fighting for a new northside tunnel linking Carseldine to Kedron to help tackle congestion.

We’ll take Brisbane from public transport to mass transit with the new Brisbane Metro, which will deliver modern, quiet and accessible services so frequent that timetables will become a thing of the past.

Adrian Schrinner. Picture: David Clark

We want to progress the expansion of Brisbane Metro to the northern and eastern suburbs while delivering the biggest boost in suburban bus services for generations.

Right now, Brisbane is the fastest-growing capital city in Australia.

People from other states, indeed around the world, have discovered our incredible lifestyle.

We need to strike the right balance between catering for growth while protecting and enhancing the lifestyle our residents love.

We’ll continue to help deliver great new precincts like Howard Smith Wharves, new parks like Hanlon Park and more active and healthy activities that are affordable, like our $2 Summer Dips.

And we’ll make it easier to grab a coffee from a cart at parks, playgrounds and dog off-leash areas across Brisbane.

My team wants stronger action on youth crime and will do what we can to help make our suburbs safer.

We’ll fund new grants to help sports and community clubs improve their safety, mobile cameras for every ward to deter and catch crime and extra investment in lighting to make our facilities safer after dark.

While our Green/Labor opponents have made $3.5 billion in big-spending promises that they can’t explain how they’ll fund, our affordable commitments all come from the existing Council budget.

Importantly, we will keep the budget balanced and ensure Brisbane retains the cheapest residential rates in south east Queensland because we recognise rising living costs are impacting residents.

Right now, Brisbane needs an experienced team that will invest in critical road and transport projects and fight to make our suburbs safe.

Brisbane needs an experienced team with a proven track record of keeping costs down.

That’s why I’m asking Brisbane residents to Just Vote 1 for Team Schrinner.

Together, let’s keep Brisbane moving.

Jonathan Sriranganathan - GREENS:

Our political system is broken.

Important decisions about our city’s future are hijacked by big business, with one rule for major developers and another rule for the rest of us.

Housing costs and homelessness rates are soaring, while developers and property speculators leave thousands of homes, shops, offices and developable blocks of land sitting empty long-term.

Brisbane has become a city where the mega-rich get richer, while the poor get screwed.

Thousands of us are struggling right now. Renters are skipping meals to pay their bills. Homeless teenagers are sleeping on bus stop benches right in the shadows of city hall.

Yet the message from Labor and the LNP is that Brisbane’s moving in the right direction. Their response to the worst homelessness crisis in living memory is to follow the same flawed strategies that got us into this mess.

Last year, they gave big developers a discount on infrastructure charges – effectively a massive tax cut for the property industry – then the Liberals slashed funding from important council projects.

Meanwhile, traffic congestion is getting worse. Moving around Brisbane is becoming more expensive and dangerous because the Liberals waste too much money widening roads, but don’t invest enough in public transport.

The LNP are still denying the realities of global warming, concreting over green space and approving more developments on flood-prone land.

So the Greens are fighting to restore our democracy, take power away from big developers and put people before profit.

Jonathan Sriranganathan. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/Courier Mail

We want to roll out free public transport, and create 15 new high-frequency bus routes that connect suburbs directly, without commuters having to detour via the city centre. We also want to improve the frequency and reliability of existing bus routes, and ensure more services run late into the night, 7 days per week.

We want to freeze rent increases for two years, and unlock more housing and developable land via a vacancy levy, which would put downward pressure on both residential rents and commercial rents for small businesses.

We want to build more high-quality, medium-density public homes close to transport hubs, and crack down on the conversion of homes into Airbnb short-term rentals.

Labor and the LNP are happy to let rents and house prices keep skyrocketing.

We want rents and house prices to fall.

We also want to invest in walkable neighbourhoods, with more pedestrian crossings, accessible footpaths, and separated bike lanes. And we want more funding directed towards public green spaces, with better playgrounds, dog parks, community gardens and leafy nature reserves.

We can achieve all of this if we stop wasting money on mega-projects, and make big developers and property speculators contribute their fair share towards delivering public infrastructure and services. Our proposals are fully costed, and based on practical, successful examples from other cities.

Explore our policies at www.jonathansri.com, if you want residents – not big corporations – to control how our city evolves… If you want to shake up this system… If you want positive change… vote Greens.

A better world is possible.