Burleigh MP Hermann Vorster hits back at light rail backflip critics
Hermann Vorster voted for light rail in his time as a councillors but says he’s no hypocrite now he’s advocating to the review the project. BIG INTERVIEW
Gold Coast
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Asked if he is a hypocrite, Hermann Vorster stops in his tracks.
Silent for a moment, he pulls out his phone and scrolls before holding up a screenshot. It’s an old news story about Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate changing his own mind about light rail’s future.
Indeed, while Mr Vorster has swapped from supporting to reconsidering light rail Stage Four extension, the Mayor once did the reverse on public transport.
So is he implying the Mayor is also a hypocrite?
“I’m saying nothing,” he replies.
So Mr Tate is not a hypocrite?
“He’s the mayor of the city,” he smiles.
Mr Vorster is perhaps this city’s most political beast.
His career has shot up the government ladder – from Mr Tate’s press secretary, to Division 11 councillor to Burleigh State MP.
It’s a big jump, but one he has taken in his stride.
Just as with this screenshot, Mr Vorster knows exactly what he is doing.
Even as he has been called names, he refuses to return fire. Not in so many words, anyway.
“I’ll endure the slings and arrows, I’ll cop the critiques on the front page and from other elected officials, but I need to be able to look my community in the eye and say ‘I’m your man’,” he said.
“I listened to a community and I made a promise and I’m delivering it. I would say that is the textbook definition of ‘not a backflip’.
“I was very clear at the last election what people were voting for was my promise to pause the light rail Stage Four project and fight for fresh consultation to make sure voices of the southern Gold Coast were heard.
“Characterising an open and transparent election promise as an act of hypocrisy misses the point. The act of hypocrisy is to do the opposite of what you promised.”
So just what did happen to make Mr Vorster change his mind against supporting light rail’s Burleigh-Gold Coast Airport extension.
After all, at one point a Save Our Southern Gold Coast activist group had even circulated a petition against him, stating Mr Vorster ‘has been a prominent supporter of the light rail extensions … the entire Gold Coast community is entitled to ask Cr Vorster for a ‘please explain’.’
“You’re allowed to change your stance … others have,” he said, tapping his phone.
“But I did support the plan until I did the job of knocking on every door in this area and understanding the true complexity of what this project is.
“Now I don’t support the current plan. Part of the reason I ran for state government was because of the light rail.
“(Even though I supported it while in council) I saw what was happening here with respect to town planning and light rail. There is a limit to what I can say, given that much of it was said in closed session at council, but it would be fair to say I shaped changes to council recommendations to secure studies upfront and gain access to business cases, which had previously not been disclosed to council.
“I am an unashamed ferocious advocate for my local constituency. What I heard helped change my view and it’s not my job to reshape the community in some other person’s image. I just approach politics perhaps a little bit differently from others.”
The big question is whether light rail Stage Four was permanently off-track .
Since the LNP took government there has been a flurry of negative news about the project, from an announcement about housing resumptions to the projected top-end cost, with little discussion about the benefits of the transport link.
But Mr Vorster insisted this was not a strategy to prepare residents for killing it.
“The reason we shared information about property resumptions and loss of carparking is because we are providing the information the community was most interested in when I doorknocked the whole area,” he said.
“By sharing this it means when it comes time for people to make their submissions to the consultation, they are fully informed.
“As for providing public transportation for this area, the Premier has said doing nothing is not an option.
“Everything is on the table, including alternate routes and alternate modes.
“As for the original plan down the Gold Coast Highway from Burleigh to the airport, I’ve got massive reservations about it, but is it still on the table? Well, it has to be reviewed.
“There is no predetermined outcome. The focus must be on the consultation, not the tribalism … and I have made every attempt to dial down the temperature in the discourse.
“I have my views but this is about consulting the community. So that means everything is on the table and the review will determine what is possible, what is not and how much it will cost.
“But we will get a good public transportation system.”
Asked how “good” would be defined, Mr Vorster said it in the terms of reference (TOR) for the light rail review.
This review’s states it will assess “deliverability, current demand, timeframes, community support and market conditions” to “support efficient and cost effectivity project delivery in comparison to alternate routes and modes including those not previously considered”.
Mr Vorster said the review was independent of the Department of Transport and Main Roads, but Department of Infrastructure experts would be consulted.
“I’m not the decision maker, I’m the advocate for residents. I have to tell you there are lots of proponents for buses. They point out you might not even need a dedicated bus lane all the way down the Highway.
“They argue you can effectively have priority slip lanes closer to intersections, so buses can just jump the queue when it comes to traffic.
“This is what the community is saying and we’ve got to take that on board.”
When it comes to community consultation, Mr Vorster said there were a number of misconceptions.
While submissions from his constituents would be weighted more heavily, there was good reason, he said.
“It’s unfortunate people have regarded this as a referendum or a vote when it’s actually an invitation to put forward anything and everything.
“The consultation and survey are not the review, they are part of the review, and the review itself will be informed by community consultation.
“Submissions are not equally weighted because we made a specific election commitment to the electorates of Burleigh and Currumbin that a community that had been treated exceptionally poorly through this process would finally be heard. “The reality is the southern Gold Coast has never, ever, ever been genuinely heard to this point. We don’t want to drown out their voices.
“But this is not a decision about doing nothing … it’s a decision about what doing something looks like.”
So what does the southern Gold Coast want?
And what does Mr Vorster want for the southern Gold Coast?
The first thing he wants is to clear its residents names.
“People have been characterising this area as a bunch of NIMBYs. That could not be further from the truth. People here just want transport they will actually use that suits their lifestyle and the built environment,” he said.
“They’re not arguing against investment in public transport, they just happen to have a different view on what that looks like.
“For me, the best public transportation is the one we actually deliver.
“(Since I advocated for light rail), we’ve had Brisbane launch its Metro (buses) system and there could be other options on the table we haven’t thought of yet.
“But something I have long advocated for has been the opportunity to deliver east-west connections that connect the coast to the suburbs. So I hope and expect many people completing this survey will talk about the need for east-west as much as marginal improvements to north-south.”
As the greater Gold Coast becomes more vocal for light rail Stage Four - a 77 per cent of City of Gold Coast survey respondents were in favour, Mr Vorster said it was not only the State Government questioning the project.
He said the Infrastructure Australia Priority List axing of 22 big projects including Burleigh-airport light rail as a federal funding priority meant this review might have always been the city’s destiny.
“If the federal government has withdrawn funding and support, then it might be we were inevitably in a position where there needed to be a conversation about alternatives. Otherwise we might have been waiting for a federal government that had no intention of ever funding the project.
“They took it off the list before we even launched consultation.”
Mr Vorster’s other election priority is addressing crime and anti-social behaviours, particularly in Burleigh’s heart.
He said his $4.1 million commitment would see a permanent physical police presence, safety initiatives on Friday and Saturday nights and extra CCTV.
While no date has yet been set for this new police presence, Mr Vorster brooks no suggestion of a delay.
“There was never any delay,” he said.
“What I did do was say there’s a mobile police beat, which can sometimes sit in a car park, and it would be great if we could get that deployed to Burleigh as soon as possible.
“I met senior police, the community made a submission on an online form and we got a mobile police beat into Burleigh – that was characterised as a delay.
“That was the interim plan as I’m very eager to have the doors open to the permanent police presence as soon as possible, but we in the government, like any business, operate on a financial year. So we’re still living under Labor’s last budget.
“But I’m working with the police minister as well as attorney general, and it will be for the police minister to announce, but we are working very hard to make that happen as soon as possible.”
He adds: “During the lead-up to the light rail consultation, we had the leader of the opposition and another civic leader concoct a suggestion a mode change at Burleigh may require the Burleigh Bowls Club to be demolished.
“That came completely out of left field and was absolutely untrue. Our terms of reference explicitly state the club, along with Burleigh National Park, Memorial Park and Tallebudgera Creek are protected.
“A lot of angst and anger came out of that … and we’ve previously had this civic leader come out and say Palm Beach will have no choice but to accept the light rail down the Gold Coast Highway and if they don’t want it, we won’t build any stations or stops.
“That’s the antagonism we’re trying to fix. We are trying to rebuild trust and we are keeping our promises.”
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