Paul Weston: What really worries Gold Coasters is the building that’s going on in their back yards

WHAT is really worrying Gold Coasters? You will be surprised. Yes, they’re concerned about the M1 grinding to a halt, waiting in the hospital ED. But there is a bigger common concern — their back yard.

WHAT is really worrying Gold Coasters? You will be surprised. Yes, they’re concerned about the M1 grinding to a halt, waiting in the hospital ED. But there is a bigger common concern — the building that’s going on in their back yards.

In the lead-up to tomorrow’s poll there were only three Meet the Candidates meetings, the fewest in a long time.

Friends of Currumbin and the Tugun Progress Association staged a night for the candidates from the most southern electorate at Currumbin.

The Main Beach Association and Save Our Broadwater asked the candidates from the coastal seats, and the Paradise Point Progress Association on Tuesday night invited the Broadwater hopefuls.

Ephraim Island — to the west is Paradise Point. Picture: Mike Batterham

These are robust community groups. Their leaders are smart, successful in trades and business, some of them powering on behind the keyboard in semi-retirement.

They are issue-orientated rather than card-carrying members of any political parties. Unless your head is buried in the sand, you will know what Philip Follent, Judy Spence, Sue Donovan and Brendan Boyle are passionate about.

At the Paradise Point Community Hall, on the stage at the end of the meetings, Mr Boyle has pages of questions with scribbled writing. Clearly, the schoolteacher had not written them.

Your columnist walked away with them to gauge what residents wanted their candidates to answer.

On the stage, the candidates themselves provided a cross section of the community. Labor’s Peter Flori is a veteran copper and the LNP’s David Crisafulli was a journalist before wanting to make a difference, first at city hall.

One Nation’s Brenden Ball was a tradie before going into sales and the Greens’ Daniel Kwon helps the homeless and drug-addicted. They all get along and seem like good blokes.

The serious questions from the audience, most of them with a hint of silver in the hair, portrayed the plight of the swinging voter and cash poor.

The Paradise Point meeting. Picture: Mike Batterham.

On one foolscap page there were seven questions all relating to council development.

Apart from the wealth of Sovereign and Ephraim islands, Paradise Point was this last patch of beach shacks until council recently began approving more multistorey townhouses.

“Large footprints on property mean that larger than acceptable developments can be placed right on the water’s edge and destroy the ambience of what is a unique residential village,” a resident said.

From the floor, residents wanted to know whether as a state MP, the candidates would intervene to oppose some of the council’s rulings on development.

An experienced observer explained it this way. These residents are not greenies, they want economic growth so their grandkids can work. They want better roads.

They acknowledge that Mayor Tom Tate and his new council “opened the city for business”.

What this state election debate revealed was the next council election will be all about planning and how it impacts on their block of dirt. It will be the real deal compared to this campaign.