FUNERAL BOSS HOPES TO BREATHE NEW LIFE INTO CITY HALL

COUNCIL BID:

BUSINESSMAN Michael King has vowed to cut all his political and corporate ties if he is elected to the Geelong council.

The Kings Funerals boss yesterday confirmed he would contest the October election and declared he would be free of any associations, outside funding or running mates.

“I want it to be clear that I will be running as a genuine independent candidate,” Mr King, pictured, told the Geelong Advertiser.

“I won’t be representing any party, organisation or individual.”

Mr King said that if he was successful he would sever his membership with the Liberal Party and lobby groups Committee for Geelong, Chamber of Commerce and G21.

He vowed to fund his own campaign — “I won’t be accepting any donations from individuals or organisations” — and said he would not be drawn in any “behind-thescenes subterfuge”.

“I just find that practice unacceptable,” he said.

Mr King has civic experience to draw on, rising to deputy mayor under the old City of Geelong council in the early 1990s.

He has also sought to enter politics with the Liberal Party, narrowly losing South Barwon in 2006 to Labor’s Michael Crutchfield.

He was also defeated in a preselection race for the federal seat of Corangamite to Sarah Henderson, ahead of the 2010 election.

The former Barwon Water chairman joins long-term community advocate George Ballas and a string of sacked councillors — Tony Ansett, John Irvine, Peter Murrihy and Ron Nelson — in standing for election.

Mr King will nominate for the central Geelong ward.

He said the next council needed to encourage private investment to follow in the wake of government agencies WorkSafe and the National Disability Insurance Agency.

“There is an opportunity after the administrators to have a real renewal of the council,” he said, vowing to focus on cutting red tape and efficiently use public funds.

Mr King said the three suburban libraries in the gun should continue to operate, stating it was clear that they played a key role in the “social fabric of the community”.