Quirk extends hand to Coast

BRISBANE Lord Mayor Graham Quirk warns the Gold Coast will miss out on the benefits of the multi-billion-dollar City Deal unless its council rejoins a powerful political lobby group.

On the eve of heading to Canberra today to lobby for massive infrastructure funding, Councillor Quirk urged Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate to reconsider joining the Council of Mayors.

Cr Tate had attended his last meeting with other southeast Queensland mayors in September 2017.

“We see southeast Queensland as one area,” Cr Quirk said. “We have got a Federal Government indicating their willingness to negotiate a City Deal.

“We’re talking about billions of dollars of capital expenditure. We have the Gold Coast not having a seat at the table. It’s just ridiculous.”

After being contacted by the Bulletin late yesterday, Cr Tate said: “I will make contact with the Lord Mayor to hear his views. Any decision to rejoin will need to be discussed during our 2019-2020 budget deliberations so that will happen in the next two months.

“In the meantime, if the Lord Mayor feels he needs our City support for crucial meetings in Canberra, I am happy to attend to give that support.’’

Cr Tate was philosophical after a rare stunning loss when a super majority of councillors voted against a traffic congestion-busting plan hatched by the mayoral office with minimal input from councillors.

“Shocked – yeah. Let’s not be precious about it, it’s democracy,” he said after the full council meeting.

In what some council insiders regarded as the first real challenge to Cr Tate’s leadership, only Hermann Vorster and Gary Baildon supported him after more than two hours of debate.

In a critical move, Deputy Mayor Donna Gates, who has to deal with the most traffic congestion in her northern division, spoke strongly against the recommendations for a congestion-busting taskforce.

She admitted councillors needed more updates from transport officers and to “get more answers quickly”.

But the recommendations which included using other experts in a taskforce “feel like a bit of an insult” to council directors and senior transport staff.

Southport councillor Dawn Crichlow described the mayoral minute as “an absolute nonsense”.

Hinterland-based councillor Glenn Tozer said the council had to increase the proportion of funding from the budget allocated to transport.

“We have some of the best professionals in the traffic game in Australia,” he said. “What we just need to do is bite the bullet and fund those projects.”