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No three-peat party as Tom Tate vows to tackle pandemic crisis

Third-term mayor: First job is rip up budget to beat coronavirus

THIRD-TERM Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate is in no mood for celebrating an historic three-peat.

Instead, from this morning he will roll up his sleeves to “pull apart the budget” with city council CEO Dale Dickson for a coronavirus relief and recovery package.

“This will be the biggest challenge, not just for me but for all elected councillors and our city,” he said of the pandemic which has ravaged the Gold

Coast’s twin lifebloods of tourism and small business. “Previously, we’ve gone through the budget line by line. This time it will be letter by letter.”

It comes as political and health leaders expressed optimism at a slowing rate of coronavirus case increases with Queensland Minister Steven Miles saying: “The rate of growth last week was half that of the week before. We are flattening the curve.”

But they also warned against complacency saying hospitals would still face extreme pressure.

THIRD-TERM Mayor Tom Tate has vowed to “pull apart the budget” to fund a coronavirus relief and recovery package.

He will meet with council CEO Dale Dickson this morning to analyse the state of the city’s finances and new measures to ease the plight of business and ratepayers.

“This will be the biggest challenge, not just for me but for all elected councilors and our city,” he said last night.

“Previously, we’ve gone through the budget line by line. This time it will be letter by letter. I will not be waiting for special budget, I will be pulling it apart straight away to see if there is implementation which needs to be done and I’ll be speaking with the administration to keep it going.”

At the weekend, Cr Tate made history as the first Coast mayor to be elected to a third consecutive term. Last night, with nearly 37 per cent of the poll counted, he had 74,650, or 56.58 per cent of the votes.

Mona Hecke was his closest challenger with 22.21 per cent (29,304) of the vote.

Southport businessman Brett Lambert (6.57 per cent ) and Virginia Freebody (6.37 per cent) were next.

So far, 10,599 informal votes were cast, about 7.4 per cent.

At the 2016 election the total informal vote was 15,050.

Cr Tate urged his new colleagues to work together to face the coronavirus crisis and said he had several measures in mind, including bringing forward major projects to create jobs.

He also intends to emulate one of his political idols, former Gold Coast mayor Sir Bruce Small and dial up promotion of the city once the crisis ebbs.

“To elected councillors, we need to put the needs of the city above any personality,” he said. “We are the small business capital and tourist capital and I know we will stand together as a united community.

“Once this is all over I will put my promotional hat back on and boost our city around Australia and see what kind of investment may wish to come to the Coast.

“The next challenge will be the 2020-21 budget and it is my intention to deliver a noincrease-fee freeze and levyfreeze budget.

“I will also bring forward major infrastructure projects and raise any opportunity for joint ventures through public private partnerships.”

The new council will be sworn in next month once the election result is declared.

This is not expected for at least a week.

Ms Hecke last night was still yet to concede defeat.

She yesterday thanked supporters but admitted she was “gobsmacked” by the result.

“It has been staggering, it’s an understatement, to see some of the percentages coming through,” she said.

“I was obviously as surprised as the rest of you, I am gobsmacked by some people’s thought processes and their voting preferences is really interesting, but let’s keep watching the count.”

BULLETIN VIEW, P14