Sarroff says no to lifting vote fee

Mayoral challenger Eddy Sarroff has hit back at Mayor Tom Tate’s calls to massively increase the fee for mayoral candidates to force “unserious” contenders out of the race.

Mr Tate on Monday blasted candidates who had neither signage, how-to-vote cards or any kind of presence at booths and said the threshold for nomination fees should be increased from $250 to at least $3000.

He said it was important to “raise the standard of candidates for the mayoralty”.

“They should raise the fee so that it stops people, unknowns (who are only running) to raise their profile on the back of local elections,” he said.

“Make it the same as a federal seat – about $3000 – to become a candidate and if you are serious, you should be able to get that in, plus you get a refund if you secure 4 per cent of the vote anyway. That will make sure that the good candidates come through because when it is last-minute self-promotion candidates, other people don’t want to do it.”

But Mr Sarroff (pictured), who previously spent 17 years on the council, said the move would “limit democracy” rather than encourage it.

“All residents of the Gold Coast are encouraged to enter any election and contribute to our democracy and it’s disappointing that the Mayor sees fit to throw stones at community members participating in the council elections,” he said.

“The Mayor talks about raising the standard of candidates while casting aspersions upon the candidates running for mayor being below his standard determined by one’s financial capacity. As one of the other eight mayoral candidates, we are all struggling with providing enough people to hand out how-to-vote cards — this does not diminish our participation in democracy, it strengthens it.”

Gold Coasters will have nine mayoral candidates, including the incumbent, to choose from on March 16.