UNITY’S FUNDS PLEDGE
Mayor’s team: ‘We’ll pay our way’
MAYOR Bob Manning’s Unity Team members will put their money where their mouths are this election campaign in a bid to avoid conflictof-interest heartburn.
The eight-person crew will go into an electoral campaign battle for seats on Cairns Regional Council funded purely by themselves.
The decision to turn their backs on donations and gifts – almost $200,000 last election – will surely put a dent in the team’s promotional arsenal.
Cr Bob Manning said the team made the decision to run without donations from anybody in December. “We are self-funded,” he said Mayoral candidate Jen Sackley is also taking the matter seriously making her campaign motto, “no conflicts, no excuses”.
With the three new faces of Amy
Eden, Kristy Vallely and Rhonda Coghlan, the Unity Team has flagged its electoral platform will be its track record of big infrastructure projects, balanced budgets and low rate rises.
In the absence of any sexy slogans, Cr Manning is hoping it will get the team across the line come March 28.
The election campaign has well and truly kicked off with candidates showing their hand, including g Cr Brett Olds’ brother.
MAYOR Bob Manning’s Unity Team will accept no donations and run a completely selffunded election campaign after a term dogged by conflict-ofinterest headaches.
The decision to forgo electoral contributions will take a huge slice out of the team’s promotional arsenal over what promises to be an arduous 10week footslog towards the March 28 poll.
Unity attracted almost $200,000 in gifts and donations ahead of the 2016 election, with property developers, tourism operators and Cairns business identities all chipping in for the cause.
Developers across Queensland have now been banned from making political donations and strict new conflictof-interest rules have caused an administrative nightmare in city hall.
“Back in December of last year, the Unity Team made a decision that we would run in the next campaign without any donations from anybody,” Cr Manning said.
“We are self-funded.
“So this time, we go to the election on a self-funded basis, and I think you’ll find that most candidates will be doing that anyway.”
Relinquishing a potential $100,000-plus war chest could not have been an easy decision but illustrates how seriously the Unity Team is.
Its competitors are taking it seriously, too.
Mayoral candidate Jen Sackley, who is yet to announce the members of her North Queensland State Alliance team, has made “no conflicts, no excuses” her campaign motto.
Each of Unity’s recontesting incumbents – Cr Manning, Deputy Mayor Terry James, Cr Brett Moller, Cr John Schilling and Cr Max O’Halloran – will retain the same conflicts of interest stance if re-elected.
So will Division 5 Cr Richie Bates, who was elected on the Unity ticket but quit the team after months of tension in December 2017.
Cr Manning said newcomers Amy Eden, Kristy Vallely and Rhonda Coghlan would be cleanskins and able to vote on matters even if their Unity colleagues had shared conflicts.
Either way, he said pending amendments to the Belcarra legislation should make “pretty much all” of the Unity Team’s shared conflicts disappear by apportioning them between members.
“The amounts are then below the material amount (to trigger a conflict),” Cr Mannining said.
That relies on the State Government passing the amendments – something it has repeatedly dragged the chain on so far.
“At the moment, the State Government is still trying to fix up the mess that they created with their conflict-of-interest legislation,” Cr Manning said.
“It is a disaster, and it has been a disaster right from the start, and it’s continuing to be a disaster.”
Unity members’ self-funded resources will still be pooled.
“But only we put the money in,” Cr Manning said.