Well the horse has hardly bolted but it's up and running in the 2018 'election stakes'! Today, Albert van Zetten has announced that he plans to stand for Mayor of Launceston. Ald. Hugh McKenzie's candidacy for Deputy Mayor was announced a little earlier on 7LA and Ald. Janie Finlay was out of the blocks last week. So be it, and off we go.
It seems that the real issue is yet to really present itself given the sorry state of representational local governance in Tasmania. The burning issues across Tasmania is 'accountability and transparency' – A&T – and after that comes the affordability, or rather the increasingly unaffordability of rates, in some jurisdictions.
In the weeks ahead the issue of A&T should top of ratepayer's list of concerns and the thing they should be looking into their memories for the evidence of relative to their experiences of A&T over the past four years.
Local governance in Tasmania after a 'four year term' shows all the signs of dysfunction and serial disconnection from its constituency and it seems that it is increasingly so. Now is the time to test our perceptions of our local council's 'performance' and ask all the questions we have in mind and get some answers before we vote.
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Launceston’s longest serving mayor will recontest his position at the upcoming local government elections.
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Albert van Zetten announced his plan to stand for the position of mayor on Friday.
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“I really believe that stability is important and after many conversations I realised I still had passion,” he said.
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Alderman van Zetten has been Launceston’s mayor for nearly 11 years and has been in local government for 13 years.
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He said he had made it his life’s purpose to serve the city of Launceston in any way possible.
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While he said sometimes the mayoral position can “feel like you’re on your own” he had been heartened by a number of people who called and asked him to stand again.
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“I have had phone calls from the business community, and from other alderman, asking me to stand again.”
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Alderman van Zetten will join Alderman Janie Finlay as announced candidates for the position of mayor.
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An election for the City of Launceston council will be held in October.
Personally I think he should step aside as there has been so much waste over the last few years with the Windmill Hill debt and donating crown land to the likes of UTAS. We need someone who is going to look after the Launceston suburbs, and not just focus on tissying up the city centre. Of late our rates keep going up and up while the Mayor and his developer friends run the city and ignore everyone else. With the amount of money that is needed just to run for council puts everyone who has to struggle financially out of the running and the business people are the only ones able to afford to advertise themselves. Hence the wealthy think our rates grow on trees and are easily accessable.
ReplyDeleteAccountability? Transparency? Ratepayers? What ratepayers? Who are they? asks Albert. Do I know them? he asks. What do they look like? he asks. He might just as well be asking such questions because he doesn't seem to know that they are the people he is meant to represent and work for. Even though he does NOT LIVE in Launceston, he is meant to represent individual voters, actual residents and ratepayers who live in the Launceston Council area. He does not represent the big cashed-up developers or any big national chain - or at least he is not meant to, but the ratepayers and residents can be forgiven for thinking that Albert, together with most of the current aldermen, puts the interests of developers and national chains ahead of Launceston ratepayers and residents.
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