Brisbane ABC 'Drive' hosts debate on congestion with Lord Mayoral candidates

Tonight I attended a debate between Brisbane Lord Mayoral candidates: Graham Quirk (incumbent, LNP), Ben Pennings (Greens) and Rod Harding (Labor). The debate was held on 17 March 2016 in the ABC South Bank building, hosted, ironically, during 5-6pm "Drive," by Emma Griffiths. Questions from staff and guests were almost entirely about congestion due to population growth. An air of farce built up as the candidates' delivery was interrupted by frequent traffic bulletins describing appalling road congestion and accidents from seemingly every major artery in Brisbane.

The thing that stood out about the candidates was that no-one stood out with any clarity. They all seemed to be saying that they would encourage more public transport, then putting down each other's detail sound-bites. Graham Quirk, as the current Lord Mayor, seemed a little more relaxed than the other candidates. Mr Harding came across as quite bitchy and caused me to nearly laugh out loud, when he claimed that he would fix the planning the way they did in Vancouver, which he cited as 'the most liveable city in the world'. See more on the 'livability index'. Tim Murray has written a lot about how unlivable Vancouver is and aerial photographs show a coastline bristling with pointy skyscrapers.

Ben Pennings told the audience that the other two candidates were recipients of donations from property developers. Indeed, Brisbane is run by property developers.

Graham Quirk justified continuous growth in roads and public transport by the State's requirement that Brisbane accomodate 160,000 more people in some short period of time. If you don't accommodate them in high rises then you have to cut down more trees. "We are not going to be able to stem the growth," he cried.

Ben Pennings claimed that his plan for more public transport and raised bicycle paths would solve the congestion problem and, unlike his competition, without creating debt.

Rod Harding said that he would solve the congestion problem by creating a bus-culture, which would reduce cars.

One woman in the audience complained that relatives of hers and she herself had been severely stressed by houses being purchased by the city in preparation for road construction that never happened. Mr Quirk said that there were now a process for such people to engage representatives on their behalf, paid for by the city. The woman nodded in agreement at Penning's response about more public transport and bicycles. She obviously hadn't noticed that Penning, like Harding and Quirk, expects more and more people to come and live in Brisbane.

No candidate had an exit plan for overpopulation. Apparently Brisbane will just keep on getting bigger.

It seemed extraordinary that grown men could pretend they could control the consequences far into the future when the evening continued to be punctuated by worse and worse traffic reports and news of terrible accidents - all obviously connected to congestion caused by Brisbane's overpopulation.

Under our current system where private industry benefits from population growth, the diversion of tax-payers' money into road-building, already manifest in an absurd conglomeration of loop the loop freeways and tollways, strangling this once green city, will continue. In the light of the profits to be made from roads for a few powerful lobbies, the public transport component can only be token and could not take care of population growth either. It's all just about a few making more money out of the suffering of the rest.

My question, written and accepted in advance, was never asked. It was, "How is it possible to preserve South East Queensland's native wildlife if their bushland habitats are continually being destroyed in order to house the new arrivals that Graham Quirk, Ben Pennings and Rod Harding want to move to Brisbane?"

Rhetorical question.