Working Together to Achieve Just Outcomes

By Rev Tracey Matthews

On Thursday 11 November, our partner Hunter Community Alliance hosted the Lake Macquarie Mayoral Candidates forum. The meeting was held via Zoom and had a turn-out of over 150 people. Reverend Tracey Matthews and Michael Elliott from Glenrock Anglican had key speaking roles along with other Lake Macquarie Community Leaders.

During the meeting community leaders and residents shared powerful personal stories in relation to: homelessness, lack of affordable housing and impacts of climate change. Hunter Community Alliance then presented policy proposals to achieve key outcomes around these issues and asked mayoral candidates to commit to support these proposals. This included commitments to progress policies on:

• An affordable housing target of 5-15% in in-fill rezoning

• An Affordable Housing Developer Contribution Scheme

• A target for 50% reduction in emissions from 2021 levels from all sources by 2030

• A 100% reduction in emissions from 2021 levels from all sources by 2035

• Public consultation and reporting on ALL climate action plans

Mayor Kay Fraser (Labor) said YES to all 10 proposals on climate, housing affordability and homelessness initiatives. Cr Fraser’s responses ranged between emphatic and ‘yes - in principle’.

Rosmairi Dawson, Morisset PCYC Manager and mayoral candidate (Independent), said YES to all 10 proposals.

Luke Cubis, current councillor and mayoral candidate (Independent), said NO to all 10 proposals.

Jason Pauling, a current councillor and the Liberal candidate for mayor, said he could not participate in the forum.

Overall, the forum was considered a great success by several measures. It gained commitments to progress policies developed by leaders of our community in response to issues in those communities; it also provided an opportunity to develop new leaders for Alliance member organisations, and created a new platform for local people to share their personal stories and expertise in public.