MEET THE CANDIDATES

Next month Newcastle will elect a Lord Mayor to replace John Tate who’s been in the job for the past 13 years.

The seven candidates vying for the top spot spoke to NBN News ahead of local elections on September 8, to outline their plans and issues with the city.

NUATALI NELMES – Labor

Councillor Nuatali Nelmes is a familiar face on the current council and is hoping to step-up and pull on the Mayoral robes.

She is running as both councillor and Lord Mayor for the Labor party and hopes the anti-Labor sentiment felt in the state election won’t filter through to this local election.

“It could influence how people vote, I hope it doesn’t, because local government is very different from state government. I’ve done a lot of work in the local community over the last four years in council and I hope people can see the effort I have put in and the care that I take and the passion that in have for making this a better city.”

Parking metres in the CBD of Newcastle are a concern for Councillor Nelmes, but she says the issues in the city don’t stop there or just at Hunter Street.

As a mother, she said she started noticing issues in the communities, making facilities such as cycleways, parks, fields and skateparks a priority.

“Standing up and defending our parks and our pools and our libraries is very much a key platform of mine, because those small parts of social infrastructure are the fabric of the community.”

AARON BUMAN- Independent
He was pipped at the post in the 2008 local election, coming in second to long running Lord Mayor, John Tate.

But this time around councillor Aaron Buman is looking for one better as he campaigns to lead Newcastle.

“Hope I don’t come second again to be honest, I’d love the opportunity to lead the city I know where it needs to go. I’ve got 8 years of experience up my sleeves now which really counts for something.”

While the CBD and development are high on the agenda for many of the candidates, Councillor Buman’s first priority is to balance the books, by streamlining services and making changes to how the council does business.

” The first thing we have to do, which bores people, but we are in a very financially difficult situation. This year the budget is running at an $8.5-million deficit, the next one is predicted at $12-million. We can’t keep going at that rate.”

Known for his straight talking style, he says he is able to make the tough decisions, something that has been lacking in council for years.

” Diplomacy and tact has got this city nowhere, as far as I am concerned, over the last 10 years and that’s all the politicians have offered up. I’m hoping that my blunt style might actually get us some results.”

Councillor Buman was a former plumber and now owns the Racecourse Hotel at Wallsend.

JACQUELINE HAINES – Independent

She is a new face to local government, but Stockton engineering consultant Jacqueline Haines is throwing her hat in the ring.

Her first priority is getting the council in order by taking a business approach.

” My first priority would be to make a business assessment, ask for an asset statement, budgets, employee statements. Then I would move on to formulate with the community a plan…and then the next very important part would be to engage the councillors and build a strong relationship.”

She has been credited with some bold ideas. She wants to make Newcastle a ‘technology city’ and last week she spoke to NBN News about her curious vision to put a flying fox in the Hunter Street Mall.

“The strength of having vision and the strength of understanding community as being unique and local and requiring their own attention.”

” I think the council and the councillors need to work together to provide a unified front and be very cohesive. We need to have our vision to strive for because that vision will give our city style.”

Ms Haines is running as an independent and is realistic about her chances of taking the top spot.

” I am standing as an absolute independent, I am not handing my preference vote to anybody, I am standing as an Independent, I want to represent the city of Newcastle as a truly independent person.”

JOHN SUTTON – The Greens

He was the first Green elected into local council back in 1991 and now John Sutton is aiming higher, hoping to be elected as Lord Mayor.

Mr Sutton, a retired University of Newcastle professor, says the current council has lost its way with the community and needs to address this ahead of tasks and developments.

” The key concern I have is that this council has almost deliberately severed its productive relationship with the community and that is the key priority to get that back again. We need a council that is working productively collaboratively, creatively with its own community and if we can get that you’ve got the basics to move forward.”

In 2008 the Greens received their highest ever votes in the wards but only ended up with 1 representative on council, but Mr Sutton is hoping to bolster that this time around.

He believes a focus on the basics is pushing people towards the Greens.

” What can be more basic to human life than clean air, clean water, clean soil and I think they realise too that the Greens are prepared to work collaboratively with the grass roots community of Newcastle.”

His experience after two terms in council and as an academic teaching local government, will help him understand the process of council better.

BRYAN HAVENHAND – Independent
His party was put together with the help of Lord Mayor John Tate, but Bryan Havenhand doesn’t expect to follow in his footsteps.

” I don’t expect to come out on top in the Mayoral race, there are other candidates that have a much higher profile then me and have more experience.”

For Mr Havenhand and his party, the Community 1 Independents, their main priority is strengthening the relationship between community and council.

“The focus of our group is that communities come first, and I think what we have seen over a number of years is a lowering of importance of community consultation.”

As a publisher, he hasn’t had any council experience, and neither have the candidates in Community 1 Independents, something that sets them apart.

He says this is what is needed to have a fresh start on council.

COL PEEBLES – Independent

Lord Mayoral candidate Col Peebles is hoping to clear out all of the current councillors.

He says it was the dissatisfaction he felt with the current council that encouraged him to put his hand up to lead the city, along side the ‘Clean Sweep’ team.

“Our view is that if something is not working and you put that something back in for another four years and expect things to be different, that’s not very sensible. If the elected council can’t work together, can’t be cohesive, can’t be respectful of one another, cant see the bigger picture…are we going to give them another go? I think not. “

Former human resources manager for Macquarie Generation, Mr Peebles says his business background will help bring about the change needed in the council.

“They are a disharmonious, dysfunctional group that cannot make decisions and cannot even get along with each other. And my experience in business is if the top of the company works like that, the company has no hope of producing a good result.”

Of concern to Mr Peebles are parking metres alongside issues with the rail line, and retail and development in the CBD.

” Parking in the city is very difficult, I think the way in which the council is going about it is not getting the best result. There seems to be a westward push of parking metres from the CBD towards Hamilton and Adamstown and there doesn’t seem to be much thought into what that is doing to the retailers.”

JEFF McCLOY -Independent

He has made his name as a developer in Newcastle and now hopes he can continue to change the city as the Lord Mayor.

Jeff McCloy says there isn’t any activity happening in the city and like other candidates, says parking is on his agenda.

“It’s drab it’s dreary, we have the seventh largest city in Australia and you drive down Hunter Street and it’s quite woeful.”
” I proposed to have two hours parking free just like the shopping centre, so we are doubling or quadrupling the business activity in the street.”

But it’s not all about Hunter Street, Mr McCloy wants to landscape the road between the airport and the city to separate the industrial from the residential.

“It is a very easy task to mound that road way, put some bamboo on top and put some trees in front and actually landscape the entrance to our city.”

Mr McCloy says his business approach is what council needs to stop the in-fighting and personal conflicts and stresses that there will be no conflict of interest on council over the buildings his company owns in Newcastle.

We’ll bring you interveiws with other candidates in Hunter region soon.