Good afternoon Ryan
People are deeply frustrated with local delivery failures for the real bread and butter of council. Our rates sit higher than any other metropolitan area, CBD vacancies are climbing at an alarming rate. Infrastructure and maintenance are falling behind, and we sit at the precipice of demographic decline and growing irrelevance compared to the councils around us.
I'm in Mount Nelson, perennially neglected to the point where I'd honestly rather we seceded to Kingborough. Our street lighting is constantly inadequate and deficient compared to topographically similar areas in Glenorchy (I can't say your light dimming idea won much favour here). Our "footpaths", which are mostly either non-existent or bitumen spillover which is nigh indistinguishable from road, haven't been updated since the Olympic torch came through over 25 years ago.
The only substantive improvements to our area have come from private enterprise, council have done bugger all. The doctors, store, dentists, the new pharmacy, Hell even any new footpaths we might have have come about from new housing developments. That's not inherently a bad thing, but the differences between the new privately developed areas and the old council maintained parts are stark.
Forgive me, but at the start of this campaign, I envisaged putting you towards the top of my ticket. You can probably tell from my profile picture that I'm very sympathetic towards Labor. However, not only have you got into the mud with the disgusting far right pigs on our council, you've come out of it with a snout of your own.
You promised a comprehensive policy focus on housing, and yet you've spent all of your airtime this campaign away from that, and instead focusing on niche and frankly weird issues that are all CBD obsessed, to the point I wonder if you forgot the vast majority of us don't actually live there, and have communities of our own that you'd be just as responsible for as our Lord Mayor. I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if more people lived on Nelson Rd than Collins St. I know you have your policies on the big bread and butter issues, but you never champion them when you can find some mindless thought bubble to parrot instead.
And then there's the never-ending rejections and humiliations. The council right, city officials, Bridget Archer, *your own parents*! As a Labor voter I generally want someone more pragmatic and grounded than the Greens, more people focused than the Liberals, and less elitist than both. Instead, you spend a huge quantity of your time elite virtue signalling with your grand CBD objectives and your antics like reading poetry in response to the Bondi shooting, and the Socialist candidate, to his very legitimate credit, has been far, far more grounded than you.
It all feels very despondent. You were supposed to offer something very different, something hopeful. The Greens who've hitherto dominated council look tired and jaded, worn down by their ineffectual opposition to public sector cuts at the state level and by scandal both locally and Federally. The council right have become dominated by their chudded up hard right wing, same as is happening across the country.
And here you were at one point as the only alternative. Now? Congratulations, you've made it so the only realistic choices are now some old bloke who has been there forever, another old bloke who has been there forever but is a Green, and Louise Bloomfield, a leftover remnant of the moderate and pragmatic centre right.
I'm viscerally disappointed in you; the other Labor candidates have been fantastic in my opinion, but you having the highest profile has gone a long way to ruining things. I know you'll be unfortunately reelected; your seat really should go to Wallace or Bari, but name recognition trumps all. Next time, please think on your mistakes from this time, stay above the constant petty spats, and bring a program that focuses on where people live, rather than just creating more amenities and boondoggles to be enjoyed by people who don't live here!
Next time, please take a good hard look at yourself and consider whether you really have lived up to your idol, Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani, unlike you, is laser focused on local issues. Potholes, rents, budget management, housing supply. That's what he's focused on, with the occasional foray into government run supermarkets and condemning (rightly) Netanyahu. All politicians have an ego, but the good ones go into bat for those they claim to represent, and in that respect, even Louise Elliot does a far better job than you, it's just that she goes into bat for the landlord class.
Your constituency isn't supposed to be the well to do old luvvies and former hippies with million dollar plus paid off houses. It's supposed to be workers and the young struggling to get a foothold to climb up and improve their lives, and the older people who didn't win the property lottery, the same as Mamdani. They can't afford rent, they're buried in negative equity on an overpriced house, groceries and bills creep ever upward, and infrastructure fails around them as a pervasive miasma of dealing blankets the city. This campaign, in a vain attempt to get attention for yourself, you've let all of them, all of us, down.
Next time, do better.
Regards, a disgusted, disheartened voter.
