Labor's Negative Campaign for Lake Macquarie

Labor candidate, Marcus Mariani, themed his election campaign from the start with a vitriolic attack on me on his website.  His attack was a based on a mass of demonstrably incorrect statements and "facts".  He has been advised by many people, including from his own party, that his material was incorrect.

Not to be deterred, the candidate has issued a newsletter attacking me over what I have achieved in the last four year. He claims that it has been four years of inaction yet on the same page states that Labor has never forgotten Lake Macquarie and that they have invested tens of millions of dollars in Lake Macquarie.  It may have been too obvious for Mr Mariani but much of this investment has occurred while I was the Independent member. The fact is that Lake Macquarie maintained its overall share of state funds invested in capital projects and services during this last term. This success during the last four years must be inconvenient for Mr Mariani.

The Labor candidate also falls back to old rhetoric of attacking me for having two roles and in my role of Mayor having lead the Lake Macquarie City Council into millions of dollars of debt and wanting to cut library services.  At this point Mr Mariani is showing his desperation and at the same time disqualifying himself as a reasonable person to contest public office in the future.  He is either unable to understand the facts or unable to tell the truth on these matters.   Council does carry debt, and yes, it has increased.  The debt is considered debt and is used to fund property acquisitions and capital projects.  The test of what is appropriate is one's ability to pay off the debt, measured by Debt Service Ratio (DSR).  LMCC's DSR remains less than 6% (the amount of annual budget needed to service the debt) while conventional wisdom certainly allows this figure to safely reach or exceed 10%.  LMCC is financially solid in this regard.

His other reference to wishing to cut library services is also untrue.  LMCC is seriously looking at library needs into the future. As the population ages, generations change, technology advances, needs change.  Our review is to ensure that we do not continue to have increasing costs while having reduced customers.  Labor councillors have also supported this review.

With unsubstantiated allegations about damage to his signs and an appeal for his supporters to use "reasonable force" to apprehend the culprits (noting many of his signs were illegally placed across footpaths), this candidate has shown that he really has nothing of substance to campaign on and that he is willing to say almost anything to advance his cause.

In 2007 my election delivered Lake Macquarie a "swinging seat".  While we have done well in the last four years there are "big ticket" items we need.  This election is the chance to capitalise on being a "swinging seat"!

Election Flyer - Policy Items

My Election Policy brochure as shown below can be downloaded as a pdf file from my website under Election 2011.  Click here to be directed to the location.