A group of Logan City councillors has banded together to prevent an unemployment program from heading back to the drawing board, saying the extra time and money spent would not help those without a stable income to find employment.
Councillors Teresa Lane and Scott Bannan stood their ground at the City Planning Committee meeting this week and stood up for Logan City locals who want to work and are doing everything in their power to secure a local job.
According to the council website Logan City of Choice is a collaboration involving community, corporates, non-government agencies, and all three levels of government.
Over the last two years council reviewed the initiative and considered its future form and function.
The review highlighted how the City of Choice initiative responded to the following challenge:
‘To find the most effective vehicle to address one or more of the complex social challenges in Logan in a way that is sustainable, has formal support from all three levels of government, and through which impact can be measured.’
As a result, the newly elected Council considered a number of options for the initiative. At the general meeting of 17 June 2020, council resolved to pursue the option to re-invigorate City of Choice, supported by relevant government agencies.
The last meeting of the 2017 to 2020 City of Choice Leadership Team was held on August 7 last year.
Logan City Council have said on its website that there is an expectation for the refreshed team to launch in the first half of 2021.
A Council Officer was in attendance at this week’s City Planning Committee meeting, where council officers and councillors discussed branding options and other particulars.
Councillor Laurie Koranski said she didn’t support the project and wanted to move a motion against it. Mayor Darren Power agreed with her.
“This city has been riddled with unemployment over the years,” he said.
“We need to be more job focused.”
“We need to re-badge and redirect this.”
Cr Bannan disagreed and said re-branding would cost council ‘money and time’.
Cr Raven, chair of the committee, said if Council rebooted and rebranded the City of Choice program, they would all be back at square one.
“So if the problem is that if we’re not doing anything soon enough then this is not going to speed the process up,” he said.
Cr Lane agreed with Cr Raven and Cr Bannan.
“You’re not sitting at home unemployed,” she said.
“You’re not hanging out for a job.
“You’re not waiting to pay your next mortgage payment.
“These people don’t have time for us to reinvent and reinvigorate something to come up with terms of reference, to have meetings once a month, every month for six months while we try and find a new brand name in which to put this under.”
Cr Lane said the biggest issue raised at mobile offices was jobs.
“They don’t care what the name of the program is that delivers them a way to pay their rent or mortgage,” she said.
“They don’t care how they get the job, they just want to be considered for a position that suits their age, their ability or their transport situation.
“What we as a council need to do is provide the incentives for businesses to invest here, build their businesses and employ local people.
“We need to step up now and work out what we as a Council can do.”
Cr Bannan agreed and said Cr Lane’s comments were ‘bang on the money’.
The motion moved by Cr Koranski to not move forward with the City of Choice project was also supported by Mayor Power, Cr Heremaia, Cr Murphy, and Cr Bradley.
Mayor Power and Cr Koranski requested to be removed from the task force, as did Cr Bradley, despite never actually being on the task force.
Cr Bannan moved the motion to update the City of Choice project to focus on jobs, which was supported by Cr Fraser, Cr Lane, Cr Raven, Cr Russell, Cr Hall, Cr Willcocks, and Cr Stemp.
The motion was carried to continue the City of Choice program.
Mayor Power finished by saying he would be setting up his own Mayors Taskforce for Unemployment, instead of supporting the City of Choice program which had already been established to work with three levels of government to address unemployment in Logan City.
