Steve O’Brien, a lifelong peace activist, trade unionist and socialist, is the Socialist Alliance candidate in the April 18 by-election for Newcastle Lord Mayor.
O’Brien was an ironworker at the steelworks for many years and retrained to work at TAFE. He has been an aid worker in Central America, the former East Timor and Southern Africa.
“Local government is supposed to be the closest level of government to the people. However, our council is becoming less accessible and less democratic,” he told Green Left.
“I’m running for mayor because I want to bring council closer to the people. I want it to focus on what is best for our community.
“Council should not be commercialising public assets.
“Developing then leasing public assets to a commercial operator is just another form of privatisation that will subsidise private profit at the expense of our community.
“I don’t support spending tens of millions of dollars on projects like the Flintstone kiosk at Foreshore Park and the proposal for a fancy restaurant at the Newcastle Ocean Baths.
“Council should also not be involved with war-related business, like the missile factory at the airport, or pay its top bureaucrats and CEO corporate-style exorbitant salaries.”
A people-first council would conduct genuine community consultations around issues like the Newcastle Basketball Stadium and manufacturing weapons on council-owned land, O’Brien said.
“Consultations should be about really listening and responding to residents, not just a formality or box-ticking exercise.
“We need to bring local government back to the people. Make it accessible, democratic and reverse the corporatisation of Newcastle City Council.
“The major parties have turned government at every level into the slaves of corporate profit. We’ve seen what this has led to: run-down social services, reckless inaction in the face of the global climate emergency and — as we see so terrifyingly today — complicity in war and genocide. “
O’Brien said that more people are fed up with Labor and the Coalition and are looking for change. The far-right parties are exploiting this mood to spread their toxic messages of hate and division. But look at where their hero Donald Trump is taking the world! They are not a real alternative to the Liberal-Labor failure.”
[Read more about Socialist Alliance’s policies at socialist-alliance.org.au and get in touch at 0409 878 485 to help with the Mayoral campaign.]