Team Quirk - Arrogance Not Wanted

Myself and TEAM QUIRK

I will get this straight from the beginning, for those in the LNP who may think I am a Labor Person. Since I was eligible to vote, I have been voting for conservative parties with the exception of two occasions, both times was to rid ourselves of inept, ineffectual and/or arrogant Government. So that fixes that counter argument.

Next, I am 64 so you can guess how long I have been voting for. Next I live in the electorate of Deagon, Sandgate to be precise and have done so now for a number of years, so you know where I come from.

Now for these series of articles on my Blog, http://snaicoman.blogspot.com.au/ just in case you want to read it, I find this has been an unnecessary distraction to my regular articles that I am writing about due to the situation created with our Pier at Shorncliffe.
It is correctly named Sandgate Pier and referred to as the Shorncliffe Pier most times, but I shall just call it our Pier

Now I have previously written about this and your election materials but here is the pertinent details again highlighting in bold some pertinent points

·         Our Pier: - It has been closed due to safety reasons, what does Graham Quirk say, we may have to demolish it and maybe build something else. He has said this without an engineer’s report, has not consulted with the community again NOTHING. He even ignores contacts with people in Sandgate whose businesses are suffering due to the closure, saying through a spokesperson, “that he understands the concern of locals, but would not have any additional information until and engineering report was completed in an unknown amount of time” yet he stated that our Pier may have to be demolished and something else built in its place, so why say that in the first place! I find this extremely poor and hypocritical.

·         Who you think you are, a totalitarian entity, I don’t think so Graham Quirk this is our Pier and we want our say. Arrogance is not a good quality, it is our Pier and if you can spend $8 billion on your tunnels for the City, buy flood prone land for $15 million and spend millions and millions for the City area (CBD), you can afford a million or so for the outer suburbs where hundreds of thousands of people go every year, OR DON’T WE RATE IN YOUR PLANS FOR BRISBANE!

This situation has now been going for over a couple of weeks, and we cannot seem to get any clarification from Graham Quirk, so I have tryed to get some answers, 4BC posted the following

4BC Drive Show ‏ @4BCdrive

@Team_Quirk Do you have a question for the Lord Mayor?? Give us a call on 13 13 32 or tune in to Brisbane's own 1116AM - 4BC

So I submitted a question for him to answer, with a copy to his twitter account Team Quirk, a simple one not too hard:

Ian ‏ @Snaicoman

@4BCdrive @Team_Quirk Why won't you answer Questions & reply to emails from our Community about the Shorncliffe Pier you have written off!

8:35 AM - 30 Mar 12 via web ·

And this is the reply I received, the proverbial brush off, and guess what, they did not answer the question anyway, either through ignorance, stupidity or arrogance, I prefer ARROGANCE myself

  30 MarTeam Quirk ‏ @Team_Quirk

@Snaicoman Ian - there will be a Shorncliffe Pier - engineers are doing assessment now - see comments on @SpencerHowson http://bit.ly/GZ4BLp

(The link was incorrectly sent by Spencer to Team Quirk, so don’t bother to click on it, at least Spencer admits a mistake has occurred and I appreciate that.)

But for the reply, are these people so arrogant, to send a reply that does not answer a Question posed to their leader, I guess so. A mistake by the way you have made me delve a little more.

(Now for the record, when I refer to Graham, I refer to Graham Quirk and his Team Quirk collectively)

Delving well, it was easy, Graham likes to quote the Brisbane’s Access and Inclusion Plan 2012-2017 regularly, so downloaded this, a good document that I shall now refer to, having stuck with the executive summary, it basically talks about people with disabilities but states that everyone will benefit, so

Principles

The following principles underpin the Brisbane Access and Inclusion Plan 2012-2017:

        abilities, not disabilities

        fundamental rights for all

        genuine dialogue and participation

        improving access and inclusion for all

        judicious utilisation of resources

        the benefits of working across sectors

        universal design.

They affirm the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Local Government Act 2009 and the City of Brisbane Act 2010.

Everyone will benefit from better access and inclusion

Council recognises that better access and inclusion will benefit all Brisbane residents and visitors – and, in particular, people with a disability, people with chronic illness, people experiencing temporary impairment, seniors, parents with young children and associated family, friends and carers.

Good principles, however the part mentioning “genuine dialogue and participation” must have slipped Graham’s mind, because there has not been any genuine dialogue from him, just a statement  “- there will be a Shorncliffe Pier”

Now for the next section I refer to on page 5 of the document, Section 2:

2. Planning, development and infrastructure

                Residents work with us to carefully plan for the future of Brisbane.

Oh dear, Graham must have forgotten about this as well, he has not approached us to plan anything, he just comes out and tells us in vague terms what he is going to do with our Pier

This next section I find interesting,

5. Customer service and governance

                Brisbane residents are active citizens of the city and experience effective, accountable and democratic local governance.

                Residents actively and meaningfully participate in decisions that affect their lives and the future of Brisbane, feeling confident in having their say.

                We want to be a customer-focused organisation delivering the highest level of service to all Brisbane residents, being responsive, understanding and engaging with people’s needs and making it easy to do business with us.

Graham, have you forgotten about this one too, or do you forget that, as stated in this document that you are an “accountable and democratic local governance” and yet you blatantly ignore your residents and active citizens when they express their concerns about statements that you make. Or, do you just not care what residents think and that this document is not much less that printed toilet paper to you.

You want to be customer focussed, but Graham you are ignoring us, and what does any good customer do when they are ignored, but go elsewhere where they can get better customer service.

You have spent millions on the Brisbane Town Hall because of its heritage value, and yet our Pier is heritage to us, and you just say that you may have to demolish it and build something else in it’s place, without an engineering report or any consultation with residents and the community as a whole. We get hundreds of thousands of people a year using our Pier and walkways for picnics, photos, fishing and many other activities, how many people use the Brisbane Town Hall? Not as many.

So I question your integrity, Graham, in living up to your printed plans (even some of these quoted sections appear in your published budget) and how much are you Graham, ignoring other areas and communities throughout Brisbane City Council area. Are you just concerned with Brisbane City area and nearby suburbs, and ignoring us in areas such as we live in?           It looks like it to me.

Summing up Graham, in my opinion you have no integrity as you cannot live up to your printed plans for brisbane, yet quote them regularly. you ignore your residents and the community when they express their concerns. you remind me of the old COUNTRY PARTY days, lets knock down cloudland or anything else decent from the past and build something else in its place, and your arrogant replies, well YOU’RE not quite in the league of anna bligh but pretty close to it.

Trying to ride on the success of Campbell Newman’s election victory (by the way I voted for him in my electorate and there is already a positive change in the State and a new good LNP representative) will not work, you will not be successful from this voters perspective and I tell any person I talk to this fact.  You appear to me as ARROGANT, NON COMMITAL and IGNORANT, and this does not go down well with me. Treating the community here with a totalitarian attitude too is unforgiving. Wake up lad, this is OUR CUMMUNITY treat it with the RESPECT it deserves!