Logan’s first female mayor
I was elected to Logan City Council in 1997 as a councillor and elected as Logan’s first female Mayor in 2008.
I was re-elected unopposed in the 2012 election.
I ran for council in 1997 to bring about change for families and youth and to build community pride.
Apart from being a wife, mother and friend, I don’t have another job.
Being the Mayor of Logan City, the fifth largest local government area in Australia, by population, is a 24/7 job!
Rural and urban
The City of Logan is a dynamic, diverse and proud community and is a perfect place for young families to grow.
More than 300,000 people already call Logan home.
The city is made up of 63 suburbs and covers 957km2.
The city’s population is growing at 2.2 percent a year, with new town centres at Yarrabilba and Flagstone coming to life.
We are a green city and have the lowest level of pollution in Australia.
With 80 percent of our city being rural, semi-rural or conservation, Logan has more than 900 parks as well as world-renowned wetlands and bike trails.
We are fabulously situated in the heart of South East Queensland between the Gold Coast and Brisbane, and have loads of room to grow, while being able to offer access to well established transport networks including road, rail, sea and air.
All within about 30 minutes of Logan.
Growth is our greatest challenge, we have had faced constant challenges including the financial impacts of amalgamation, the global financial crisis, our growing suburbs, the lingering effects of the 2013 flood event, and the lack of funding from other levels of governments for our massive infrastructure needs.
We recently turned the first sod on the keenly-anticipated $10 million Beenleigh Town Square project, which will transform the CBD of one of our key urban areas and has been many years in the making.
We are also working hard in the area of encouraging investment in Logan.
I led a trade and investment delegation to China last year, which resulted in being invited to Korea to discuss opportunities in Logan.
From previous targeted marketing, there is over $2 billion of investment already in the pipeline.
This year we hosted the very successful inaugural South East Queensland Investment Expo and have further international visits planned.
We have so much room in Logan, while it is only 18 percent urbanised, we need to continue courting this investment to secure our future, creating jobs for our future generations.
An important issue to me is securing Logan’s future; I am passionate about shaping the future in Logan, particularly for our youth.
I am determined to attract quality investment in Logan and I am an avid supporter of economic development in the city as it is vital for job creation.
Sustainable growth is imperative to create a City that all residents are proud of.
Receiving the 2011 Queensland Award for Economic Development Excellence – Economic Development (Elected Member) was rewarding as it recognised a number of initiatives, including influencing the style and quality of development in Logan, the creation of Invest Logan Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned company of Logan City Council as well as the turnaround of our Development Assessment(DA) branch after amalgamation. We dealt with the backlog of DA applications inherited from amalgamation within 18 months and our DA staff took out the State award for the best DA practices.
Community
The best part of being a councillor is, without doubt, the community.
Most importantly building upon our strong and unique caring community spirit.
People ask me often what is unique about Logan and I say, hand on heart, it is our incredible strong, caring, community spirit.
I want to leave a legacy of a Mayor who truly cared for her community, who was passionate about shaping the future, who had a long-term achievable vision.
My dream is to transform the image of the City of Logan and to create an innovative and progressive city of opportunities for today’s and future generations.
I have come up against the ‘boys club’ and received a back handed compliment when told ‘I would make a good Mayor, except I was not corrupt’.
I personally admire strong women who push through barriers.
I think women in leadership roles send a message to other women to believe in themselves, women supporting women can make doing an often-thankless job much easier.
I have always said I live by the quote “It’s not how many times you get knocked down that count, it’s how many times you get back up.” (George A. Custer – 1839-1876).
