“The LNP only cares about the CBD and is neglecting the suburbs” has been a frequent rallying cry for Labor Councillors in BCC. It’s not really clear to me that that’s a very accurate criticism, if I’m being honest.

But they are also promising to “prioritise footpath repairs over unnecessary projects”, which is excellent, especially if “unnecessary projects” includes the endless congestion-creating road-widening projects that the LNP has been behind. They also promise to introduce food waste bins (so-called “FOGO”). I don’t know about most people, but personally if I had a FOGO bin I wouldn’t need to put out my general waste bin more than like once a month.

I’m reminded of some discussion that took place at the BCC meeting on 6th June this year, about which I made the following observations:

Lord Mayor says that Labor intends to cut red-top bin sizes and frequency of service. Points to other Councils including Townsville’s Labor-lead Council and some Victorian Greens-lead Council, which have done the same.

Not clear what Brisbane Labor’s actual position is [note, there is still no evidence that they actually do plan to cut back on red-bin collection], but the Lord Mayor says that it includes having weekly FOGO while reducing the general waste collection.

Personally, I’d be all for that. The strawman (whether accurate or not) that the LNP is presenting of Labor’s position actually sounds completely reasonable to me. Right now, I don’t have FOGO collection. But if I did, I’d probably not need general waste collected more than monthly, if that. Most of my general waste today could be FOGO. Even including that FOGO I don’t get close to filling up my 30 L inside bin, let alone the over 240 L Council bin.