Candidate profile: Edward Mandla

BY PATRICK BILLINGS

The number two Liberal in the City of Sydney election sees himself as ‘the parking candidate’. Though he’s a political cleanskin, with no affiliation to the right or left factions, Mandla is no stranger to election campaigns. Voters may remember him pumping iron and his ‘fighting full time for Sydney’ catchcry from the 2007 state election. Having run as the Liberal candidate for the seat of Sydney (he finished second, beating Labor and the Greens on a two-party preferred basis), Mandla already knows what to expect from Clover Moore, whom he describes as ‘a daunting force’.

If elected this time around, Mandla hopes to introduce a city policing unit that would report directly to, and be funded by, the Lord Mayor’s office.

‘They are more like community guardians,’ he says. ‘They are not police and they are a little more than rangers.’

The plan would see six new police stations opening in Kings Cross, Oxford Street, Glebe Point Road, Pyrmont, Newton and Millers Point.

Given his ‘parking candidate’ tag, it’s little surprise that Mandla is at odds with the Lord Mayor’s views on transportation. While Moore is adopting policies to discourage cars from entering the city, Mandla is defiantly pro-car. ‘We see parking as really important, while the current council wants everybody on bikes. I’m not sure people from Castle Hill will get onto a bike [and cycle into the city].’

Where city planning is concerned, Mandla believes the current council has geared its policies too far into the future. On the plan to redevelop Town Hall, he said: ‘It’s time we bulldozed Woolies and turned the whole place into a massive, underground, multi-level entertainment, retail, convention facility. Why are we waiting till 2030”

As an energetic, small ‘L’ liberal, his views on policing, parking and fiscal management may play well within the business community.