The mayors who would be members

Greens mayors of Marrickville and Leichhardt, Fiona Byrne and Jamie Parker, have a good chance of becoming members of NSW parliament at the state election on March 26.

City News interviewed the candidates to see if two new dual role MP’s would be joining the likes of Lord Mayor Clover Moore MP at state parliament this year.

Cr Byrne is vying for the seat of Marrickville and a recent Galaxy poll has her in front with 44 per cent of the primary vote over Labor’s Carmel Tebbutt with 33 per cent.

“I won’t be standing at the next council election,” Cr Byrne said. “Next September there will be another mayoral election and I certainly wouldn’t be putting my hand up to be mayor again.”

Cr Byrne said that she felt she had been an effective member for the council and the community, but said should she win the state seat she would be focused on seeing through issues that had come to her attention from the local community.

“We need to be able to affect change at a state level, to change the impacts they’re having in the local area,” she said. “Having been on council and seeing the way that (state) decisions affect the local community, things like planning decisions… we’ve had some really tangible developments that the community is up in arms about.”

Cr Byrne spruiked a mayor’s abilities to bring together a group of 12 councillors with differing views and get outcomes, something that she thinks will be useful should she win a seat in state parliament.

Cr Parker is the front runner for the seat of Balmain with his party requiring only a small swing in the Labor held seat. He said that should he win the seat he would step down from the mayoralty at the next mayoral election and would then step down from being a councillor at the 2012 local elections.

“If I were to step down from council that would trigger a by-election which is very expensive and unnecessary,” he said. “So I would stay on as a councillor, but I wouldn’t stay on as mayor.”

Cr Parker said that the biggest learning curve in local government was how to deal with other levels of government and members of the community, how to lobby, coordinate and get results.

“I’ve got over ten years of experience working in the local community, reflecting values and the priorities of the community to different levels of government to deliver achievements,” he said.

Cr Parker said that to be mayor and the local member would be “too much” and that he wished to focus on one role should he win the seat.