Leadership for Economic Growth through Environmental Stewardship
What I stand for
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Strong Economic Growth combined with the highest level of Environmental Stewardship
Open Conversations and Council-wide Collaboration A Balanced Council making decisions that represent and benefit everyone and all of its people. Leadership with Integrity |
About Me
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I am a Carpenter, Scientist, Innovator and Parent.
Originally from Germany, I have worked over the course of 34 years in the Manufacturing Industry, Tourism, Education, Leadership Training and Academia from Europe via Antarctica and the USA to Australia. Accepting a position with the Australian Antarctic Division I decided in 2011 to settle and make Hobart and Tasmania my permanent home. While I do have 30+ years of work experience I am young at heart, innovative and full of fresh out of the box ideas. Over the past three years, I have taken parental leave and focused my life as a single parent on providing my son with the love and care he deserves and among other things, organising two parenting groups. Soon he will be off to School, the perfect timing for me to become a councillor and contribute to the benefit of Hobart and its residents. I am a strong Supporter of Small Businesses, a lover of the Arts and a keen outdoor person. I strongly believe that we can combine strong economic growth with environmental stewardship protecting our most valuable asset the beautiful natural environment of Tasmania for the benefit of all. With my international experience, I am impressed by so many young innovators driving small business development (food trucks, smart technology, markets, yoga and arts to name a few) and the number of small corner stores, something which has become very rare in other parts of this world. This makes Hobart a very unique, charming and lovable place. Hobart has amazing intelligent people, who are passionate about and love their city, providing all the ingredients for a prosperous future. I do believe in developing opportunities that benefit all residents and don’t sell our assets cheaply to the first bidder. I am very interested in fostering the economic growth of Hobart City, the wider Hobart area and Tasmania. I do believe that this can be done and needs to be done Sustainably with environmental responsibility, reducing all, the impact on its residents and the natural environment. In my “free” time, I do enjoy all kinds of outdoor activities, gardening, building, working on science instrumentation, photography, cooking, a nice glass of red wine and good conversations with friends over dinner, listening to music and checking out the latest art exhibitions as well as attending our amazing festivals rain or shine. |
Key Challenges for the next 4, 10 and 30 years
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Integrating the need for broad as well as specific long-term planning in our daily opportunities and challenges. These include:
Improvements to our roads and public transportation infrastructure to cope with the increasing demand of a growing population. Improving efficiency and service, whether it’s red tape, unnecessary interference with home owners or a concept to reducing waste and provide sufficient waste collection centres for all those items that could be recycled however that are currently still going into the regular bin. Improvements to the housing situation both improving affordable housing as well as satisfying the demand of the Tourism industry. Future proofing the current boom of the tourism industry and diversifying the job market. Here Hobart and Tasmania has bright and innovative people and has great potential of being a leading smart sustainable technology Centre. Constructively dealing with our Health care issues in a broader regional context. Reducing waste and developing resilience in an ever-changing technical world. Improve communication and collaboration across party lines and find bipartisan solutions to our problems that benefit everyone and all. |
A few additional Thoughts and Interests
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Hobart City is a part of the larger Hobart Regional Area – roads, public transportation, health infrastructure – are all interlinked with neighbouring councils and require good collaboration and larger scale planning than that for one individual Council:
To thrive Hobart needs to be fluently connected to neighbouring suburbs within and beyond the Derwent Valley. Hobart is a central hub, linking the East Coast and the South with the North, the Central Highlands and the West Coast. While Hobart benefits from being this hub, Hobart also carries the burden. Traffic management must be done with foresight and considering long-term development. Thoughts and priority must be given to the development of a light rail, the connection across the Derwent River in particular with an aging Tasman Bridge and the lack of adequate bike connection, the North South Kingston to Bridgwater connection and the integration of bikes in particular e-bikes into the road system as well as necessary steps taken for bikes to be transported on buses. On the health system side, while Hobart needs to maintain outstanding medical teaching and research facilities, the health system itself is currently insufficient and likely require a decentralisation in which additional emergency & hospital services are provided in the northern suburbs, Kingston Huonville area and the Eastern Shores. My international experience will be a great asset for the Hobart City Council. Too often we reinvent the wheel despite the availability of proven solutions. Having lived in Europe, the USA and Antarctica, I have seen and experienced how communities have addressed issues in many different ways. I have seen and got used to living life in many different ways. People often think they need to reinvent the wheel while somewhere a solution for a problem has long been found, proven efficient and only needs some slight adaptation to a new location. I am highly suitable for helping to find these out of the box solutions. In Antarctica life becomes simple, depending on easy robust solution, which is what I want to contribute to the Hobart City Council. |