THE Liberal candidate for mayor of Newcastle, Jenny Barrie, has stepped back from commitments she made on housing affordability and climate change at a public, online forum after a phone call from the Liberal Party's media manager.
Ms Barrie attended the Hunter Community Alliance-run forum a week ago on November 4 where, along with four other mayoral candidates, she voted in favour of ten initiatives relating to homelessness, housing affordability and climate change. All five candidates agreed to push the council towards an affordable housing contribution scheme, and to set a significant target for the percentage of 'uplift value' from rezoning to go to affordable housing within the first 12 months of office.
During the forum, which was recorded, Ms Barrie spoke about her personal experience working with the St Vincent de Paul Society to address issues of homelessness, and what that had meant to her, before agreeing to the housing and homelessness initiatives developed by the alliance.
However, Ms Barrie back-pedalled on Tuesday night after receiving a phone call from the Liberal Party's Communication Director, Ian Zakon, who had "concerns' about some of the proposals which were "not Liberal-aligned".
"We're really mediated [sic] by Sydney," Ms Barrie said.
"I did say yes on that housing sort of one, but I didn't really think of the ramifications. I probably should have gone through the proposals individually like other people did."
Hunter Community Alliance Steering Committee Co-Chair, Garry Derkenne, said it was disappointing.
"Unfortunately, Ms Barrie's backflip is the story of what makes politics as usual out of touch," he said.
"We have a local resident, Ms Barrie, from the Liberal Party who expressed her own views last Thursday on what makes sense locally. And we seem to have the state, or federal ideologues overriding her. It's one of the reasons we need community alliances like ours to advocate for local solutions."
