Jonathan Sriranganathan will be “unapologetically radical” if he wins his bid to become Brisbane lord mayor next year.
That might not be a surprise to those in the river city who know of the former Greens councillor, poet and musician, who says local government has always been about more than “roads, rates and rubbish”.
“I’m very unapologetic about the fact that my politics are quite radical,” he says. “Our political system has been completely hijacked by big business and we need to transform almost everything from the bottom up.”
Following months of speculation, Sriranganathan announced on Wednesday he will become the Greens’ 2024 candidate in Australia’s largest local government. Brisbane city council has almost 1.3 million residents, making its population roughly the size of Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory combined.
It also has an annual budget of $4.3bn, giving it the purchasing power of a quasi state government.
Political experts don’t dismiss Sriranganathan’s chances of taking control of the council, with a Greens wave threatening the LNP wards of Paddington, Walter Taylor, Coorparoo and Central.
In 2016, Sriranganathan joined senator Larissa Waters to become the second Greens politician and first Greens councillor in the entire state. In the years since, the rainbow scarf-wearing poet has planted seeds of Greens influence throughout the city that the party is now sowing.
In 2017, state MP Michael Berkman took the seat of Maiwar. Three years later, Amy MacMahon was elected in South Brisbane, knocking out the former deputy premier, Jackie Trad. A so-called “Greenslide” followed in last year’s federal election, with the party winning the electorates of Brisbane, Griffith and Ryan and another senate seat.
Sriranganathan will face off against the LNP lord mayor, Adrian Schrinner, the highest-ranking Liberal leader in mainland Australia, and Labor’s candidate, Brisbane lawyer Tracey Price.
Sriranganathan envisions Brisbane as a walkable city with “free and frequent” public transport and extra bike lanes. More green spaces would also mitigate the “urban heat island effect” and soak up flood water, he says.
Some of his positions would cause headaches for the Palaszczuk government. For example, Sriranganathan says he would not support the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane – unless the state government abandons its $2.7bn plans to rebuild the Gabba stadium.
“It’s utterly ridiculous that we’re spending billions of dollars on stadiums rather than reusing existing facilities,” he says. “The government needs to spend a lot more time addressing the housing crisis, the climate crisis and other urgent issues that so many people are concerned about.”
After stepping down in April as councillor of the Gabba ward – a position he held for seven years – Sriranganathan says he senses a mood for change. Ideas that were once fringe or radical – such as rent caps – are now on the national agenda, he says.
“I think a lot of people are increasingly frustrated with the two major parties … at poor outcomes on issues like housing and transport,” he says. “Policy solutions that we’ll be prioritising are going to be geared towards deep, systemic change.”
Sriranganathan says the Greens are investigating how the council could introduce rent caps in Brisbane. They’re also looking at how to use existing housing stock more efficiently.
He describes accusations from political opponents of the Greens engaging in “nimbyism” and blocking housing as “bullshit”.
“Even in my ward, the Gabba ward, there have been thousands of new dwellings built in recent years,” he says.
“There’s a really important distinction between building new public housing, which we really need a lot more of, as opposed to building private developments that don’t challenge the treatment of housing as a commodity.”
The high-profile federal MP Max Chandler-Mather, who has clashed repeatedly with Anthony Albanese, was Sriranganathan’s campaign manager in 2016. Chandler-Mather ran the biggest campaign in Australian Greens’ history to win the seat of Griffith. An army of volunteers knocked on more than 90,000 doors and organised local forums, planted community gardens and handed out Covid-19 care packages.
Sriranganathan says the party will reactivate its grassroots campaign for next year’s election. He says hundreds of volunteers have signed up and the party has already spoken with 1,000 residents in Paddington.
“The Greens campaign is going to revolve really heavily around … listening to the community … rather than saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got all the answers,’” he says.
