BRAVEHEARTS founder and Cedar Creek woman Hetty Johnston says her background in child protection proves she has what it takes to lead Logan City.
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Ms Johnston officially entered the race for the Logan mayoralty on Wednesday morning and announced plans to stand down as Bravehearts’ chief executive officer ahead of the March 19 election.
Ms Johnston, who was last year named Queensland’s 2015 Australian of the Year, arrived with a media contingent outside the Logan City Council chambers on Wednesday morning.
Standing next to her plaque on Logan’s Wall of Acclaim, Ms Johnston extolled her work with Bravehearts saying it had put her in good stead to enter local government.
“If caring about people is what drives you to politics then local government is the natural home for me,” she said.
“(After) 20 years in child protection, you start to understand what the indicators are and what life circumstances collaborate to make children vulnerable… which then impacts on the city itself and on their communities.
“It’s about making sure there’s opportunities for our children and our grandchildren… I can’t leave that in the hands of anybody else, that can’t drop off our radar or our priority list, that’s my number one priority.
“(Children) need to live in communities that are cohesive, they need to have respect for elders, they need education, they need homes, they need health, all of these things.
“It takes a community to raise a child and Logan’s going to do better than anybody else by the time we are finished here.”
The tilt is not Ms Johnston’s first at politics, with the mother-of-two having previously run at all three levels of government.
She said among her priorities as Logan Mayor would be to drive growth in a city that needed to “expand its rate base”.
“We need development, we are only 20 per cent urbanised, we need a rate base… (and) to make sustainable decisions about how to grow this city for the benefit of the people who live here,” she said.
“We get that right, everything else falls into place.
“This city has to be attractive and it can be, to businesses and investment from right around the country and internationally.”
She said as a resident of Cedar Creek, she had a good understanding of the needs of Logan’s rural areas.
“We understand what it’s like because we live there, we understand the conditions of the roads,” she said.
“Which is why we need to have more development, more investment in Logan so we can get the rate base up and afford to make all these things more family friendly and bring this city forward.”
Ms Johnston said her aim was to build on the legacy left by outgoing Mayor Pam Parker, who will not contest the 2016 election.
She said she believed her standing among the voters of Logan was good.
“I think they see me as someone who doesn’t just talk about it, who actually does it,” she said.
“I’m an achiever, I’ve been a Logan resident and a fighter for Logan for 30 years as has been evident by this (plaque) on the wall.
“This is my home, everything about me is Logan, I think they’ll see me as someone who is going to fight for them and for their families and for their children.
““Look out for Hetty Johnston… I am not coming into this to lose, I intend to win this election.
“I am going to be doing everything in my power to make sure I that win it and that’s not an ego statement, it’s because I know this is what I’m supposed to do.”
