By JONATHON HOWARD
GREENS candidate for Noosa Joe Shlegeris has made a campaign commitment to donate $50,000 of his pay packet to establish a community benefit fund, should he win next year’s state seat of Noosa.
The offer comes as Mr Shlegeris targets what, he believes, are “grossly overpaid” Queensland state politicians.
“Noosa’s local member is on a whale of a pay packet, with salary and super of over $349,000 plus another $61,000 in slush funds,” Mr Shlegeris said.
“Are we getting good value?”
Mr Shlegeris said he accepted that politicians have to be paid something.
“If we paid nothing, then only rich people would be able to take these jobs,” he said.
“But we could pay far less and get candidates at least as good as the ones we get now.”
He said if the voters of Noosa did him the honour of electing him next year, he would be eligible for the base pay of almost $150,000.
“It’s fair to be paid an adequate wage, but I’m serious about delivering value to the community,” he said.
“So I’ll put the first $50,000 of each year’s pay into a community benefit fund to be distributed to non-profit groups delivering effective and efficient services within the Noosa electorate.
“There are plenty of organisations and hard-working volunteers whose good work could be amplified with just a little more cash.
“I think taxpayers would rather support these volunteers than waste their tax money on over-paid politicians.
“As a first step, I’ll give back the first $50,000 and ask other members to do so also.”
Mr Shlegeris said in addition to salary, each local member is entitled to another $61,000 per year in funds which, he said, appears to be used as taxpayer-funded re-election budgets.
“One of these is allocated for expenditure by the local member on local programs of his choosing,” he said.
“I promise to allocate all of that to effective volunteer and charitable operations in the Noosa electorate.
“Another is the ‘communications’ budget. Many volunteer organisations would benefit from having access to funds for communications. I pledge to allocate all of the communications budget to such purposes. It should never be otherwise.
“Every candidate for the seat of Noosa claims to have a strong desire to serve the community. There’s no hardship in living on $100,000 per year, especially if you claim to be serving the community. I call on every candidate to make the same promise to the voters of Noosa.
“I ask people to think it through. This time you can vote Green.”
