Crace community leader David Pollard has thrown his hat in the ring for the ACT election, joining a growing number of minor parties and independents contesting the October election, fed up with the major parties.
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Mr Pollard is president of the Crace Community Association and also on the Gungahlin Community Council.
He says his interest in politics was sparked last year, when his baby son was born two months premature and he took time off work to spend with the family and become involved with local groups.
His essential message is that Canberrans deserve a more accountable, transparent government, and a strong crossbench is healthy to keep the major parties in check. He wants a corruption commission in the ACT.
"I think a majority government is dangerous," he said. "The major parties are important and don't think we can get by without them, but I think the current political landscape affords them too much leeway."
Mr Pollard said the community was "smart enough" to handle more information about what went on behind the scenes, including policy debates within the major parties.
"Pull back the curtain a bit, trust us, we deserve it, we can take it," he said, pointing to his own efforts to get information on bus patronage from Crace to the city. He had struggled to get the data from the bureaucracy to establish whether patronage justified a direct bus instead of a bus that looped back to Gungahlin first, and said he did not understand why access to such data should be blocked or difficult to access.
He has also been trying to persuade the government to run a feasibility study on offering green bins, without success. But just weeks after his most recent knockback on the issue, the government had announced a pilot would begin.
"I don't feel that they should be surprising us that way and unfortunately the current system allows them to," he said.
As for the tram, Mr Pollard said he supported it, but only as part of a citywide network. As a Crace resident, he would not use the tram – which would require a bus 15 minutes back to Gungahlin to catch it, but it would relieve horrendous pressure on the roads in and out of Crace.
Mr Pollard, 34, who grew up in Kaleen, is a software developer in a family company, set up by his father the year he was born. He is one of five siblings, three of whom work in the company, Compucraft Software Solutions, along with their parents. His low-budget campaign will make the most of his digital savvy.
His website calls for more for Gungahlin – a nurse-led walk-in health centre, a master plan to avoid the current situation where inadequate roads are being duplicated, and more schools.
One of the big picture reforms he has in mind is a move to a four-day working week, without loss in pay. He believes many jobs, including in the public service, could be done in fewer hours, with a better work-life balance.
"It works elsewhere in the world, it may or may not work in the ACT but I'd like to start asking the questions," he said. "I've been working 20 hours a week for 12 months and it's really good. At the moment our society doesn't support that choice."
Mr Pollard is aware of the difficulty, some would say virtual impossibility, of independents getting the 17 per cent vote needed to get elected. But he is in talks with some of the minor parties and has not ruled out standing under one of their banners.
