Spotlight : Councillor Paul Gleeson, Candidate for Division 9

I was born in Brisbane as one of three boys. My identical twin and I, Steve were born in 1973 and our brother, Brian, came along a little later. I would say we had quite a difficult upbringing. Owing to changing family circumstances, we moved around a lot, around Brisbane, down to Tassie, up to Nanango and back so we didn't have a lot of stability. For instance we went to 15 different schools. We moved to Tassie when I was about three. I was diagnosed with Systemic Idiopathic Juvenile Arthritis when I was 6 and so my family moved back to Brisbane for the warmer climate. (Systemic is the worst strain of Juvenile arthritis. It affects organs as well as joints and many die before they get to 30 from it. 10-20% of kids grow out of it and I was one of the lucky ones) When I was 10, Mum was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer - she was aged 29. She lived for another nine years and was in and out of hospitals and various homes. My brothers and I used to visit her regularly and by the time she ended up in a high care nursing home, she was in a really bad way. Dad was on the Carer's pension and we lived in public housing for a while. Mum's illness placed a lot of stresses on the family as you can imagine. The year I turned 15, I took up carpentry apprenticeship (Steve later joined the Army). That was 1988 and after I'd finished, there was a bit of a recession which meant there really was no building work. I had three bosses in two years and so in 1990 I went into retail.

When I was 23, I met my wife Nicky. In April this year we will have been married 15 years. We have two boys and one girl, Jake, 14, Deagen, 11 and Keira, 6. We operated a carpel cleaning and water damage restoration business for nearly 14 years. At one stage we had 12 staff. Why did I run for Council? I have been interested in politics for a long time. I became involved in campaigning on a local level when some residents in my neighbourhood were fighting against the Rhodes Development in Capalaba; I dabbled with the LNP before deciding that party politics was really not for me. I threw my name in the hat because the opportunity to run for Council came up and, to be honest, I was quite surprised when I won. I'd like to think that I have been a decent representative for the area since. I do think I work very hard as I have no other interests in my life! I am on call 24/7 and have really made my life about doing the best job I can for the people in my Division. I have achieved quite a few things I'm proud of: the war on graffiti; beautifications; infrastrucutre such as the new stage in Capalaba Regional Park; driving the establishment of the Bayside Blues Festival; bringing the giant Waterslide to Redlands. Ultimately my one goal is to keep working on building community pride in this Division. My goal is to better promote another image of Capalaba: as a great place to live for families, where there are great cultural events happening and there are beautiful and safe neighbourhoods. Given my background in small business, I also believe it is really important for Council to be run as as any good business. It should be run in a way that can future-proof the City against whatever market pressures come into play, minimising debt and controlling rates increases because many households in my Division do continue to struggle. Working to meet the needs of both businesses and residents in Capalaba is really important and I think it's something I do reasonably well. I hope the residents of Division 9 will see that on March 19.