Dear neighbours,

I’m writing after spending the last two weeks at City Hall, and I want to be upfront with you.

When I finally received the budget, it was basically an empty shell, just topline figures, no real detail. What it did show were deep cuts to public transport infrastructure, parks (new parks, maintenance and upgrades), drainage, and storm water.

In the budget estimates meetings, I was often the only opposition Councillor present, because the ALP chose not to show up. Only the Greens and independent Councillors turned up to do the work. That meant the job of scrutinising the budget, asking questions, and pushing back on the cuts fell to us. I spent late nights going through the numbers, checking what was missing, and came back ready to debate and vote on how these decisions would hit our communities.

My focus, as always, is standing up for the people of Gabba Ward.

I shared your stories, about flooding in the small streets of West End, about Dutton Park Place station being left out of the Metro plans, about unreliable buses on routes 234, 60, 196, 192, and the axed 86.

I raised the issue of missing CityCat services at Kangaroo Point, and the lack of a second West End Terminal.

I flagged major gaps in our active transport network, like the missing Riverwalk link from Dockside to Mowbray Park, and the Vulture Street Bikeway. And the fact the Montague Road Project was nowhere to be seen.

All of this is happening while rates and rates revenue keep going up in 2025/26 yet services are being slashed. 

I love this place - Brisbane and the Gabba Ward - and I take seriously my role to make it better, now and for the future. It’s tough to witness the full extent of the LNP’s budget mismanagement unfold, knowing first-hand how these decisions will impact the people I speak with every day.

I’ll share more of the details of this budget shortly but I want to be clear: the fight’s not over.

Even with this wave of cuts and the tired excuse of austerity, I’ll keep doing what I’ve always done, using every tool, every platform, and every scrap of leverage I’ve got to push back and deliver real outcomes for our community.

Because this isn’t just about numbers on a page, it’s about real people, real streets, real lives. These issues matter. You matter.

And I’m here. I’m not backing down. And I’m fighting for us all.

In solidarity,
Trina

Read on to learn more about:

• CityCat Failure: Holman Still Ignored, West End Overloaded
• Budget Proves Lord Mayor Has No Real Plan for Homelessness
• No Plan, No Path, No Progress on the Story Bridge
• The Budget Greenwash: Blooming for 2032, Burning the Planet Today
• Minor local projects with budget funding
• City Resilience Falling Behind
• Metro Stop for Dutton Park Bus Station
• New Dog Park for Riverside Drive
• Brisbane’s Stages Are Going Dark - But It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way
• Community Notices
• Tree Removals
• Upcoming Events

CityCat Failure: Holman Still Ignored, West End Overloaded

I’ve got an important update for Kangaroo Point and West End ferry users, and frankly, it’s disappointing.

For the first time in six years, there’s no new funding in this year’s Council budget for building or upgrading any CityCat terminals. That includes long-overdue investment in our area.

According to Council data, Holman Street is the sixth most-used ferry terminal in Brisbane. It gets more passengers than New Farm, Regatta, or Teneriffe, yet it’s still the only terminal in the top 15 without a CityCat service. Residents have been calling for this for years. With a Ferry network review coming up, the time to push for Holman Street to be included is approaching. 

Then there’s West End. The existing terminal can’t meet demand  and it’s too far from the high-density residential area along Montague Road. We need a second stop to properly service this rapidly growing community. In the final Council sitting of this session, I put forward an emergency motion to build a second West End CityCat terminal. Both the LNP and the Lord Mayor voted it down.

Budget Proves Lord Mayor Has No Real Plan for Homelessness

The latest Council budget makes one thing heartbreakingly clear: this Lord Mayor does not care about homelessness - at least not enough to actually do anything meaningful about it.

This year, the one big-ticket budget item for homelessness in our area? A $500,000 grant to Emmanuel City Mission to expand into overnight accommodation. But the full cost of that expansion is $1.5 million. So where’s the other million supposed to come from? It’s more smoke and mirrors from a Lord Mayor with no real plan, just press releases.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of solutions this Council could implement if it actually wanted to address the housing and homelessness crisis:

• 🏘️ Vacancy Levy – make it harder for landlords to leave homes and shops sitting empty while people sleep on the street. Read more
• 🏠 Airbnb Crackdown – return short-term holiday lets back into the long-term rental market. Read more
• 📏 Inclusionary Zoning – make developers include affordable housing in every new development. Read more
• 🧊 Rent Freeze – give renters some much-needed breathing room by tying rates increases to rent increases. Read more

Instead of investing in housing, prevention, or wraparound support, the cruel Lord Mayor’s only consistent approach has been to criminalise people doing it tough.

No Plan, No Path, No Progress on the Story Bridge

After two decades of inaction by the LNP administration, the Lord Mayor has finally scrambled to announce $18 million for the Story Bridge. But this is a rushed patch-up job, not a real fix. The funds will provide basic maintenance, a business case, and maybe one footpath reopened in six months.

Meanwhile, the LNP State Government hasn’t even shown up. Not a single line item in their budget for the Story Bridge.

I’ve been pushing for action: converting one lane for active transport to create a safe, direct, and accessible link across the river for pedestrians and cyclists. My petition gathered over 1,700 signatures, and I formally moved a motion in Council calling for this change. The LNP opposed my motion and the ALP didn’t even bother to turn up to vote.

Brisbane deserves bold, people-first infrastructure - not band-aid budgets after years of neglect.

In the meantime, the community has stepped up and is organising bike buses to help cyclists commute across the Story Bridge. Follow the Story Bridge Active Travel Alliance on Facebook to get involved.

The Budget Greenwash: Blooming for 2032, Burning the Planet Today

Let’s talk about the so-called “green” agenda in this year’s Council budget and why it’s more about looking good for Olympic visitors than actually delivering meaningful environmental outcomes for Brisbane.

Yes, green waste bins are being rolled out across the city but there’s still no plan to deal with food and organic waste, the largest contributor to methane emissions from our tips. A genuine zero-waste strategy is nowhere to be seen.

The Lord Mayor also announced a $2 million tree-planting program. Sounds great, right? Until you realise it’s about making sure certain trees bloom in August 2032 - perfect for TV backdrops during the Olympics. And no commitment to using native trees. This isn’t climate action; it’s choreography.

Then there’s Mt Coot-tha. The budget talks about enhancing it as a major asset ahead of the Olympics. If you’re getting zipline flashbacks, you’re not alone. We've seen this playbook before, and Brisbane residents, especially in the Gabba ward, know that when the LNP say they’ll “enhance” our green spaces, it usually means privatisation, monetisation, or development.

We should be investing in climate resilience, reducing emissions, and safeguarding our native flora and fauna, not dressing up the city to impress VIPs.

Brisbane deserves a Council that takes climate seriously and not just when the cameras are on.

Minor local projects with budget funding

With very little new spending in this year’s budget, there is not much to report. However there are a couple of local projects which I’m pleased we will see delivered:

• The bus stop on Gladstone Road at the intersection of Dornoch Terrace will be rebuilt.
• Two new buses will be added to the Blue CityGlider (60) route, improving reliability and frequency.
• $296k has been budgeted for tree protection upgrades for Musgrave Park.

City Resilience Falling Behind

Drainage and storm water resilience projects across the city have been slashed by $37.4 million (originally, I shared a post that it was 35.7m - but it’s even worse than we first thought). We’ve just had floods, the tail of ex-Cyclone Alfred, and we’re living through one of the warmest winters on record. Climate change is here, and the LNP administration is making it worse instead of making sure we’re prepared.

There are a couple of minor drainage and storm water projects listed for the Gabba Ward. I will be meeting with Council staff in the near future to find out what exactly will be delivered.

• Dutton St, Dutton Park - drainage network works
• Vulture St, West End - drainage network works
• Melbourne St, South Brisbane - drainage network works
• Barnsley St, West End - storm water drainage rehabilitation 
• Drury St, West End - storm water project, continuation

Metro Stop for Dutton Park Bus Station

Council’s new Metro 2 route completely bypasses the Dutton Park Bus Station, leaving Fairfield, Annerley and Dutton Park residents without a high-frequency service to UQ. The 66 service has been scrapped, and Council failed to upgrade the station to accommodate the new Metro vehicles. Alongside Councillor Johnston, I’ve launched a joint petition calling for Metro 2 to stop at Dutton Park to restore proper public transport access for our community.

New Dog Park for Riverside Drive

For the past two years, I’ve been working hard behind the scenes to get approval for a new dog park on Riverside Drive. After the original dog park closed in 2022, Council had given up trying to find a replacement location.

To be honest, I’m still somewhat shocked I was able to push an approval through after Council rejected every other site we explored including Davies Park, further up Riverside Drive, and even proposals to buy vacant land for new parkland.

Davies Park was a no-go because it’s zoned for sports and recreation, has multiple leases across the site, and simply can’t provide a large enough space for a dog park within these constraints.

With Kurilpa’s rapidly growing population and the already-high number of dog owners, it was critical to get a replacement dog park in close proximity to the old one.

I’ll be allocating funding from my 2025/26 Suburban Enhancement Fund to deliver the dog park. It should be open by the end of the financial year. I’m hosting pop up offices on Riverside Drive and in Davies Park to discuss the proposal in more detail. Drop by to say hi and have a chat.

For those wondering why the old dog park couldn’t be reopened, it was located on top of seriously toxic waste which was dumped there in the early colonial period. The waste was leaking into the river after topsoil was washed away in the 2022 floods, and had to be recapped in 2023 with clay when both the LNP Council and the Labor State government refused to foot the bill for full waste removal and remediation. Planting trees on top, having dogs potentially dig there, or putting any kind of structures like fence posts will inevitably breach the cap and cause toxins to leach into the river

Davies Park Pop Up Office

Tuesday 29 July 4pm to 5:30pm

Riverside Drive (near Beesley St) Pop Up Offices

Tuesday 31 July 4pm to 5:30pm

Brisbane’s Stages Are Going Dark - But It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

With The Bearded Lady closing in late May, we’ve lost another beloved live music venue. Like the Rumpus Room before it, this isn’t just a business shutting down. It’s a creative community being displaced. A place that held space for artists, outsiders, queers, rebels, and music lovers.

This isn’t happening because these venues aren’t valued - they are deeply loved. It’s happening because our system allows landlords to sit on empty buildings, writing off lost rent as a tax deduction and artificially inflating land values (and commercial rent prices). Meanwhile, communities lose the cultural institutions that breathe life into our city.

The Rumpus Room is still sitting empty. A space that once pulsed with live music and community energy is now just another darkened shopfront. We can’t keep letting this happen. We need stronger policy tools to shift the balance and prioritise people over profit.

That’s why I’m still pushing for Council to adopt a Vacancy Levy - a simple, effective way to discourage commercial landlords from letting vital community spaces sit unused. If we want to keep venues like The Bearded Lady, The Rumpus Room, and the Milk Factory/The Joint from becoming memories, we have to act.

Community Notices

• A reminder that I still have several community surveys going:
  • Visy Site in South Brisbane: What do you want to see happen on the state owned site?
  • Pocket park at 92 Ryan Street, West End: What would you like to see delivered?
• Expressions of Interest are still open to paint a mural on the People’s Park Kiosk.
• A new community group has formed to keep the Raymond Park Community Garden going. If you are interested in joining the group, please get in touch and send me your phone number so I can add you to the WhatsApp group.
• Congratulations to Yael Moonbeam Taubenfeld who won The 4101 Award (and Runner-up Documentary) at the West End Film Festival. Synopsis: a brief exploration of my now-cancelled second favourite bus route: “a love letter to public transport, community, and change.” Moonbeam is a Year 12 Student at Brisbane SHS and interviewed me in April about the 86.
• Save the date: West End’s beloved Kurilpa Derby is back for another year and will be taking place on Sunday 14 September 2025.
• Joyful Voices Community Choir is an inclusive, free community initiative to raise our collective voices in the sheer joy of singing and being in community. Everyone is welcome. No experience or expertise necessary. Rehearsing Wednesday evenings 6pm at Holy Trinity Parish Centre, 68 Hawthorne St, Woolloongabba. 
• Highgate Hill Community Orchard has a new Facebook page - check out their beautiful work and follow along for monthly event updates.

Tree Removals

It’s very suspicious that so many of the tree removals this month are “not suitable for replanting”. This stinks of budget cuts to me and is something I will be investigating further.

• A Buckinghamia Celessisma  (Ivory Curl) at 87 Boundary St, West End is going to be removed due to poor structure. Council advises that replacement planting is not suitable at this location.
• A Callistemon sp (Bottlebrush) at 10 Blakeney Street, Highgate Hill is going to be removed due to poor health and structure. Council advises that replacement planting is not suitable at this location.
• Two trees at 19 Emily St, Highgate Hill will be removed due to poor health. Council advises that replacement planting is not suitable at this location.
• Two Lophostemon Confertus (Brisbane Box) at 57 Vulture St, West End will be removed. Council advises that replacement planting is not suitable at this location.
• A Syzgium sp (Myrtle) at 1 Hardgrave Rd, West End will be removed due to poor health. Council advises that replacement planting is not suitable at this location.
• A Harpullia Pendulum (Tulipwood) at 54 Logan Road, Woolloongabba will be removed due to poor health. Council advises that replacement planting is not suitable at this location.
• A Melaleuca Leucadendra (Weeping Paperbark) at 47 Brighton Road, Highgate Hill due to the tree having excessive lean and root flare decay. A replacement tree is possible at this location, but Council can’t advise when a new tree will be planted.