Last night I attended and spoke at the Meet Your Candidates Forum, at Moorebank Sports Club and organized by Ian Bailey.
As always I am encouraged by those who are getting involved in our Liverpool City Council Elections to be held in September. As always I want to reach as many Liverpudlians as I can, and so I have reproduced the speech I gave at last night’s forum below.
Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen.
My name is Signe Westerberg and I’m running as an Independent Candidate in the upcoming Liverpool City Council elections.
I’ve been asked here tonight to tell you a little about myself and my policies. I was born in Sydney and moved to Liverpool in 1960 with my parents who occupied one of the first housing commission homes built in Hillview (now Lurnea). I attended school at both Lurnea Primary & High Schools. My first job was in Liverpool where I met my husband Lance – also a long time Liverpudlian. We’ve been married for over 34 years now and have two beautiful daughters who attended Sadleir Primary & William Carey Schools. I have an amazing grandson who also attends Sadleir.
Most of my work opportunities have been here in Liverpool, I have operated a small cosmetic business from my home for over 28 years and 6 years ago I built and operate Liverpool Serviced Offices in Moore Street. During this time I have worked amongst the community in many ways, mostly at a very local level. I’ve attended council forums for the last 5.5 years.
What I really want to do with this opportunity is to talk about the things I believe we all want done, changed and considered for our city but the truth is we all want much of the same things. Not one of my fellow candidates is going to stand up here and say they think we need more pot holes, dangerous parks and more litter.
I live here, I talk with my fellow Liverpudlian’s and what I think we all want is fair and honest representation on our Council for our whole community. We have an opportunity to make a real difference in September. We need to know more about our candidates, ask more, talk with our friends and choose our councilors individually. In a group or party, it is the officials who decide who they think is the most electable candidate. We have the opportunity to choose people we believe will give us an honest and fair voice. There isn’t anything wrong with groups and parties I’m sure they are all nice, reasonable people but you have the chance to choose your representatives.
We have some real issues in Liverpool, I’ve spent the last few weeks reviewing our draft budget and it is full of real and meaningful proposals, things we need to focus on. We need the safe streets and parks, we need to embrace and protect our history.
I believe what we also need is to elect people who can make the hard decisions when required, we need people who aren’t afraid to speak out, loudly if necessary when something is not right.
I also believe we need to be able to say “I chose my Council, because I decided who I wanted to represent me on important issues”.
Ladies and Gentlemen we are a whole community, a diverse community, we don’t need to follow one agenda or one idea, we need people who will make decisions for the entire community not tow the party line. We need good people who care and will fight for our city and its growth.
Ladies and Gentlemen, vote for me in September and I promise I’ll be your voice. I’ll do the best I possibly can to be accessible, to promote our city, to raise its identity and its image, to restore our pride, our passion and compassion and to help provide the balance we need on council.
I am eager to see the press coverage in next weeks Local Papers, and the reactions and reviews of members of our community and candidates to the forum as represented there. I will continue to keep you all posted.
Posted by Signe 
Posted by Signe 