By Kate Lockyer
Greens candidate for Clayfield Jaimyn Mayer (pictured) enjoys a technical challenge and aims to apply the critical thinking required to problem solve in the IT space to state politics.
Mr Mayer is a renter who grew up in Kalinga, works fulltime as a software engineer and in his spare time helps to run Brisbane Makerspace, a volunteer-run space he founded where ‘makers’ can come to socialise and collaborate with shared facilities.
Mr Mayer has always voted Greens, and said their grassroots participatory democracy is really important to him.
“I think having such a genuine, grassroots connection to the community, unlike some of the other options out there, really allows us to create policy that works for everybody,” he said.
The biggest issue in the Clayfield electorate for Mr Mayer is the “out of control” cost of living – he said rents have increased at a much faster rate than wages, putting pressure on renters and mortgage-holders too.
“We want to freeze rents… that’s an emergency temporary measure, and then ongoing rental caps to slow things down and let wages catch up.”
He said their policies disincentivise property investing, and the worst outcome from this is that someone must sell one of their houses, while the worst outcome for someone who can’t afford rent getting evicted.
“It’s a pretty reasonable ask that we make sure people can afford rents,” he said.
To improve the lot of mortgage holders, the Greens want to create a public bank – “to give owner occupiers a chance to have a fair and reasonable payment that is not a big chunk of the profit going straight to the bank shareholders”.
Mr Mayer said utility and supermarket prices are going up astronomically, and so his party wants to cap grocery prices on essential items like eggs, milk, bread and nappies.
He gave the example that prices have been capped in France on thousands of items.
Mr Mayer also noted many people have talked to him about flight noise, especially at night.
“A lot of these late-night flights are subsidised by the state government,” he said.
“The Greens at a state level would like to see that slush fund given to the airlines reduced or removed, and we also want to see overnight curfew and caps.”
On the issue of climate change, Mr Mayer said the other parties’ policies which rely on opening new coal mines and gas wells are not sustainable, and the fossil fuel industry needs to be phased out, as we are all beginning to feel the effects of climate change.
“People are starting to realise, climate change is here, it’s not just something we’re talking about now, we’re seeing these devastating natural disasters happen more frequently and more severely,” he said.
The “short version” of how they plan to fund their policies is by taxing the big gas, coal, and multinational companies.
He said all their policies go through an independent review at the Parliamentary Budget Office or have been fully costed within the party.
