Published April 2025
Shaking hands with Dean Merlo at the New Farm Bowls Club as they announced a funding promise if the LNP win the election, Trevor Evans seems a man of action.
Standing alongside LNP Member for Deakin, Michael Sukkar, and Brisbane City Councillor Vicki Howard, Evans commits $550,000 to the bowls club for them to fund renovations.
Evans has spent the morning talking to a diverse range of people about what he could do for them if elected.
As the former Member for Brisbane with a high profile in the community, he has organised one-on-one meetings with constituents, in a practice unusual for a candidate not yet elected.
Over coffee at New Farm Deli, Evans spoke with a business owner trying to get reform in the signage industry to encourage recycling – as the former Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management, Evans has insight into what needs to be done.
He says there are top-down and bottom-up approaches: systemic factors like waste levies, and singular actions like writing a letter of recommendation to support one particular recycling business.
He also spoke with an elderly couple struggling with the price of their health insurance.
“Inflation is always caused by bad economic management… So my commitment, and I think the biggest issue in this election, is going to be: we need better economic management in Canberra,” he says.
“Really what you need is a new type of discipline in a federal government, and you need people to get in there and root out all of the places where the excessive waste and the unnecessary spending is occurring.”
Another meeting was with a young man fighting for reforms to laws making it difficult for gay men to start a family.
Evans prefers to quietly negotiate on policy rather than opening up potentially controversial debates.
“This is where good principles and policy-making meets community and politics,” he said pragmatically.
“Lots of reforms that we have achieved around equality, happened because they are dealt with by experts in relatively understated processes.
“The trick of politics is to get people to action things – and that’s about priorities, that’s about trades, and that’s about relationships.
“That’s the job of an MP, you have to actually understand how the system works. How do you get it to the top of the decision-making tree?”
On this particular morning, Evans covered all his bases, from sports to the arts.
His next stop was Brisbane Powerhouse to visit their Stores Building and meet with Leisa Bell, Precinct Director, to get some insight into the upgrades they hope to make to it.
Then it was off to retirement village AVEO, picking up morning tea from Woolworths on the way.
When asked whether supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths are contributing to the cost of living, Evans notes their profit margins have largely stayed the same despite facing the same increasing costs as everyone else.
At AVEO, Evans spoke to the residents about inflation, housing, and the CMFEU.
“I’m very passionate about housing and getting young people into their first home… and the LNP and the coalition have some great policies.”
“One important thing that we need to do… Here in Brisbane, building a new apartment costs $200,000 more than it should and it takes twice as long because of the involvement of the corruption of the CFMEU.”
He says cutting them out would make housing more affordable and allow houses to be built and brought to market much more quickly.
Having been already through the political spin cycle, he has no illusions about what it takes to make change in our government.
“I’m someone who knows how Canberra and Parliament works, and I can get real results and real outcomes,” Evans says.
“I could get infrastructure and investments for our local groups. And that’s my commitment to you all if I’m re-elected in the election in May.”
