Hi There! I'm Nick Buick, your friendly Libertarian candidate for the state seat of Clayfield.
I’m 45 years old and my wife, Danielle, and I with our four fantastic kids have lived in the electorate for the past 16 years. Together we are a strong team having established, over the past 20 years, a number of successful enterprises in real estate, software development, property technology and most recently homewares.
We have deep roots in the local community, and I therefore would be deeply honoured to serve you in State Parliament.
I’m passionate about liberty and individual freedom, and I believe (based on extensive real world experience) that the free market is the most efficient way to fulfil society’s needs and deliver value to us all.
I’m excited to be a candidate and in the coming weeks will be out listening to everyone to identify concerns and issues that we can address and work together to solve – being guided by the fundamental principles of Laissez-faire libertarianism.
If you elect me on 26th October 2024 I pledge to be your tireless and energetic advocate to get things done for our local community.
My Campaign Platform:
Olympic Stadium For Hamilton!
The ALP and LNP are rapidly squandering the opportunity the 2032 Olympic Games offers to Queensland. The planning is ill conceived, disjointed, and is clearly heading for spectacular cost blow-outs. Neither of the major parties have a proper plan for the Olympic stadium.
In contrast, I will fight with every fibre, to have the Northshore Vision 2050 plan delivered – seeing a $6 billion 60,000 seat stadium and 150 hectare precinct delivered to our electorate at Hamilton North Shore. This project includes 12,000 new homes, improved public transport options (extension of Doomben rail line, as well as bike and pedestrian infrastructure connecting the precinct to Bulimba and Newstead) a marina, aquatic centre, stunning Southbank-style parklands and green spaces, vast retail and commercial opportunities for businesses, and a much-needed revitalisation of the entire area. The stadium is predominantly privately funded, saving the Queensland taxpayers billions of dollars chasing white elephants like the QSAC, Gabba, and the Victoria Park plans.
Hands Off Our Racecourses!
The Clayfield electorate boasts two of the most beautiful racecourses in Queensland – Eagle Farm and Doomben. They provide our community with superb parks and green spaces, beautiful housing options, fantastic concerts and festivals, races, and other public events, and inject millions of dollars into the area every time an event takes place. I am standing to oppose the diabolical plan pushed by the Greens Political Party to destroy our beautiful racecourses and turn the sites into subsidised government housing projects. This divisive plan is being foisted onto our electorate as a thinly disguised social project, when in reality it is nothing short of vindictive class-warfare and social engineering by radical left-wing extremists. I will not stand for it!
Cost Of Living
The Cost-Of-Living crisis is directly caused by atrocious government mismanagement, overspending, and debt, driving inflation and making everyone’s lives much harder than they need to be. Every time the government borrows money that they don’t have, to fund hair-brained schemes we don’t need, it drives up inflation and makes the problem worse. I will fight to reduce government spending and increase accountability by employing the guiding principles of Laissez-faire (let it be!) liberalism. I will push government to rely more on the private sector to deliver services more affordably, more efficiently, and more cost effectively for taxpayers. My unrelenting focus will be to reduce government debt, curb inflation, and get the escalation of our cost of living under control.
Housing Crisis
Housing shortages have been brought about by excessive red tape, poor planning, over-regulation, and constant knee-jerk policy implementation.
As a realtor, I know first-hand that we’ve endured over six long years of constant “rental reforms” that have done absolutely nothing to improve outcomes for tenants. In fact, these “reforms” have actually set many renters back significantly. The more the government “reforms” the rental market with yet more regulation and restriction, the worse the situation becomes. People do not want (very expensive, yet supposedly “affordable”) government housing that only exacerbates the inflation problem, breeds generational welfare dependency, and ties up builders, resources and materials that could otherwise be supplying the private sector. Government has abused its position to weaponise “affordable housing” to engage in social engineering and class warfare (see: Eagle Farm Racecourse destruction, for example), rather than to altruistically achieve better outcomes for residents. Housing supply needs to be increased, inflation needs to be reduced, interest rates, stamp duty, lending restrictions, and other barriers-to-entry need to be removed for government to deliver an environment that’s conducive to the free market organically improving housing supply. This (and ONLY this) will bring down the cost of rentals and increase the supply that is needed to cope with current housing demand.
Law and Order
As a home invasion and robbery victim myself, I know first-hand how dangerous it has been in our area with violent property crime running out-of-control. Our courts have had their hands-tied by mandatory “catch-and-release” policies to the frustration of the Queensland Police. Meantime the State Government has directed them toward revenue-raising rather than fighting actual crime. The state is obsessed with rolling out state-of-the-art camera systems to milk motorists out of thousands of dollars for not having a seatbelt on properly or merely touching their mobile phone.
The fine for a business owner photographed with his arm through his seat belt is over $5000. The fine for a 17 year old with a machete on his 12th bail application, kicking your door down, robbing your family at knife point, and speeding off in your car is… nothing. When my wife’s car was stolen in a home invasion, we had the speeding tickets sent to us before we’d even got our car back! Our government’s priorities on law and order are, frankly, abhorrent.
If elected, I will fight to remove bail options for repeat offenders and remove the age protections currently exploited by serious, violent and repeat criminals. I will fight to roll back civil surveillance operations: speed, phone and seat belt cameras and shift police focus to reducing real crime. I will fight to protect the constitutional right of self-defence for residents facing violent home invasions. Finally, I will fight to increase the thresholds of speeding tickets to emphasise increasing actual road safety over revenue capture.
Feedback: I want to hear from you! Tell me what issues you face in this electorate, I seek to be led by the good people of Clayfield – your opinions matter.