Awesome Humans Podcast 12 Glenn Tozer

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Humble pie and politics don’t often mix but this Awesome Human owns the recipe.

This week on Awesome Humans podcast is Councillor Glenn Tozer, recently re-elected local politician of division 9 Gold Coast. I call him Captain Gold Coast because of his great passion for this great part of the world. He is a Christian family man whose wife is an awarded social documentarian. Cr Tozer and his young family are the kind of representatives that communities need to make change they value.

When I first met Glenn Tozer five years ago, I liked that he was humble enough to say he can make more difference as Councillor than as Mayor, and that sense of humbleness remains today:

“I feel it's super important to keep humble. I've got a group of really great people around me who don't let me become a dick. If you're going to stay humble, you're going to be calm, and you're going to stay centred about what's important in life.”

“I'm a big believer in the idea that the community will determine who's best for them and that's why I always fight for transparency, accountability and openness. These are things really important to our democracy and our community and I believe people will make good decisions when they are well informed.”

“The thing I'm afraid of is of us making decisions about things that are false or misleading. I think we are so afraid of failure. I'm actually not afraid of not getting the outcome if we play fair.”

“There is an element of give and take in politics. You have to make compromises but I'm not willing to compromise on the big issues.”

I agree with Cr Tozer that Gold Coast people are very focused on a fantastic quality of life. We all want to balance a strong local economy with its impacts like traffic congestion, and urban development.

As passionate basketball fans, Cr Tozer and I speculated on Australian basketball players, and echoing my former mentor, Brett Brown, coach of Philadelphia 76ers: “Trust the process”.