Sydney Council Elections - the Candidates

In the previous post I outlined why I was advocating a vote for Clover in the 2012 council elections. In this post we look at some of the other candidates for council and in particular for Lord Mayor

I'm not a big believer in the big parties taking over local councils; ultimately for them it's all about getting hold of developer donations. While the Labor candidate Linda Scott seems like a decent person with some good policies; at the end of the day she is still the Labor candidate who will ultimately end up doing what she is told - there are already signs of this. It's only 8 years ago that Labor merged South Sydney (some history here) with Sydney in the hope of creating a super council dominated by Labor; instead accidentally engineering Clover Moore's rise to power.

Hell will freeze over before a Mayor of Newtown will recommend a vote for the Liberals. They are campaigning on a Newman style slash and burn approach; and while it's possibly not fair to judge on the sins of the brother, the Liberal's are also offering us Tony Abbott's sister Christine Foster, who, sexual politics notwithstanding, is still a Liberal and related to that man ! The Liberals are also committed to increasing parking in the city; always a proven way to reduce congestion.


The Greens are the Greens - by now a known quantity. Their biggest problem here is that they are up against a popular progressive Mayor who shares many of their policies. I'm sure they'd get a lot more votes if Clover wasn't on the scene; as it is they're a good option for a second preference !

The team that are getting most of the publicity leading up to the election are Living Sydney. Although they've borrowed the name from Clover's old team, that's where the similarity ends. The team are a pro-business lobby who've aligned themselves with anti-Clover, anti-cycling and anti-progressive forces. Their policies (apart from the anti-cycling) are vague to the point of meaningless, and the Living Sydney mayoral candidate, Angela Vithoulkas has taken to making statements about all sorts of policy areas that are actually outside the scope of the Lord Mayor; demonstrating at best a naivety if not dishonesty about what is actually feasible for her to fix.

Not surprisingly, Living Sydney are the favourites of the Daily Telegraph, who have been gunning for Clover for the last 2-3 years. That on its own should be enough of a warning for prospective voters.

So there it is; as always, interested in your feedback.

Update September 3 - one candidate not mentioned here was Australia Sex Party candidate Zahra Stardust; mostly because it doesn't appear to be a serious candidature, given she has been a no-show at the candidates forum. However Zahra was the subject of a puff piece in the SMH today.

Update September 5 - I got a very polite email from Housing Action reminding me that they too are running for Sydney Council. With a ticket very much supporting the least well off in our council area theirs is a voice that should be heard on council. You can see the candidate bios here. Housing Action are preferencing the Greens.

Sydney Council Elections 2012

So it's time for another council election. Sadly Newtown still hasn't been unified so I'm going to have to sit this one out again - the upside being I'll still be Mayor of Newtown come Monday September 10th.

The two elections that impact Newtown residents are those for City of Sydney and Marrickville councils. The election that is getting all the press recently is the City of Sydney one, with a strong media driven anti-Cover push; however Marrickville council has also had its time in the media sun as well during the recent Israeli BDS controversy. In this article I'm just talking about the CoS election; I'll talk about Marrickville in another post - if I get enough information to form an opinion !

Vote Clover

Straight to the point: I'll be voting for Clover Moore's team in the 2012 Sydney Council elections (I live on the Sydney side of the split). There are a variety of reasons for this - first and foremost of course is that I believe she will do the best job of all the candidates who have put their hand up. However I also feel from a position of principle it's important to support Clover in the face of the vicious attacks she has been subjected to from the bogan-tariat and their masters; part of a broader push against effective women leaders this country has been sadly experiencing over the last couple of years. A victory - with a large margin - for Clover and her team would be a real triumph for the forces of decency over that ugliness.

Clover Moore has been the most effective politician in the state over the last decade. Uniquely she has been able to state a plan; consult and then implement it. Importantly the to-do list is not empty and her vision for Sydney and what is left to change is still far more compelling than that of her opponents.

Thankfully in this case there is no conflict between principle and the best candidate - unfortunately for the sake of democracy none of the alternative candidates have really made a good case as to why they'd be better for the Sydney. Some of them have seen value in aligning themselves with the anti-Clover push, which I don't think will necessarily endear them with the electorate; at the end of the day, most Daily Telegraph readers won't be voting in the Sydney council elections - which is just as well for all of us.

In the next post I will go over some of the alternative candidates. For now - your thoughts ?

PS - Just for the record - I  have no connection - formal or informal - with any of the candidates in the election.

Newtown Hub Update

This weeks Inner West Courier has an article on Newtown's Hub, although unfortunately there is no news as such. The owner, Chris Vlattas, is quoted blaming Marrickville Council for the lack of progress in turning The Hub into an entertainment venue, a charge which the council quite reasonably denies given the most recent DA was for shops and offices (see my take from last year).

Maybe the publicity will force those interested to discuss sensible options for the venue; certainly Newstown readers have come up with some creative ideas. Use of such an iconic building for shops and apartments would really be a shame. Some sort of concert / cinema venue would be the most logical use - but I'd love to see some more original ideas !

Here's hoping - one thing for sure is that The Hub has stood empty for way too long.

Posted via email from Mayor's posterous

Newtown Hotel Renovation Proposal

Image - Humphrey Edwards Interior Designers and Architects

It's been a while since I've been as excited about a development proposal as this one. The main reason (apart from the re-opening of a venue that's been closed for way too long) is that this proposed renovation includes the reconstruction of the original verandas. There are several diagram of how it might look, including a front view here (pdf).

I'd like to complement the consultants on the detailed preparation done for this D.A; I've never seen such a well researched application. Anyone interested in local history should take a look at the Heritage Appendices (Appendix 3.x), and there's a lot of information on how the renovated hotel will look in other documents.

Gleeson Grocers - (c) City of Sydney Archives

Those of you familiar with old photos of Newtown will know that these verandas were once commonplace along King Street. These days however they're virtually non-existent - instead mostly replaced by awnings and occasionally (C.B.A. building for example) nothing at all.

Hopefully this D.A (if approved) will be the start of a trend; I imagine one of the motivators for this is the provision of smoking area - an unfortunate consequence of the indoors smoking ban in pubs (which the mayor loves) is that the best areas of many bars (the outdoors ones) now resemble ashtrays - but these verandas provide a neat solution for those bars that don't have outdoor areas; as well as extending table space for dining areas.

More positively this could increase the utility of the first floor of the buildings along King Street; hopefully some first floors could become small bars or even restaurants if verandas become more prevalent. I'd love to see official council policy encourage recreation of verandas along King Street - someone should speak to the Mayor !

I'm not aware of all the details of the dispute between the building owners and Newtown Hotel operators; although there is some good background here and here. The most recent news suggests that a compromise was brewing - here's hoping that's the case. I'd be interested if anyone has some inside info - drop me a note.

The trading hours requested are only to midnight - personally I think this is a shame; with the restriction on using the King Street entrance only after 11pm I can't see why the bar can't stay open until a few hours later. The proposed design also seems to include private dining rooms - and even a function area (see the 2nd floor plans), as well an internal courtyard and outdoor dining area.

All in all, a promising looking D.A - let's hope it gets up, and sparks a trend for the re-veranda-isation (there's a neologism for you) of King Street.

The Old of Newtown

City of Sydney Council has just updated their Newtown specific history website. It's a great resource and anyone interested in Newtown is encouraged to get over there and have an explore.


I discovered it when I moved into Newtown early this century (doesn't that sound grand) but re-visiting it a couple of years ago it appeared to be abandoned, with the latest updates being a few years ago. In fact the mayor's portrait was even pilfered from there (it belongs to a real Mayor of Newtown, Alderman William Rigg); a fact that council archivist Mark Stevens pointed out to me when I wrote to him requesting permission to use some other council photos for the mystery photo series shortly after Newstown was launched !

Mark also informed me that the archive site was being updated - even better, the work has been done by a local Newtown firm, In My Room. So head on over there and check it out.

Credits, from their about page:

The Newtown project started in 2000 and is based on a concept by Graeme Nichols. Work on the site during 2000-2005 was undertaken by Graeme (who was the webmaster during this time) and other volunteers at the City of Sydney Archives. The site was redeveloped in 2009 by In My Room, a Newtown based web design firm.

We would particularly like to acknowledge the contributions of -

• Graeme Nichols and Reg Johnson, for transcription of Sands Directory .
• Shirley Doolan, Jan Bowditch, Jenny Kropp and Lorraine Sketch, for transcription of the Minutes of Newtown Council.
• Mark Matheson, for biographical notes on Mayors and Aldermen, and historical notes on street names and other topics.

Mark Stevens Natasha Neal
City Archivist Webmaster