red tape madness

I want to tell you a story. A story about blinkered, red-taped, unimaginative, bureaucratic behaviour by certain parties at the Melbourne City Council.

Before I do… I have to flash back a few years. Back to a time when opposite Fawkner Park – off St. Kilda Road and Toorak Road – there was a place owned by the Ress family called Tiffany’s on the Park.

They had a good restaurant. They installed one of the first sliding roofs in Melbourne over their beer garden. I remember it well because one day – when I was on 3AW in the 1980s – I was taken there to lunch and promised by certain people that they would spend a lot of money on an election campaign to get me installed as the next Liberal Premier of Victoria. It was pre-Jeff Kennett. They were spooked and frustrated and angered by people like Cain and Kirner

I had a nice lunch but told them that they had the wrong guy. I belonged to no political party and would never. A flattering image.

There was a less flattering image in later years. The beer garden became a booze garden on Sundays. Pool tables and loud music and people throwing up in the gutters outside.

I’m getting to a point. Tiffany’s on the Park was demolished. A small block of apartments was built on the site. The penthouse was touted at a price of several million dollars.

On the ground floor was space for a restaurant. It sat empty for several years. People were desperate to unload it…. Including some people on the Melbourne City Council. I know. I was approached to buy it.

It finally opened as a classy restaurant called The  Fawkner. I occasionally go there. I went there one Sunday afternoon because two of my favourite, most talented, Melbourne musos and singers – Michael and Stockton – had started playing there for a couple of hours. Three ‘til five. Laidback music. A family venue. The Fawkner has even reverted to the old traditional Sunday family roast and vegies.

The duo are not playing there any more. They have been banned by the council. No music. Banned by the bureaucrats. Obviously on the complaint of an anonymous neighbour. We are talking here about 3p.m. on a Sunday afternoon. I have seen kids dancing to the soft but clever music. Having a great Sunday lunch with Mum and Dad.

And remember, that right across the road is a huge baffle board to deaden sound. It is called Fawkner Park. I understand the restaurant owners have also been denied permission to put even one table and chairs on the pavement ( even though they would have to pay the council for the privilege) when in South Yarra and Toorak, just up the road, the footpaths have tables and umbrellas and give a feeling of energy and fun. Also St. Kilda and Carlton and Fitzroy. And the eateries pay councils for the privilege.

This may sound like a selfish personal issue. But it is bigger than this. We have got the Commonwealth Games coming up in this city in a few months and some people are bragging about how cosmopolitan we are. How sophisticated we have become. Yeah, sure.

This is red tape madness. I am told the owner doesn’t even know who his accuser is. Music, on Toorak Road, inside a restaurant, at family lunches. This is a crime? I thought that stopped in the 1950s.

Lord Mayor So – tell me this isn’t so. I invite you to join me there for a quiet, entertaining, classy afternoon Sunday roast, that (yes) does include some music.

But then what can you expect when you see a City of Melbourne business card that reads:

Jim Woolcock. Senior Planning Enforcement Officer. Sounds like Constable Plod to me.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005