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 Dr Meredith Burgmann is the ALP’s candidate for Sydney in the upcoming local government elections. She spoke with Peter Hackney.
‘Incensed’ might be too strong a word, but clearly, Dr Meredith Burgmann does not approve of Clover Moore’s stranglehold on both local and state politics in inner Sydney.
“I just couldn’t believe that Clover was being so dismissive about the role of Lord Mayor,” she tells SX. “I couldn’t believe it. I used to be in State Parliament myself, in the NSW Legislative Council, so I know that parliament is a full-time job. It is more than a full-time job – it’s a massive undertaking. So when Clover announced that she would continue as both Lord Mayor and state MP, I decided to run for Lord Mayor myself in protest.”
But soon, as Burgmann tells it, it became more than a protest: “I realised that I was actually a good candidate myself. Clover has always presented herself as the only person who can stand up against the developers. Well, I have that history too; I was fighting inappropriate development well before Clover.”
Indeed, Burgmann is one of the original forces behind Sydney’s legendary Green Bans – the strike actions developed in the 1970s whereby labourers, with the backing of trade unions, would refuse to work on a project for environmental or conservation reasons.
In fact, Burgmann did her PhD on Green Bans (she is not a medical doctor, but rather a Doctor of Philosophy). Her book Green Bans, Red Union has become a standard university text on the topic.
Add to this her impressive civil rights credentials (even Liberal Party opponent Shayne Mallard tells SX of Burgmann’s civil liberties battles), and her long-held commitment to Sydney’s queer communities (Burgmann was an original ’78er – a participant in the very first Mardi Gras) and you have a strong candidate in what Burgmann calls “a very progressive electorate”.
But why should Sydney give Moore the heave-ho for Burgmann? Moore also has strong civil rights credentials, and a long-held commitment to Sydney’s queer communities (it’s no coincidence that, as The Age quipped last week, Moore’s gay fan base in Sydney rivals Kylie Minogue’s).
“Because I want solutions,” says Burgmann. “Clover’s incredibly good at just taking a stand and saying, ‘I’m for this’, and then she never has to do anything about it. But my thing is that I work really hard to get things solved.”
If elected, that work will include, she says, “fixing” Oxford Street.
“I’m sure we can move forward with Oxford Street,” Burgmann enthuses.
And how? Apart from requiring all licensed venues to adopt a ‘homophobia management plan’, as revealed in SX last week, and extending the role of council rangers to include patrolling Oxford Street for street crime, Burgmann says that Council can play a huge role in turning the ‘The Strip’ around by utilising the property it owns.
“A third of the buildings on Oxford Street are owned by Council”, she contends, “and they’re basically untenanted! Even when Clover says they’re fully leased, they’re mainly leased for storage and things like that. Well, that doesn’t do anything for the street life! It certainly doesn’t do anything for the daytime economy. All those coffee shops are going broke!”
Instead, a Burgmann administration would ensure the council properties are tenanted to “stimulating” tenants, she says, which would diversify the area’s economy and encourage the development of “businesses other than clubs and drinking barns and dodgy 24-hour takeaways.”
Commercial offices, architects, community groups, cultural industries and the like could be attracted to the area, she avers.
It all sounds like a good idea. And regardless of who gets in on September 13, Burgmann’s plans for the ‘gay mile’ can only be a good thing, adding more ideas to the healthy debate over its rejuvenation.
But there are some not-insignificant thorns in Burgmann’s side that will have a major impact on whether she gets to implement them.
Firstly, she’s part of NSW Labor, an entity drowning in a sea of corruption scandals and dissatisfaction over the selling out of traditional Labor values on issues like developer deals and electricity privatisation.
“I think one of the big problems I have going into the election is the poor opinion people have of people like Costa and Iemma,” she concedes.
“Funnily enough, when I go door-knocking, no-one says ‘Oh, you’re the Labor Party – piss off’. They go, ‘Oh, Labor. Labor’s always looked after us – it’s a pity about Morris Iemma’.”
Asked if she’s sure she wants to go on the record with such censure, she replies: “Yes. I think that when the leadership of your party’s wrong, you’ve got to tell them that … I’ve spent my life in the left of the party, and what the right of the party does is something I’ve always confronted.”
Her party’s position on same-sex marriage at the federal tier of government is another thorn.
“Yes, I think I will get some tarnish from that,” she admits. “But I also believe that eventually we will get federal leadership to move their position on same-sex marriage.
“People who are politically active are very aware of my support for the gay and lesbian community,” she adds.
But the biggest thorn of all is, of course, Clover – the woman many believe is electorally invincible.
“I’m the underdog,” she acknowledges. “And I’m realistic: Clover will almost certainly win. But I’d be happy with eating into her absolute majority so that she has to engage with other councillors when making decisions. At least then, we’ll get some diversity and some balance.”
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What the Doctor ordered
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