Clover’s Rovers Free At Last

By Lawrence Gibbons

‘BARKING MAD’ the front page of the Daily Terrorgraph shouted days before Clover Moore liberated thousands of family pets across the City of Sydney, decriminalising the act of letting a dog fetch a ball in a city park. Previously, it was a criminal offence, punishable by a fine in excess of five hundred dollars to let a dog off his or her lead in all but three city parks. The Terror, who sells hundreds of thousands of papers hyping stories about dogs mauling entire villages, lunged for the jugular. On page two, the Murdoch tabloid press printed a picture of a family posing on a slide in Rushcutters Bay Park complete with a pooch ‘ above the sensational claim that passage of Council’s animal liberation bill would result in Clover’s rovers roaming free while vulnerable children were forced to hide in fenced in playground detention centres.

Following a heated committee meeting just days before, at which several hundred feral residents viciously attacked the move to decriminalise dog play, Clover Moore backed down. At April’s full Council meeting the following week a revised ordinance was presented by the Clover Moore independent block: fifteen proposed leash free parks were scrapped, despite the fact that two thirds of all respondents to the City’s draft ordinance supported all the proposed changes. Number one on the list of parks where off lead dog play would remain a criminal activity was Rushcutters Bay Park, site of a Terror photo shooting spree. Elizabeth Bay resident, dog owner and animal rights barrister Dixie Coulton predicts that residents will react poorly if Council aggressively prosecutes dog owners like they do in neighbouring Woollahra Council, where a new dog owner was recently issued a criminal penalty notice, after he allowed his two unleashed young pups to play in the park.

Meanwhile on the other side of the dog-demilitarised zone, a 76 year-old pensioner in Leichhardt Council was issued a $568 fine after her little dog Dusty barked at two approaching canines. The loyal guard dog sounded the alarm in Lillyfield when a large Labrador and a German shepherd neared the house while Dusty’s susceptible, unsuspecting master unloaded groceries. Following a complaint to Council rangers by an aggrieved dog walker, who wandered up Dusty’s private pathway uninvited, the little old lady was issued a costly, criminal notice. Terrified that her constant companion would be classified a ‘dangerous dog’ facing possible extermination here in Terror-town, the poor retiree was forced to forego a month’s pension checks and may wind up eating dog food throughout May just to pay Council’s revenue collectors. Talk about BARKING MAD. Thus far the story has not made page one of the Terrorgraph .

Here at the Hub, we can’t help but wonder if Murdoch’s attack-pack would have mauled the Lord Mayor on the front page, if she were still deciding what to do with News Corps’ exclusive newspaper distribution deal with the City of Sydney. Murdoch’s mongrels haven’t hounded Clover Moore since the mX development application to lease public footways for private commercial use was first lodged in early 2005. Back in 2004, when Clover first won office, the Terror hunted her down to an old family retreat where they shot a front-page photo of the newly elected Lord Mayor audaciously reading government-briefing papers on the sand. In December 2004, the Terror proclaimed Clover was the Grinch who stole Christmas, after she allegedly skimped on Christmas decorations in a budget she inherited from Lucy Turnbull. Weeks later, the Terror lambasted Clover, this time for allowing a massive disco ball to dangle from the Sydney Harbour Bridge for the 2005 New Year celebration, the sponsorship of which Turbull had awarded to none other than the Daily Terror.

Happy New Year! In early 2005 News Corp lodged a development application to distribute mX, a free distribution content-lite tabloid on City streets. From mid 2005 to late 2007, while News Corp was permitted to hand out 90,000 copies of mX every day on a trial basis in exchange for $360,000 per year, the Daily Terror was Clover’s best friend, muzzling most criticism of Town Hall. In October 2007 the Lord Mayor used her casting vote to approve the mX development application, granting a transnational corporation the right to lease public footways for commercial use. Six months later, Murdoch’s pack of howling hacks is back: unleashed, unmuzzled and unrepentant. Clover should have known; you really can’t teach old dogs new tricks.

In the face of considerable complaints from independent newspaper publishers, who have been priced out of the public domain by News Corps’ largesse, six months ago the City also pledged to trial newspaper racks as an alternative way to distribute free newspapers free of charge. As any visitor to North America cities would be aware, many cities have replaced their old, untidy, freestanding news boxes with permanently mounted multiple newspaper racks. When the mX DA was approved, a majority of City Councillors voted to trial San Francisco style newspaper racks, which have been designed to accommodate blind and visually impaired people’s mobility requirements. In late October 2007, this reporter noted, ‘Council CEO Monica Barone stated that within several months an outside consultant should be able to provide Council with a report on the feasibility of news boxes with a six-month trial possible by early next year.’

Almost midway through 2008, the City Hub has obtained a confidential internal Council memo to CEO Monica Barone stating that the City’s draft policy for the display of goods (including newspaper racks) on City footways has been delayed due to objections from a small number of blind people, who allege that allowing anything, be it a newspaper rack or a café table on a city footway discriminates against the visually impaired. Fair dinkum. While the City publicly pretends to revitalise its village precincts by inviting small bars to open Parisian style cafes, it secretly contemplates outlawing café tables from city pathways altogether.

In its ongoing campaign against ‘visual commercial clutter’ it seems Town Hall has found an unlikely ally. But are blind people really standing in the way of free speech by opposing news racks’ Last year the City News reported that representatives from the Dog Guide Association of NSW, attending a newspaper distribution community forum supported the installation of newspaper racks at the city’s kerb-side over free roaming newspaper hawkers who are ‘moving targets.’ Which is to say nothing of the content they are forcing upon unsuspecting citizens. Perhaps the Lord Mayor should read what News Corp has to say about her nowadays.