Election profile: John Wardle
BY PATRICK BILLINGS
If you’ve noticed more live music in the city, or more small bars, you can thank John Wardle. Or blame him, if you’re a member of the Australian Hotels Association.
Using Clover Moore’s Small Bars Bill as a launching pad, Wardle became the driving force behind the Raise the Bar campaign.
Following Wardle’s own three-year study of Australia’s live music and entertainment regulation, Raise the Bar was instrumental in reducing licensing fees and simplifying live entertainment laws.
‘The regulations were inconsistent,’ says the 38-year-old music teacher. ‘We had broadcast sports and all this gambling but no live music in the same environments.’
It appears the Lord Mayor was so impressed by this, that she invited Wardle to join her team.
As a union delegate for the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Wardle says he will take his background as a cultural law reformer to council, if elected.
‘Cultural planning policy and regulation and the night time economy ‘ these are areas I have an interest in,’ he says.
‘I would like to see an orderly transition of the new liquor and planning laws.’
Wardle is also keen to revive Sydney’s neglected arts scene. Though reluctant to elaborate on policy, he does say: ‘I want to see changes, new opportunities, some diversity and some other options to encourage artists to do creative things.’
