Unemployed asked to pay for park

The Unemployed Peoples Embassy (UPE) is in shock following Leichhardt Council’s decision to reserve its support for next Sunday’s Embrio Alternative Festival of Arts, a long-time annual community arts event.

Council has supported the event through funding grants and venue fee waivers since 1998, but has held off on supporting the event this year.

Director of the UPE, Richard Coady said it had thrown the festival’s planning into disarray and was angered by Council asking for money from the unemployed.

“It’s just pretty bloody-minded to pick on us,” he said. “We’re on the dole … some people are on the pension.

“They want more money from us … what are we going to do? Pass the hat at the poetry picnic? How are we going to make money?”

Earlier known as the ‘Poetry Picnic’, the Embrio Arts Festival has run since 1990 at a variety of locations in and around the city. Leichhardt Council helped expand the event with a $500 grant in 1998 and has routinely ensured venue fees at public venues are waived, generally at Pioneer Park or Glebe Town Hall.

“We want to do things for the general public and donate our time and resources,” Mr Coady said. “Now Council is coming up behind us and saying, ‘we won’t give you any fee exemption anymore’.

“It’s pretty clear they want to get as much money as they can from people and we wouldn’t be the only group where they wouldn’t give a fee exemption.”

A spokesperson for Leichhardt Council said fee waiving was not recommended for the festival, citing the UPE could not confirm whether at least 50 per cent of participants were from the Leichhardt LGA.

“The organisation failed to communicate effectively with Council officers and provide clear documentation to Council as requested,” the spokesperson said.

“The organisation [also] described an inability to produce a security bond. This amount is payable by all hirers including those that receive a fee waiver. It is refunded upon the premises being left in a satisfactory condition.”

The UPE also applied for fee waivers through the City of Sydney but was told they were only able to attain a fee reduction, not a waiver. Lord Mayor Clover Moore offered use of the rotunda area in Bicentennial Park in Glebe at a reduced rate that was still unaffordable.

“It’s really getting tighter and tighter,” Mr Coady said. “It could have been two months to get that reply.

“They are only talking about fee reductions and we’ve always had fee exemptions from the City of Sydney Council.”

Next Sunday’s event is slated to take place at Pioneer Park on Norton St, starting at 12pm. Mr Coady said they plan to “turn up by noon on November 25 with an amplifier, our little solar battery and a microphone stand”.

“By then, hopefully we’ll know whether we’re on or off [from Council],” he said. “If we’re off, we’ll have to travel somewhere else, maybe somewhere outside Centrelink and do it.”

The event will showcase a variety of poetry and music from artists involved with the UPE. Poet and singer Eugena Langley said “everyone was cordially invited” to the festival.

“We are musicians and singers [who perform] for the love of it,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”