By Megan Gorrey and Patrick Hatch
Sydney’s green fairways are increasingly being eyed as fair game to satisfy the need for more public open space in densely populated areas. None more so than Moore Park Golf Course in the eastern suburbs, which City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has for years declared should be chopped in half to create more parkland for nearby apartment dwellers.
Now NSW’s longest-serving premier, Labor’s Bob Carr, has weighed into the debate, arguing the tens of thousands of residents destined for the area are entitled to expect that local and state governments provide ample public parks.
Chipping out of the rough: former premier Bob Carr wants a rethink of Moore Park Golf Course.
In a move sure to (again) ruffle the city’s golfing enthusiasts, Carr is pushing for the proposals to rework part or all of the 45-hectare golf course to be placed on exhibition to reignite public debate.
“There are eight golf courses running between the city and Botany Bay, and the only way we’ll get new parkland is by converting Moore Park,” Carr, who is not a golfer, told this column.
“Given the towers that have transformed this part of Sydney, and a doubling of their number on the way, we desperately, desperately, desperately need a big, generous dollop of public open space.”
Moore’s plans to shrink the course from 18 holes to nine have been stuck in the rough since former Coalition planning minister Rob Stokes kiboshed the idea following backlash from golfers and the club.
Carr would not be drawn on whether he had lobbied Premier Chris Minns’ government – which has emphasised the need to increase housing density in the inner city – but said: “I’m an advocate, I’ll talk to anyone with an interest in it.”
City of Sydney Liberal councillor Lyndon Gannon, a self-described “whacker” who occasionally plays at Moore Park, also reckons the 18-hole course should stay.
“It’s a slippery slope, if you start to subdivide golf courses, like they tried to do at Marrickville [golf club], where does it stop?”
A spokeswoman for Planning and Public Spaces Minister Paul Scully said the former premier had presented some ideas that he and Moore had for “re-wilding” the Moore Park fairways.
“Currently there is no formal proposal to make changes,” the spokeswoman said.
Moore Park Golf Club president John Janik suggested transforming vacant blocks rather than the “already green” public golf course, into parkland.
“How does rewilding an existing green space create more green space for apartment living?”
Developers in Melbourne have recently argued disused and struggling golf courses could be a ready-made fix to the housing crisis.
Carr, however, was quick to dash any ideas of building homes on converted golf courses. “Every square metre must be public open space,” he said.
Rudd the ‘selfie’ king switches to portrait mode
Kevin Rudd is taking a break from ambassadorial duties in Washington to unveil his official portrait in Canberra on Thursday.
Kevin Rudd was in no rush to be immortalised.Credit: Illustration: John Shakespeare.
All former prime ministers are hung in Parliament House’s Historic Memorials Collection and, true to form, Rudd called in the big guns: the Royal Family’s go-to portraitist, Ralph Heimans.
The Australian’s gigantic painting of Queen Elizabeth II to mark her Diamond Jubilee hangs permanently in Westminster Abbey; he also painted the late Prince Philip in 2017 and Charles III in 2018. Quite the CV.
Heimans also happens to be the brother of Jeremy Heimans, co-founder of GetUp!, the activist group which conservatives have attacked as a Labor front ever since it mobilised voters to help Rudd defeat John Howard at the 2007 election.
Kevin Rudd was in Canberra on Wednesday ahead of the unveiling of his portrait.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Rudd was spotted in parliament on Wednesday having coffee with Jim Chalmers, and was welcomed back to the building by the people that matter most, including getting a great big hug from one of parly’s longest-serving cleaners, Anna Jancevski.
The former PM was overheard joking with colleagues that he hasn’t been in any rush to have his portrait painted. Next month will indeed mark a decade since he lost the top job – the second time that is, via an election, not his colleagues – and two successors are already up in the gallery.
Julia Gillard presented her photo-realistic portrait by Vincent Fantauzzo (husband of Gold Logie-winner Asher Keddie) in 2018 – five years after Rudd replaced her as PM.
Tony Abbott visited Parliament last November – seven years after his term ended – to unveil a masculine likeness by The Australian’s acrid cartoonist Johannes Leak, whose late father Bill painted Bob Hawke for the collection.
CBD gathers Malcolm Turnbull’s portrait is close to being formally commissioned, and must assume the noted art collector will be discerning in his choice of painter.
Archibald Prize-winner Lewis Miller was working on a portrait of the future PM back in 1994 but – in a fantastic yarn spun by the late, legendary Sydney art dealer Ray Hughes – he cut it to shreds when Turnbull complained it made him “look like a big, fat, greedy c---”. Turnbull has always said the tale wasn’t true.
Virgin faces uphill battle to get ‘unhappy’ staff on side before sale
Virgin Australia is heading for a turbulent time as its owner Bain Capital prepares to offload the airline in an IPO.
The Boston private equity behemoth picked up Virgin after COVID sent it bankrupt in 2020, and parachuted in ex-Jetstar boss Jayne Hrdlicka as CEO. Bain has already made its money back after paying itself $730 million in cash in May, so it’s all juicy profit for the crew led by former Olympic diver Mike Murphy from here.
Virgin is pushing to settle a new pay deal with pilots early, which insiders believe is an attempt to lock in its cost base before pitching it to new investors. It also gets potential strikes out of the way.
But getting Virgin’s staff on side will be an uphill battle if a recent internal employee survey CBD has obtained is anything to go by.
Just under one-in-five flight operations staff said they “rarely” think about looking for a new job somewhere else, and less than 5 per cent would recommend Virgin to family and friends as a “great place to work”.
A whopping 95 per cent of crew think they’re not paid fairly – unsurprising after they accepted tough conditions to help the company out of bankruptcy – and only 30 per cent said they “feel proud” to work for the airline.
Sentiment has improved across the board since last year’s survey, but as flight operations boss Alex Scamps told staff in an email last week, “there is no pretending they reflected where we want to be as a business”.
Negotiating new Enterprise Bargaining Agreements early was the best way to address workers’ “remuneration, flexibility and lifestyle concerns”, Scamps told them.
A company spokesperson also told us new pay agreements would help it build a sustainable business where employees feel valued and recognised and had nothing to do with an IPO.
But cheering up this unhappy bunch will be expensive, and strike-prone unions will be pushing hard. How that aligns with Bains’ plans to dress it up for sale is yet to be seen.
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