Economist.com Cities Guide: Sydney Briefing - May 2006

News this month

In Clover no Moore

Clover Moore, Sydney’s Lord Mayor, is under fire over the sudden departure of the city council’s chief executive barely 14 months after his appointment. Peter Seamer resigned on April 4th after a dispute with Ms Moore over development in Sydney Harbour. He was the second chief executive to leave since Ms Moore became Lord Mayor in 2004. Having initially refused to explain his resignation, she produced written advice from a barrister on April 27th revealing that Mr Seamer had agreed to resign with a A$175,000 ($135,000) payout after learning that Ms Moore planned to sack him, owing to “grave doubts” about his performance. Mr Seamer has denied breaching his contract, while Ms Moore has refused to explain her doubts. A council meeting at Sydney Town Hall on May 1st ended in acrimony, with one councillor accusing Ms Moore of “behaving like a monarch”.

Ms Moore juggles her job as Lord Mayor with her role as the state parliamentarian for the inner-Sydney constituency of Bligh, which she has held since 1988. Her critics say her dispute with Mr Seamer and her loss of two chief executives indicate that she is incapable of handling both jobs. Ms Moore recently explained to a newspaper that these jobs were “directly complementary”, as they involve the same constituents, and that she plans to stand again for Bligh in 2007.

Tighten those belts

Sydney’s house-buyers are feeling the pinch following a decision on May 3rd by the Reserve Bank of Australia, the central bank, to raise interest rates for the second time since March 2005. Ian Macfarlane, the bank’s governor, said the 25-point rise was needed to dampen a risk of inflation, caused partly by a “solid” growth in consumer spending. Australia’s four big retail banks immediately passed the new cash rate of 5.75% on to borrowers—bad news for those already struggling to meet mortgage payments in a city that boasts Australia’s highest property prices. For those who bought at the height of the last boom in late 2003, it was particularly gloomy: average Sydney property prices have fallen by 9.6% since then.

Nor was it good news for Australia’s conservative coalition government, which won its fourth consecutive election victory in late 2004 on a campaign promise to “keep interest rates low”. When he presented the government’s 2006-07 budget on May 9th, Peter Costello, the treasurer, announced tax cuts worth almost A$37 billion over the next four years. Yet the reception was not quite euphoric, as some economists pointed out that the tax cuts would be absorbed by rising interest rates and petrol prices, the latter having risen by 20% in the past year. Worse, by encouraging more spending, the cuts could also fuel inflation and, in turn, yet another interest-rate rise.

Mine all mine

Sydney’s commercial-television chiefs have beaten a path to Tasmania to vie for the story of two miners who were trapped underground for two weeks before being rescued on May 9th. Brant Webb and Todd Russell were working about one kilometre below the surface in a gold mine at the town of Beaconsfield on April 25th when they were entombed by falling rocks, caused by an earth tremor. The fall killed one of their colleagues, Larry Knight. The disaster became one of the biggest media events in years, dominating headlines for two weeks as rescue workers dug an access tunnel beneath the men, who were kept alive by supplies funnelled through a thin pipe.

Messrs Webb and Russell were first hailed as heroes. Since then, emotions have been mixed amid reports that they were considering offers of up to A$1m each from Channel Nine and Channel Seven, two rival Sydney-based networks, to tell their tales. Sean Anderson, a Sydney management agent, said the miners had appointed him as their agent on May 13th to handle the offers. He said they wanted to set up a charitable foundation to help the Beaconsfield community. The mine has been closed while the Tasmanian state government establishes an inquiry into its safety standards.

Transport of delight

Malcolm Turnbull, one of Sydney’s highest-profile parliamentarians, has drawn attention to Sydney’s congested streets by giving up his government-supplied car in return for an allowance of almost A$20,000 a year to use on public transport. “You can’t park,” says Mr Turnbull, who has represented the federal seat of Wentworth in Sydney’s rich eastern suburbs for the ruling Liberal Party since 2004. “From my point of view, it’s more efficient to get around on the buses or the trains, or walk.”

Yet contrary to Mr Turnbull's view, there are signs that Sydneysiders are as frustrated with the state of their public transport as with their congested streets. A transport lobby group called 10,000 Friends of Greater Sydney released a survey on May 14th showing 80% dissatisfaction with the city’s bus, train and ferry services. Most respondents believed the state government should go into debt to upgrade services, and ditch its policy of engaging in partnerships with private companies to build more freeways.

Looking back

To mark its 175th anniversary as Australia’s (and one of the world’s) oldest daily newspapers, the Sydney Morning Herald has been trawling its archive to give readers a chronicle of key moments in the country’s history. These include eyewitness accounts of the 1880 capture of Ned Kelly, an outlaw, and of a violent clash between white and Chinese miners during the 1861 gold rush. In a special edition on April 18th, the Herald issued historic stories in a contemporary layout. The stories included “Australia’s big day out: the birth of a nation”, which reported on Sydney's January 1st 1901 celebrations to mark the founding of Australia as a federation; and a 1971 dispatch from New York reported on Germaine Greer, an Australian feminist, who was busy barnstorming America promoting “The Female Eunuch”, her best-selling women’s liberation book.

Catch if you can

May 2006

Joseph Lycett: convict artist

Until June 18th 2006

This fascinating exhibition displays some of the earliest known depictions of Sydney and colonial Australia. Joseph Lycett was transported to Sydney in 1814, at the age of 38, after being convicted in England of forgery. His artistic talents gave him an easier life than most convicts: Lachlan Macquarie, an early colonial governor, used Lycett’s drawings to accompany his reports.

This is the most comprehensive exhibit of Lycett’s works ever assembled, with 48 original paintings that the convict published in a book, “Views of Australia”. These include a grand panorama of the south shore of Sydney Harbour—now the city’s business district—and a meeting of the Awabakal aboriginal tribe on the future site of Newcastle, north of Sydney. John McPhee, the exhibition’s curator, says Lycett “seems to have been an inveterate forger and con man”, yet his paintings remain “the most lavish pictorial account of the colony ever produced”.

Museum of Sydney, Phillip and Bridge Sts, Sydney. Tel: +61 (0)2 9251 5988. Open: daily, 9.30am-5pm. Visit the museum's website for more information.

More from the Sydney cultural calendar