Steve Price gave one of his all-time great bollockings to South Sydney’s deputy mayor last week as he exports his council-bashing formula from Melbourne but runs the risk of being banned by local government across Sydney if he goes too hard.

But on Thursday March 14 we finally had some success.

Deputy Mayor Amanda Lennon (a councillor since 2000 who is affiliated with the Greens) appeared on Pricey’s show.

Pricey took the gloves off, and after this appearance we don’t expect South Sydney’s councillors to be queuing up to speak to Pricey in a hurry.

Lennon was on the back foot right from the start, apparently wary of ambush questioning from Pricey.

Pricey was inundated with calls for an encore performance of the interview, so after the 8:30am news he played it again.

PRICEY: At 25 past 6, I spoke with South Sydney Council’s Deputy Lord Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Amanda Lennon. I wanted to talk to her about their dog laws in South Sydney and also about Frank Sartor’s bid to take over South Sydney. I think that details on that decision on that is to be made shortly. I wanted to talk to someone from South Sydney particularly because when we asked earlier in the week to talk to South Sydney Council, we were told “no-one in this building will ever speak to Steve Price again because he is rude, stupid, ignorant and arrogant”. I started by asking Amanda Lennon if she was indeed breaking the law.

AL: Well, I understood by your staff that I was going to be speaking about dogs. But, I just heard the intro, and we’re on a different tact [sic]. So you want to discuss, 05

PRICEY: We can be on any tack you like. But it seems odd that a council would say that no one in the building will ever talk to us again.

AL: Well, I don’t know that, I’m just hearing that from you. So, what area did you want to discuss, Steve?

PRICEY: Why would Liam Gash say that, do you think?

AL: I can’t speak for staff. But you know that our old media, 05

PRICEY: So he only handles the mayor, not the deputy mayor?

AL: That’s it.

PRICEY: So you’re your own woman?

AL: Um, yes. [Gasp]

PRICEY: We can talk about dogs, I’d be happy to. Now, we first took to South Sydney Council after the problem with a dog in Waterloo. Repeat offender, 27 previous attacks, attacked a 3 year old boy, took off part of his ear and I spoke to a dog handler in South Sydney who didn’t seem to have much idea of just how the dog policy and the dog legislation, the dangerous dog legislation, should indeed be managed.

AL: We need state government to review that. Obviously dangerous dogs shouldn’t be allowed in the inner city areas.

PRICEY: My understanding is that you have no policy on that, you have no guidelines, that you’re not working to any council guidelines.

AL: We have a policy and guidelines on dangerous dogs but they’re not strong enough and we do need state government to give more jurisdiction to local government, but the state government, 05

PRICEY: Legislation gives you as much jurisdiction as you need.

AL: No, no, no, no, no. Our legislation in local government comes from state government, which is why, 05

PRICEY: Yes the state government law on dangerous dogs gives you as much jurisdiction as you need. You are able as a council to force people to keep dogs in childproof enclosures and have them muzzled in public. Problem is, most councils don’t actually do any work off the back of that legislation.

AL: Certainly our dog catchers do work a lot, because we do have a lot of dogs in the inner city.

PRICEY: But you have no documentation at the South Sydney Council about how you follow up dogs once they’re declared as dangerous, do you?

AL: Ummmm, no, not very good at following things up, no.

PRICEY: That’s great for the people of South Sydney.

AL: Well, I do live in Kings Cross so we’ve also got the police, we’ve also got all of the state charades going on around here at the moment, so, 05 [pause without being interrupted].

PRICEY: But how are you making the people who live in your council area feel comfortable that you are doing anything about dangerous dogs when you freely admit that you don’t actually follow up dangerous dogs once they are declared?

AL: I didn’t freely admit, I know that our dog, 05

PRICEY: You just told me you weren’t very good at follow up.

AL: [inaudible], 05waking up. People do the best they can but I know of one person in Redfern and the dog catcher spends a lot of time trying to do something about it. It would be much easier if we were given the legislation to ban dangerous dogs from inner city areas.

PRICEY: Can I just ask you about this issue of Frank Sartor wanting to take over your boundaries, 05

AL: As long as you re-phrase it to “state government”, because it’s sort of the media sort of wishes things over and changes it around. I mean, Mr Sartor is the Lord Mayor of Sydney but this is all coming from the state government.

PRICEY: Yes, well, whether it is Frank Sartor or the state government, it doesn’t matter much. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to have the area that you currently cover come under the control of a wider Sydney council?

AL: Well, wider and bigger councils is totally against sustainable futures and current trends in planning.

PRICEY: Tell that to the people of Brisbane.

AL: Ummm I don’t want to be like Queensland.

PRICEY: Brisbane’s a pretty nice city.

AL: I haven’t been there for a long time. Our whole life is in walking distance of the inner city. My kids’ schools, work, everything we do in the city of Sydney is pushed down by laws and the RTA and stuff all the time. And this area has been, Kings Cross has been moved out of boundaries all the time, but we still don’t get the legislation or the care that we’d like.

PRICEY: Why is this caricature of Frank Sartor in the council foyer?

AL: I didn’t even know it was there, but I do, 05

PRICEY: When was the last time you were there?

AL: Yesterday. The media, 05 you know the media, 05 our media manager at South Sydney now works for the City of Sydney, 05 You know, the media stunts and the media stuff, that’s your game, Steve, not mine. I sort of, you know, 05

PRICEY: Beg your pardon?

AL: Well that’s your game, the media stuff, you know more about it than me.

PRICEY: I’m asking you why there is a caricature of Frank Sartor in the foyer of your own building.

AL: Ummm, that’s something to do with the media department, which is what you know more about, 05

PRICEY: I don’t know anything about it at all. You’ve got him there looking like Napoleon, presumably the council has endorsed the fact that it is there.

AL: I thought it was a thing of Napoleon. No, I have not, I was not asked about that or had anything to do with it. Media department in the current political arena are given budgets and more or less do what they like and our media person used to be with, 05 It might have even been the now Sydney city media manager person who put it together before he was coerced into working for the city of Sydney.

PRICEY: Thanks for your time.

AL: [Brightly] OK.

PRICEY: Amanda Lennon there, deputy mayor of South Sydney. She is possibly the most stupid woman I’ve ever spoken to in 5 and a half years of interviewing people on radio. She’s got no idea about what she’s talking about. She has no idea about dogs. Didn’t know that [a caricature of] Frank Sartor was in the foyer of her own building and blames the media. That there is an example, an exact example of why the South Sydney council should be thrown out and amalgamated with the Sydney council. What a dope.

After replaying this, Pricey said “It was 25 past 6 but you would think that she could at least speak some sense.”

– Ends –

Pricey is now striking up the “Amanda Lennon Award” for the most stupid interviewee he encounters from now until the end of the year.

It will be hard to see the current champ (or is that “chump”?) being toppled.

We’ll let Crikey readers draw their own conclusions from the interview, but one thing that we would point out is Lennon’s curious insistence that Pricey acknowledge that it’s the state government, not Frank Sartor, trying to push out the City of Sydney’s boundaries.

It is curious because in the South Sydney Council meeting of 13 December 2000, the minutes clearly show that South Sydney council held Frank Sartor responsible for the boundary push:

ADMINISTRATION MYTHS AND INTERFERENCE FROM THE LORD MAYOR SPROATS’ INQUIRY

Council has become aware of a new initiative by the Lord Mayor of Sydney regarding the Sproats’ Inquiry. Councillor Sartor is distributing to non-City residents a four page, glossy newsletter promoting the expansion of the City of Sydney.

Cr Sartor presents what he describes as a “compelling case for change” that “seeks to dispel [the] myths and “sets [out] the facts” surrounding the current local government Inquiry in the eight inner city councils.

This publicly funded propaganda is a carefully crafted document, filled with generic pieties and is capable of distributing throughout all the other seven council areas being reviewed.

It is deplorable that City of Sydney funds are being squandered so recklessly to advance the boundary pretensions of a Lord Mayor who covets control of all local government from Glebe to Bondi.

In the course of the brochure Cr Sartor misrepresents the position and record of all his neighbouring councils, as well as the NSW Government, and advances spurious claims about the City of Sydney’s pre-eminence and achievements.

I have today lodged a formal complaint with the Hon. Harry Woods, Minister for Local Government, concerning the ethics, legality and propriety of such propagandizing outside the City of Sydney area.

It is an impertinent attempt to interfere in local governance. The Lord Mayor is engaged in a disturbing waste of ratepayers’ resources, especially given his criticisms of other councils’ financial management.

GENERAL MANAGER

– Ends –

After taking this noble stand against flagrant misuse of ratepayers’ funds for political gain, what does the South Sydney council do?

It dedicates most of the first two pages of its February 2002 newsletter to more “publicly funded propaganda” which you can see here.

Again, we’ll leave it to Crikey’s knowledgeable readers to draw their own conclusions on this one. We’re not exactly sure what a “generic piety” is, but suspect that a fair chunk of this little document would fit the bill.

Don’t you just love to see two-bit politicians squabbling over their fiefdoms?

Will Sydney councils follow the lead of Moreland Council and ban Pricey?

Beating up on councils is part of the Pricey formula because listener surveys show that they are not popular. Pricey used to accuse a whole variety of Melbourne councils of all sorts of sins but his general sledge was that “all councillors have their feet up on the desk quaffing whisky planning their next ratepayer funded overseas junket”. He has said this on numerous occasions.

Moreland Council in Melbourne got done over once too often and fired off this letter to 3AW general manager Graham Mott last year:

6 February 2001

Graham Mott

General Manager

Southern Cross Broadcasting

43 Bank Street

SOUTH MELBOURNE 3205

Dear Mr Mott

This letter is to inform 3AW that neither Councillors nor staff from Moreland City Council will, in future, make themselves available for interviews on 3AW talk back radio.

Since Moreland Council was elected in 1996, it has maintained an open communications policy on all issues. Mayors and Councillors have made themselves available for interview on 3AW often at short notice. This Council has not shied away from difficult and unpopular issues.

It has become clear that there is an editorial policy at 3AW to denigrate local government whenever and wherever possible. In recent years, there have been numerous positive stories about local government but the 3AW talk back presenters have chosen to ignore these items.

Moreland has won international, national and state recognition for its work in energy management, conservation, strategic planning, administration and consultation. In its latest community perception survey, Council received an overall 82 per cent satisfaction rating, up from 79 per cent in the previous year. Clearly its community is largely satisfied with the work Council is doing.

Over the past five years, these initiatives have been covered on many other news, TV and radio programs, including the 3AW hourly news, but almost never on either the Neil Mitchell or Steve Price programs.

In the recent coverage of the Australia Day issue, a statement by the Acting Mayor Cr. Andrew Rowe was read to the producer of the Steve Price program and this was not used in the editorial coverage of the issue. The following day, presenter Neil Mitchell, who again ignored the statement, used Australia Day as the subject of an editorial.

In the following week producer Lisa Greenough contacted our public relations manager about an interview on the issue of a $100 fine for bins left on the street for 24 hours or more. The interview was agreed on the grounds that it was confined to this issue of bins. It was specifically noted that this was not to be a ‘free for all’ and that the issue of Australia Day would not be raised. The preface for the interview by presenter Neil Mitchell clearly showed the prime focus of the interview was to be on Australia Day and sponsorship of the Midsummer Gay and Lesbian festival. The bins story was obviously only a vehicle to introduce these issues.

Appearing on the program is no longer an opportunity to present the views of Moreland Council. It is simply an opportunity for 3AW presenters to ridicule and insult people and elected governments. While we invite and encourage robust debate on local government issues, all sides of the argument should be heard. This is no longer happening on 3AW talk back.

Given this situation, neither Councillors nor Council staff will be available for any interview on any topic on 3AW talk back. It is regrettable that Moreland has had to take this step. It will be reviewed if we believe the editorial policies at 3AW change to encourage and foster proper and effective debate on local government.

Yours sincerely

MARIA MERCURIO

Chief Executive Officer

CC. Cr. Rowe, Acting Mayor

Shock jock representations to potential interviewees

Finally, let’s take a look at the operating practices of shock jocks because with such fearful bollockings being dished out, it can sometimes be difficult to get talent to appear on the program.

Back in December, then 3AW Drive presenter Steve Price ran a vicious campaign over the fact that mentally ill convicted murderer Claude Gabriel had moved from Queensland to Melbourne with his family.

According to John Gabriel, the father, Steve Price’s radio coverage and column in the Herald Sun about his son caused the family to have eggs thrown at their house and angry mobs out the front shouting ”murderer”. They decided to flee to Rome.

Well today we can can bring you a transcript of a message left on the family’s answering machine by then 3AW producer Kathryn Mundy. She is now working with Pricey at 2UE and you can contact her at kmundy@2ue.com.au if you’d like to ask her precisely what sympathy Steve Price ever showed to the Gabriel family on air. Anyway, this is the message she left:

”Mr Gabriel, Hi, it’s Kathryn Mundy. I’m calling again from 3AW, I apologise for calling you again last night. I understand you are probably reluctant to speak with us. I am just ringing to let you know, um, I’ve got some background information as to your son’s case and the efforts that your family have been through over the last couple of years to have him transferred legally to Victoria. Um. I am ringing because we have sympathy for the situation that your family is in at the moment and we were wondering if it might be possible to talk to you about it, if you would like to give me a call my number in the office is 9243 2147 or my moblie is 0418 237 372. The information I have here says that an integral part of Claude’s treatment was to be near his family and friends so we understand the travel for the last couple of years to be up with him in Queensland or have him moved here, that’s the reason for my call, so, we’d be quite keen to have a chat with you. I’m just wanting to assure you that we do have sympathy for the situation you are in at the moment so if you would like to give me a call I’d be really happy to hear from you. I’m from Steve Price’s program at 3AW, 92432147. Thank you, bye.”

This is what Pricey wrote about Gabriel in his December 19 column in the Herald Sun:

“Gabriel’s story is well known to Herald Sun readers. He murdered Janaya Clarke and left her for dead in her Gold Coast unit. Unfit to plead, he was placed in the care of Queensland health authorities.

Incredibly, just three years after his crime, he left Queensland with his parents and moved back to Melbourne to live in Church St, Keilor.

Media outrage (generated largely by Pricey) over him living back in the community saw the Gabriel family put their house on the market and shift out.

Early this week it was revealed that local health authorities had lost touch with the Gabriel family. So Claude Gabriel, whose excuse for killing was a mental condition brought on by booze and dope, and who needs to be controlled by constant medical attention, may be wandering Melbourne.

Ends

Hmmm, I’d hate to see an unsympathetic approach. Media Monitors recently provided a printout to Crikey of all the Price attacks on Claude Gabriel and his family and it ran to 21 pages.

Now Crikey has no objection to a journalist running a campaign on a law and order issue but when you are completely shafting a family in the biggest selling paper and most widely listened to radio station in town, don’t let your staff ring up and claim you are being sympathetic when you clearly are not.