Last Thursday was one of the coldest days on record. Melbourne is freezing and it’s wet. The people have spoken and they’re sick of it. What are you planning to do about the weather?
I’m all over it like a fat kid on a cupcake. It’ll take me a little time – about three to six months – but I promise you I’ll turn it around in that time.
You say that every year.
I take my eye off the ball, you’re right, but I’ll get it back in order.
What is the most interesting thing in your house or office and how did it get there? (please don’t say your three-month-old son Henry – I don’t want to know how he got there).
This phone here [he points to the cream landline phone from the ‘70s you can see in the photo above] when I first became Lord Mayor, they said to me, ‘That’s the private line.’ I said, ‘Who rings me on the private line?’ and they just said, ‘It’s the private line.’ Then for two years it didn’t ring. Then one day it rings and I’ve gone, ‘Oh Jesus!’ So I picked it up – ‘hello?’ – and there was no-one there. And I put it down again. And every year or so it rings, and there’s never anybody there.
I love that you still have it.
It’s the private line – I’m not touching it!
What else?
My favourite thing in this office is my signed photograph of Nicky Winmar. He’s a very proud Indigenous man, and he doesn’t sign many of them. I helped with his documentary and he gave me that as a memento. He only had ten of those, and that’s his last one. He gave it to me and I said, ‘Nicky I’ll keep it while I’m Lord Mayor, and I’ll tell visitors the story of that wonderful day at Collingwood where you went down to the cheer squad who were racially abusing you, you lifted your jumper and pointed at the colour of your skin.’ It was a magnificent moment. But then of course there is this great object of beauty here.
The Lord Mayor hands me a crystal, brown trophy that looks like a pair of testicles.
Have you ever seen anything like that? I was given it in Tianjin when I was made honorary professor at the Tianjin University Hospital. And it was very precious and they handed it to me, and so in cavalier fashion I grabbed it, not knowing the bottom part is separate. So it flew off and I caught it in one hand and all these Chinese dignitaries are standing there with a look of shock and horror on their faces.
What sort of gifts do you give other mayors?
I actually give them good things. I give them a box of music – the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra playing some of the great music of the world, and they love that one. Or I give them a silver photo frame with the City of Melbourne stamped on it and our crest. So they get good presents. You should see some of the stuff that I get!
In George Orwell’s 1984, there’s this thing called Two Minute Hate, where each day Party members of the society of Oceania watch a film depicting the Party’s enemies and express their hatred for them. Can we do this for ticket inspectors?
It has merit. But the good thing I like about it is, you can assemble all the parts of the City of Melbourne – and you’ll recall when the citizens go into the Two Minute Hate, they often go in there prepared to hate Eurasia but suddenly the alliances have changed and they have to hate their ally from yesterday – so you could almost make it a lottery like that so no-one will know who we were going to turn on at any particular day.
You make a weekly appearance on talk back radio, listening to the suggestions of callers. What’s the craziest idea a talk back radio caller has suggested?
Two spring to mind. The first one was ‘Could we create a monorail for trams?’
I’m serious. The one in Sydney went really well didn’t it. And the second one, it was suggested that I ride a bicycle to work every day. That’s not gonna happen.
Let’s talk slogans. Victoria’s slogan on license plates was On The Move then it became The Place To Be but now they say Stay Alert, Stay Alive. The people have spoken and they’re bored of it. What do you think of the following three alternatives: Victoria: Docklands Isn’t So Bad, Victoria: So Cold Even Fairy Penguins Live Here, or Victoria: Gangsta’s Paradise.
I think they’re every bit and good as the other slogans.
You replaced the former Lord Mayor, John So he’s my bro. If he decided to run against you in two years’ time, would your slogan be ‘You Know Nothing, John So’?
[Silence]
…
I will tell you, for many years, I ferry the homeless around on Christmas morning. I do it with Brendan Nottle, and Brendan’s got this collection of some of the strangest characters in Melbourne, and Big John’s one of his characters. He loves wordplay. The first time he met me, and I must’ve been Lord Mayor for five minutes, he came up to me and said, ‘You’re Lord Mayor’. And I said, ‘Yes I am’. And he said, ‘I reckon you’re twice as good as the person before you’. I said, ‘Thanks John’ and then he said, ‘But that only makes you So-So’. How good is that? He came off a long run, but to deliver it…
Melbourne has sister cities in Osaka, Tianjin, Thessaloniki, Boston, St Petersburg, and Milan. Who’s got the weirdest mayor?
The Mayor of Tianjin is pretty funny. In his own central, autonomous government way, he’s sort of funny. When I was with him before I was elected last time, he said, ‘You’re facing election aren’t you?’ and I said, ‘Yes I am.’ He said, ‘Me too.’ And I just looked at him, and then he said, ‘Not quite the same as yours.’ I thought it was gold! You love those elections where the outcome is well and truly known in advance! That’s the system I want!
Lol.
I think when you’re looking for role models for mayors, you can’t go much further than Rob Ford from Toronto. Any mayor who says he only smokes crack cocaine when he’s drunk…Rob Ford is an inspiration to us all, really.
Mayor Quimby from The Simpsons spends his days embezzling tax money, taking holidays and receiving bribes from Fat Tony. How accurate is this portrayal of mayor life and which one is the hardest to get away with?
I am a Simpsons fan, and Mayor Diamond Joe Quimby is a personal favourite of mine. If you search the internet, you’ll find a photo in this very office of me wearing a sash with ‘Mayor’ across it and Diamond Joe Quimby standing beside me.
When I tweeted it, I wrote, ‘Delegation from some small American town’. Of all Diamond Joe Quimby exploits, my favourite is, do you remember Snake Whacking Day? You’ll recall the mood of the town changes while Quimby’s away arranging pre-whacked snakes, which he can then show off to the populous. But the mood has changed from celebrating whacking snakes to condemning whacking snakes. So when he opens the case of pre-whacked snakes, they all boo him. Do you remember what he says to them? It’s just wonderful. ‘You people are a pack of fickle mush heads.’ And they all go, ‘Yeah, he’s right! Give it to us, Quimby! Give it to us!’ You gotta love him, you gotta love him.
I can’t believe you have such an amazing recall of The Simpsons.
It is a show from which you can derive all of life’s philosophy. One of the greatest lines ever delivered on television is Homer answering the phone and saying, ‘You’ll have to speak up, I’m wearing a towel.’
An alien spaceship lands in the MCG. They demand to speak with the city’s leader. What do you say?
‘Meet you in The Long Room.’
What drink would you give them?
Oh you’d give ‘em a beer and a pie.
We’re now halfway through the questions. How badly do you regret granting this interview?
[Hesitation].
For the sake of the follow-up question, do you have a celebrity Hollywood crush?
Jason Statham. I like watching TV for relaxation, to zone out. So my wife will walk past me and say things like, ‘Watching Death Race 7 again are we dear?’ I was lucky enough to meet him a couple of times. One of the great things about my job, I met him ages when he was here with Mark Parnell and I had a glass of wine with him in Albert Park, then they came back for Killer Elite, and we closed Little Lonsdale Street to film, and I went down to the production. It had nothing to do with the fact that I could be Jason Statham and Bobby De Niro. Nothing at all. I think they were pretty impressed. By the way, I didn’t start liking him from The Transporter movies, I started liking him after the Guy Ritchie film Snatch. He plays Turkish.
“No thanks, Turkish. I’m sweet enough.”
“What’s happening with them sausages, Charlie?”
“Five minutes, Turkish.”
“Hang on, it was two minutes five minutes ago!”
You remember the Eastern European thugs? One of them says to Turkish, “You think I know fuck nothing, but I know fuck all.”
I love how I’ve come here to poke fun and you’ve ended up quoting The Simpsons and Snatch.
Naturally.
If he was to visit Melbourne and asked you on a date, what would you do and where would you take him?
We don’t have a Harbour Bridge or an Opera House or a giant rock or a Barrier Reef where we say, ‘You have to do that when you’re in Melbourne.’ We have a diversity of offer. What you’d do is say, ‘First of all, we’re gonna have some lunch out on the street, outside Florentino, we’re gonna have a lovely footpath lunch in Melbourne. Then in Jason’s case you’d take him down to AAMI Park because he was a professional soccer player and we’d show him a Melbourne City game. Then you’d take him to one of the rooftop bars – Madame Brussels, something quirky, Section 8 – then dinner somewhere. Again, not one of the top end restaurants, but you might take him to Moon Under Water or something a little different and very Melbourne. Then at the end of dinner, take him to Bennetts Lane and down to the jazz club down there. Named by the way, after my great-great-great grandfather. He was mayor here 152 years ago.
We’ve been flirting over Twitter.
I’ve been stalked, you mean.
Haha come on!
One man’s flirting is another man’s stalking.
When I got a few of your tweets, I was very nervous, and I consulted some dating coaches and they said, ‘Play hard to get.’
How’s that going for you?
Well, I just want to let you know that you may have the keys to the city, but you don’t have the keys to my heart. This isn’t a question, just want to let you know.
You seem a little too keen to push that button. I’m not sure that your heart’s in that.
Pick one Melburnian to honour with a statue and can it be Toadfish Rebecchi?
Toadfish – should’ve stayed as a barman, we’ve got too many lawyers anyway. He’s not so much on the radar. You know who I’d give a statue to? I bet it’s a bloke you’ve never heard of. His name is John Cade. He was a psychiatrist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in the ‘40s and ‘50s. He discovered, by basically experimenting on himself, that a very simple compound – lithium salts – actually was very useful for treating people with bipolar disorders and stopped them from descending into depressing illness. That treatment is still used worldwide. He discovered that in 1947 and I think John Cade – who didn’t write papers and promote it, he just went on treating – had he done it, he would’ve won a Nobel Prize. I have got no doubt that he has saved hundreds of thousands of lives. He’s a forgotten Melburnian and a great hero of mine.
What’s an interesting fact about Melbourne or Melbourne’s history that most Melburnians don’t know? I heard the top of King Street used to be a waterfall.
Bottom of William Street.
K.
We were gonna be called Bearbrass.
Bearbrass? I heard Batmania was an option.
Batmania was an option, but can you imagine us being called Bearbrass? It’s a little uncomfortable. Here’s one: the carpark of the Queen Victoria Market is our oldest cemetery and there are 6,600 bodies still under there and we’ve got no idea who they are.
Congratulations on the birth of your son, Henry, back in April. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, do you ever pretend you’re sleeping so Emma has to get up?
….Yes I do. You know I can’t lie to you. I cannot finish on a note of duplicity.
What’s one thing on your bucket list that you’d like to do before you die but haven’t done yet?
The AIDS Conference was this year, and I had my photo taken next to a ten-foot red condom, so that one’s ticked off. I’ve had my photo taken with a primate and a sexy dancing Broadway banana this morning, so that one’s pretty much covered.
It’s a shame it took so long. Skydiving?
Not a chance. Probably too late for league footy.
Come on. Podsiadly didn’t play until 28.
You know something, and it might be a bit sad, but I don’t think there’s anything left in my life that I’ve got a really burning desire to do that I haven’t done.
I think that’s more of a good thing, though.
There’s nothing where I’d say, ‘I feel unfulfilled because I haven’t done this.’ I must say I thought I would have a two-year-old when I was 60, just that I thought it would be a racehorse.
Finally, from now on can you finish all your speeches with ‘This is the word of the Lord…Mayor’?
No.
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