I was about 10 years old the first time I came to Sydney. Back then, the Kings Domain was a spectacle of soap box orators on a Sunday.
Some were still soaked from the night before, the smell of cheap tobacco pressed into their clothing and even cheaper brandy prefacing their particular bailiwick of political expression. This was where budding writers aspiring to a job at The Bulletin came to argue and compete for attention. Banjo Patterson recited poetry here and back in the 1970s, there were still men who could recite his ballads, entertaining hundreds of people who’d show up, like us, to hear something we ourselves could argue and discuss over the coming days. I remember my mother saying this was how ideas were shaped and revolutions started, how democracy happens.
Some were still soaked from the night before, the smell of cheap tobacco pressed into their clothing and even cheaper brandy prefacing their particular bailiwick of political expression. This was where budding writers aspiring to a job at The Bulletin came to argue and compete for attention. Banjo Patterson recited poetry here and back in the 1970s, there were still men who could recite his ballads, entertaining hundreds of people who’d show up, like us, to hear something we ourselves could argue and discuss over the coming days. I remember my mother saying this was how ideas were shaped and revolutions started, how democracy happens.
Like the dirty Beresford Lane party after Mardi Gras and the clubs of The Cross that kept the tunes drifting way past any reasonable time to get up on a Sunday morning, the orators of the Domain are a memory that’s shaped what Sydney is today. Sydney, if it stands for anything, is freedom and good times, great weather and a lifestyle to match, the sum of brokered ideas borne out of struggle, survival, and second chances (even if the light rail should be underground).
I overheard a conversation between two fathers at the Ian Potter Wild Play Garden yesterday discussing politics. One appeared to have run for office and described the Labour party as spending the money in the booty to prove a responsibility to growth and the Liberal party withholding spending to demonstrate fiscal responsibility, yet neither was doing the hard work to figure out long-term what’s actually required. For all the complaints about its location, the Cahill Expressway was a master-stroke in urban design, let alone Joseph Cahill’s greenlighting of the Sydney Opera House. Today, there’s no political will to take on projects as inspiring and significant to future generations. One hundred year-old trees were cut down to make way for above-ground rail, when every city in the world is investing in furthering or improving existing underground public transport.
And yet, Sydney’s the most perfect example of what great societies wish they were all about: hard work; visionary thinking and a spectacular location colliding to create an ideal of what life can be like when we blur the lines, smudge the budget, stir the pot and tolerate the outrageous. Colours, sounds and the sweet smell of camellia, frangipani and midnight jasmine all through the day with bright sun and water for sailing, swimming, surfing and fishing. Rivers, a clean and calm harbour contrast with crashing waves and heaving traffic quickening at sunset and slowing at sunrise.
It’s a beautiful accident of everything that’s wonderful about humanity and our tolerant planet.
And yet, Sydney’s the most perfect example of what great societies wish they were all about: hard work; visionary thinking and a spectacular location colliding to create an ideal of what life can be like when we blur the lines, smudge the budget, stir the pot and tolerate the outrageous. Colours, sounds and the sweet smell of camellia, frangipani and midnight jasmine all through the day with bright sun and water for sailing, swimming, surfing and fishing. Rivers, a clean and calm harbour contrast with crashing waves and heaving traffic quickening at sunset and slowing at sunrise.
It’s a beautiful accident of everything that’s wonderful about humanity and our tolerant planet.