Clover ready for another race

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore is confident of her standing in the gay community and her ability to hold on to the pink vote in September’s council elections.

Despite the escalation of violence on Oxford St and concerns that gay and lesbian businesses are being pushed off the strip, Moore feels sure her work as an advocate for our community, as well as her achievements for Sydney as a whole, speak loudly enough without the need to enter into a big campaigning process.

I would hope that our work over the past four years would speak for itself, Moore told the Sydney Star Observer.

I would be very surprised if the recent spate of violence on Oxford St cost us votes because I think I’ve done more than anyone else in NSW Parliament to create a safe environment for the GLBT community and I’ve done that over a period of 20 years in the NSW Parliament.

I have always worked very closely with our police commanders and with groups like the Anti-Violence Project and I think, specifically in terms of Oxford St, I worked actively for the set-up of the Safe Place and with ACON on that whole campaign to get the sort of commander we needed into the precinct.

I’ve just been very actively involved all the way through.

Moore used the announcement of her candidacy to outline measures to help curb the drinking culture along Oxford St and the related violence via the new small bars bill.

We’re trying to turn around this culture that has developed of binge drinking leading to violence and crime, she said.

Two things that can contribute to changing the situation are the new liquor laws, which I certainly had quite a say in, and the late-night control plan we have developed, where we give incentives to small venues.

It’s probably about putting bohemia and eclectic -” interesting experiences -” back into our entertainment precincts -¦ things that have just been destroyed and sanitised by the big drinking barns.

Moore said she was also keen to use whatever means possible to encourage a resurgence of gay and lesbian business activity along Oxford St.

It’s driven by the market -¦ but yes, we would like to see a stronger presence from smaller retailers in the area, she said.

I’ve had an office on Oxford St as an MP for 20 years and I’ve seen the changes. Some of them are commercially driven and we have no power over that of course, but we can help by working with business and giving grants and setting up an economic development unit to work with businesses on the strip and give them support.

We’ve got about 20,000 people living within two blocks of Oxford St, many of whom are part of the GLBT community and who want a civilised environment and also want to be able to buy basic foodstuffs -” not just a pair of jeans -” so we’re working on all of that.

We’ve done some quite fantastic work in every area over the past four years and I want to take that forward and see key achievements at the end of next term.