While I had been warned about Melbourne’s unpredictable weather, no one warned me about the warmth of Melburnians. Just like the charm of the city’s secret laneways, Melbourne’s friendliness is available for those willing to open their hearts.
Category: Melbourne
Melbourne was recently again crowned the most liveable city in Australia and 10th in the world, beating Sydney (13th in the world) and well ahead of everywhere else. Ironically, after the couple of years we’ve had, I think I finally understand why.
The self-styled leaders of these protests are not stupid, but calculating. They do not represent the community of Melbourne and they never will. Their fleeting moment in the spotlight must end. We must have zero tolerance for those who undermine community harmony with violence and do so for personal profit. The answer to isolated street violence is better policing and more peaceful picnics.
Why should this conservative think tank be given pride of place in a world-reputed university? It’s been given pride of place voice on Sky News After Dark, and linked to the IPA has Melbourne University now become an extension of these organizations with $7mill boost from the LNP? Who said cabals don’t exist in Australia? Of course, they do. Once in the 60s and 70s there were only conservative individuals, academics like Prof Knofflmacher who debated left-wing ones like Geoff Sharp, now there are organizations being given pride of place. Would the CPA ever be given the same largesse on campus? There is nothing intellectual here but just another step in the political culture war and another step in the policing of thought on a world-leading campus.
The institute is a partnership between the university and the Menzies Research Centre, a self-described “think-tank that champions Liberal principles” that “is affiliated with the Liberal Party of Australia”. The institute’s board includes: Sky News commentator Peta Credlin, a former chief of staff to PM Tony Abbott; Geoffrey Hone, chair of the right-wing think-tank, the Institute of Public Affairs; and David Kemp, a former Howard government cabinet minister. A former chair of Qantas and a University of Melbourne pro vice-chancellor and dean also sit on the board.
Some students and academics. They question the appropriateness of the university hosting a platform, set up with A$7 million in federal government funding, that lauds Menzies’ achievements but overlooks negative aspects of his legacy.
Source: Should the University of Melbourne host the Menzies Institute? The answer hinges on academic freedom
When handweaver Mary Burgess moved in to a studio in the Nicholas Building seven years ago, it felt like a gift. Yes, from her fifth floor window there is a stunning view of Flinders Street station, but it was the feeling of being in an artists’ village that won her over.
Source: Artists, artisans unite in bid to save the ‘heart of Melbourne’
SGS Economics and Planning found that during 2018-19, the Melbourne economy alone accounted for 40 per cent of Australia’s total growth. Melbourne gross domestic product reached $369 billion compared with regional Victoria’s $76 billion.
Australian GDP expanded by 1.9 per cent but Melbourne’s own GDP lifted by 4 per cent. Sydney GDP at $461 billion grew by 2.6 per cent, its lowest rate since 2012-13, to account for a third of national growth.
Source: Melbourne closes on Sydney as nation’s economic powerhouse
Australians just playing and having fun as they aren’t Africans they aren’t worthy of Andrew Bolt’s attention (ODT)
Reker has been looking to re-establish the Finks outlaw motorcycle gang in Victoria after police carried out a series of gang-busting raids on the group in 2015, significantly weakening the group.
Dozens of members joined the the rival Mongol gang in the wake of the raids.
via CCTV footage reveals gunmen shooting Finks bikie boss James Reker’s home after burning car
Did Peter Dutton, Andrew Bolt, and News Corp have Australia dropped to 2nd on the world’s most livable cities list? Petty Crime separated it from Vienna. Bolt and Dutton keep calling it a major outbreak that has Melbournites to afraid to go out to dinner.They are single handedly dragging this city down (ODT)
The two cities are now separated by 0.7 of a percentage point in the rankings, with Vienna scoring a near-ideal 99.1 out of 100 and Melbourne 98.4. Two other Australian cities were in the top 10: Sydney (fifth) and Adelaide (10th)
via ‘It’s a wake up call’: Melbourne loses top spot on liveability rankings to Vienna
Road rage: Parked cars smashed up in Miller Road, Epping.
In recent weeks we have seen a spate of violence that has exploded from very little. We had a family rammed in their car, with the attacker stomping on the vehicle’s roof outside a police station. Around the same time a truck driver allegedly rammed two women in their car, attacking them with a hammer.
Road rage: Parked cars smashed up in Miller Road, EppingThe truth is we have more chance of being injured in a road rage incident than being involved in a headline-grabbing carjacking.
Melbourne Grammar School has suspended a student who created a “hit list’’ of dozens of his classmates and spoke about killing them.
Copies of the disturbing list have been circulated among senior students at the prestigious private school and includes a short, offensive description against each child’s name.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to kill him he never shows up anyway,” one entry on the list says.
via Melbourne Grammar student suspended over ‘hit list’ and kill comments
In the EIU survey, Melbourne got a perfect score in healthcare, infrastructure and education for an overall score of 97.5 out of 100, but Stuart Moseley would add creativity to the list of things that make a city more habitable. “The sort of interchange of lifestyles, insights and perspectives coupled with education, a young population and innovation,” he says. Melbourne has a number of hubs that encourage creativity like the streets of Fitzroy or cafes of Collingwood, but a liveable city also sees creativity happen spontaneously and organically.
via Liveable Melbourne: why the city is on top of the world – The Age – Brand Discover
“This is not about ethnicity, it’s not about people’s background, it’s not about religion, it’s about their behaviour, so any conversation that goes on around ethnicity needs to be squashed.”
via Cops investigate Menace to Society gang after party house trashed, police pelted
Soon after I started riding daily, I noticed being commented on and abused by men on bikes.
Source: Male cyclists of Melbourne, what the hell is your problem?
Caulfield recorded the highest proportion of violent break-ins, with 26 per cent of the 164 burglaries there involving violent entry.In Frankston, Berwick and Pakenham, more than 11 per cent of burglaries were aggravated.And in Ascot Vale and Brunswick, more than 15 per cent of burglaries involved violent entry.
Source: Couple bashed with baseball bat in terrifying Dandenong North home invasion
The annual survey is a guide to help companies calculate where to deploy – and what to pay – expatriate executives. Its criteria measure liveability for the few who are highly paid and centrally located, not for the legion of frustrated commuters, many of them underemployed, jammed on freeways fretting about coping on a shrinking real wage and, in many cases, suffering disappointment at the daily struggles caused by moving to the under-resourced fringe to buy a home they can afford.
Source: ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ the world’s most liveable city only for the few
“How was this man on parole?” the prime minister asked.
Source: Here Is Everything We Know About The Melbourne Siege Gunman
It seemed an offer too good to be true: a two-storey, six-bedroom house with a pool in Sydney that the owner was willing to trade for less.
Source: Swept away by ‘awesome’ Melbourne, jealous Sydneysider offers to switch homes
The man arrested over the wild car chase through the CBD that killed three and injured 31 more was wanted over a stabbing in St Kilda on Friday and is currently on multiple bail orders.
Source: Four dead, 31 injured, suspect in custody after CBD car chase
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A vigilante-style group is running “safety patrols” in Melbourne’s CBD in a bid to counteract what they claim is rising street crime and the inability of police to protect the public from gangs like Apex.
Source: Vigilante-style group Soldiers of Odin patrolling Melbourne CBD
The world’s most liveable city apparently – not for the growing number of those without shelter.
Source: We love our gritty city laneways … until they’re a bit too gritty
For the sixth year in a row, Melbourne has topped ‘The Economist’s’ list of the world’s most liveable cities.
Source: Top of the world: Melbourne crowned world’s most liveable city, again
A member of the Apex gang at the centre of a brawl in Melbourne’s CBD says it has been blown out of proportion.
“There were two groups involved in this incident in the city but they only targeting one group, the Apex group,” he said. The group has merged with another gang, YCW — made up of Pacific Islanders, Maoris and Anglo-Australians…. Why Andrew Bolt is racist
Police were warned 12 months ago about a new breed of reckless young criminals with Calabrian heritage who were associating with Melbourne Mafia bosses, but were unable to quell their rising influence.
Source: Joseph Acquaro killing: Police warned over Mafia-linked gang
She calls it the United Nations by the sea. And until recently it was one of Melbourne’s little secrets. Beaches. Parks. Community. Half an hour to the city by train. Jennifer Williams grew up here and – after a few years slumming it in more fashionable suburbs – she came home to stay.
Source: Melbourne’s most liveable suburbs and a little secret revealed
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