Once upon a time in Sydney there were lots of excellent live local music venues. Something changed.

  1. The digital revolution bombed standard music distribution economics.
  2. Venue owners shut down their music spaces under relentless pressure from individual residents who complained about the noise.
  3. Venues owners brough in pokie machines.

Now, a generation later Sydney is on the brink of a live and local music renaissance. Surprisingly, musicians and politicans are joining forces and turning these trends around.

Saving the Annandale should be a turning point for Sydney’s live music scene. A planning system that empowers a tiny minority to turn the sound down on the majority needs to be overturned. The practice of individual noise complaints having legal pre-eminence over the existing use rights of longstanding hotels must come to an end.

Hoodoo Guru Dave Faulkner, shadow minister for the environment and planning Luke Foley, and Leichhardt’s rock’n’roll mayor, Darcy Byrne, will hold a press conference at the NSW Parliament on Thursday urging a statewide rollout of Cr Byrne’s Good Neighbour policy, which calls for monthly meetings between the operators of music venues and residents.

Will you be there? Parliament House. 11am. Today.