dr_mudd@excite.com

It's a serious worry that Music Victoria has been so clueless about the real impact of the budget but can we stop the mythologising about the brief closure of The Tote. The liquor laws wouldn't have helped but the business was just not well enough run. The fact a new owner could move in and get it going is testament to that. Bruce has been fantastic for music in Melbourne and will hopefully continue to be so but that doesn't mean you are a good business person. If the liquor laws pushed the business over the edge then the business must have already been in a fair bit of trouble.

It felt like I was like being forced to listen to Bryan Ferry have it off with Nick Cave only to realise it wasn't consensual...on either party's part. Dissapointing and disturbing. I felt sullied.

Bollocks, in the face of so much mediocrity on commercial radio and JJJ what brand of small-minded pettiness inspires one community radio volunteer to hate on other community radio volunteers?

kuroneko, going back over your posts in this thread I have to say some of it borders on bullying. You and Liam disagree but there are points where you either just don't want to accept that where you have misrepresented what he said.

Don't lose heart Liam. Your honesty and frankness is appreciated and refreshing in a debate where a lot of people are going on only pieces of the puzzle and innacurate ones at that. Hearing from the people who the laws are being applied to is an important part of finding out what is really happening and how it can be fixed where it needs to be. This is the first time I've heard someone say that some of the changes have helped a venue. You can't be the only one. The last thing we want is for a govt 'fix' to actually disadvantage another set of venues.

Bruce what concrete changes would have occurred if the original Liberal motion had passed other than you feeling better at seeing the ALP kicked in the nuts? (a schadenfreude no one would begrudge you). The motion itself would not have eased a licence condition, re-opened a venue, or held the LLC accountable for its 'only following orders' attitude. It would influence the framing of the debate for maybe one news cycle - nothing but smoke and mirrors. To achieve real change you need a substantive legislative amendment.

What would be the point Bruce? The motion means nothing, says nothing and achieves nothing of substance. It is window dressing to allow a party to look good without actually proposing a workable alternative and doing the work to present that alternative as legislative ammendments. A full set of ammendments would normally take weeks for the govt to pull together. A minor party like the greens don't have the same resources and The Libs has shown no interest in doing anything other than grandstand and send press releases to dolts at The Age who can't even check their facts and report acurately. Were there any lawyers who put their hands up to help the Tote? Could they work on practical legislative ammendments. The Greens need to do more but so do others if there is to be a solution found.

Jose, if they'd voted against it the Libs would have gone even harder trying to get the media to say the greens are opposed to live music. Abstention was the only way to say we are opposed to this motion because it is meaningless but not opposed to motherhood statements it included. All politics is uggly and self-serving but let's wait for a full policy position from Greens and Libs before assuming either is with us or agin us on this.

Buffy nailed this. Bruce, you're smarter than to fall for the Libs stunt. No ammendment to the motion worked out with the Greens would have changed anything - the motion is meaningless. What is needed is legislative ammendments which could be introduced as a private member's bill or via the Libs (or the Greens). The fact the Libs didn't do this shows they do not have a policy. The motherhood statements in the stunt motion are useless without legislative ammendments and they would take days or weeks to draft. Good on the Greens for standing up to the stunt when they saw it for what it was. Why isn't the industry drafting specific legislative ammendments and offering them to the greens. Enough decent lawyers in Melbourne have been through the Tote over the years - pro bono any of you?

Then actually pull your finger out and do something about it K2. Sign up for the radio training course or volunteer at the station. If you think there's a better way show 'em how it's done. By the way, RRR has an educational license so it's obliged to do some of the stuff you are railing against. Maybe not 90% of the time 'tho.