Liz Trevaskis ABC Afternoons interview with Nick Kirlew
Nick Kirlew’s Independent Candidacy for Chan Ward
In this ABC Radio interview, local independent candidate Nick Kirlew discusses his vision for the upcoming Chan Ward Council by-election, drawing on his 40-year history in Darwin and long-term advocacy as the convener of the Planning Action Network (PLan).
Speaking with host Liz Trevaskis, Kirlew emphasizes the critical need for increased transparency and genuine community consultation regarding major local developments.
If elected to the Darwin City Council, he aims to champion practical, resident-led solutions for pressing neighborhood concerns, including the hazards of speeding and discarded electric scooters on footpaths, establishing fairer management of off-leash dogs on local beaches, and ensuring a level playing field for major architectural and infrastructure proposals across the territory.
Transcript
Liz Trevaskis
And what are the burning issues in your neighbourhood, the stuff that you’d love to fix or that you’d love someone else to fix to make people’s day-to-day life just a little bit easier? Well, for Nick Kirlew, it’s the electric scooters on the footpath and the dangerous dogs on the beach. They’re some of the issues that matter to him ahead of the Chan Ward Council by-election this Saturday. He is one of the candidates throwing his hat in the ring, and we’re meeting all of them on the afternoon show ahead of the election on Saturday to Find out what makes locals who want to throw their hat in the ring, what makes them tick. Nick is running as an independent and he’s with us now. Hello, Nick.
Nick Kirlew
Good afternoon, Liz. Good afternoon, listeners.
Liz Trevaskis
Nick, a lot of people would have heard your voice and know your name speaking to us on the ABC over many years as part of the Planning Action Network. And I’ll get you to talk a little bit about why that is a passion of yours. But first, tell us the Nick Kirlew story. How did you end up in Darwin?
Nick Kirlew
Wow. Well, everybody’s got an origin story, and I’ll give you the shortened one. I managed to arrive in Darwin between Christmas and New Year’s. 40 years ago, and as Darwin goes, I had work by Christmas, New Year’s Eve. I was working as a glass collector at the casino for the New Year’s Eve party and it was great and I’m still sitting here today.
Liz Trevaskis
What were you coming here for? Did you have a plan?
Nick Kirlew
I was a bit nomadic, a bit, I like to go here, like to go there. Saw a lot of Australia. I hitchhiked with the dog. That sort of, you have to stop when you get to Darwin, right? There’s no…
Liz Trevaskis
You can’t keep going further north.
Nick Kirlew
If you’re going west, you still got to stop and gather your energy.
Liz Trevaskis
Did you have plans to keep going?
Nick Kirlew
I think it’s valid for people to not have plans. I know that sounds weird from a guy from the Planning Action Network, but the idea at that time for me was to see Australia. And I got picked up in a moke. You know those little mokes everybody used to hoot around in? And we went up to the Darwin Mall, and it was full of trees. it catches you, doesn’t it? might catch you in a day or it might take a year, but that one catches you.
Liz Trevaskis
What do you remember about how the place looked when you arrived? What was the streetscape and the cityscape like?
Nick Kirlew
Wow, oh gee. It’s all two-story timber houses all the way into the city. It’s just this amazing mingled match of people’s homes and businesses. Remember the motorbike business on the corner? I can’t remember the streets. But yeah, look, it was a lot simpler, a lot easier. Woodliegh Gardens was being constructed. lots of good parts of Darwin from that time. And luckily, we still have lots of good parts of Darwin.
Liz Trevaskis
Did you ride here on your bike? What’s the bike part of here?
Nick Kirlew
No, I was hitchhiked. What’s the bike part of my life? Push bike. I push bike now. I push bike to work. And sometimes I catch a bus, and then I ride my push bike.
Liz Trevaskis
OK, that’s part of life now, but you didn’t ride here. You hitchhiked here. What about the job at the casino? What was memorable about that?
Nick Kirlew
I know my wife’s listening, so we’ll leave that. But imagine New Year’s Eve at the casino 40 years ago. It was good fun.
Liz Trevaskis
I mean, I can’t. Take me there, Nick.
Nick Kirlew
People are leaping off tables into the arms of glass collectors. Does that help?
Liz Trevaskis
Fun times to be had. Collecting glasses at the casino after having arrived in town a few days before.
Nick Kirlew
Two days before.
Liz Trevaskis
You work in IT now, you’re an IT manager, but as I said, people will know you as the convener of the Planning Action Network and you’ve been chatting a bit with Jess on the Brookie Show here in the Top End recently before your candidacy for this election. is the Planning Action Network all about?
Nick Kirlew
Wow. I keep it the simple story is the pink sign, yellow sign. So, on your street, in your neighborhood, someone will put up a pink sign or a yellow sign. Now, it could be as simple as I want to put a carport on the front of my house, or it can be as complex as I want to build a 20-story building that’s going to overshadow your home. You know what I mean, like there are hundreds and hundreds of pages of documents prepared by experts. And Margaret Clinch taught me how to read the Planning Act, how to read the planning scheme. And we work with a community member. We’ll work with someone on one house if we have to. And then you get your more complex issues, you’ve got Save Little Mindle. I actually held that meeting at Lyons Community Centre six years ago that kicked off the current Save Lee Point. It’s about gathering people in the street and getting those people motivated. No one owns these campaigns. They become the product of the community. If you go to the DCA and there’s no one from community there, there’s only the developer to tell the story. Now, the DCA is an independent body, but they do take into account when people have an opinion.
Liz Trevaskis
And what do you provide for people? Do people come to you and say, I’m worried about this, I don’t, this looks complicated and I don’t understand anything, please help. Is that the sort of support that you offer our locals?
Nick Kirlew
It is. It genuinely is. It’s distressed people. It’s people who just can’t understand how this could happen. We all used to live in precincts. We used to live in areas that were set in stone. They wouldn’t be changed. These days, people see opportunity. Now, as I said on Channel 9 last night, I’m all for a five-star high-class tourist facility to be built in the Northern Territory I just don’t think one tenderer should do it. I think it should be a level playing field. Now in planning it’s the same issue. People will seek to rezone. community purpose land. They’ll say, now I want to build a tower on this land. I’ve bought the land. You should let me do that. People who live in the area will say, well, hang on, look at Blake Street. Blake Street have been in and out of the courts for years because the local residents don’t need PLan. They know how to do it. But if you don’t know how to do it, that’s what we do. We take you through, we’ll give you suggestions. The current planning website, it’s got the Seth Chin block which closes next Friday. So, there’s always something boiling, something happening. But we’re not against development. We just want it to be sensible. Do you know why there’s a forest in front of Bunnings?
Liz Trevaskis
No.
Nick Kirlew
Because Margaret Clinch sat with the people who owned the airport and they said, we’re going to build a Bunnings. And we said, I get it. We don’t have any choice. But can we please have a forest between the road and where your Bunnings is? Because that all used to be forest. So now the forest from behind is gone, but it still looks good. And I think our Bunnings looks happy in there. I don’t know. I hope that.
Liz Trevaskis
Might encourage you to buy some plants when you’re heading to the shop because you’re surrounded by them. Nick Kirlew on ABC Radio across the territory, he is probably known to you, at least in the top end, as convener of the Planning Action Network, but he is running for election in the Chan Ward Council by-election this weekend. Nick, you mentioned the interview last night. I think that was in response to the proposal that the Trump Tower be built here in Darwin, Marie Clare Boothby’s written to the Trump’s and said, Gold Coast doesn’t want it, we’ll take it. Could, I mean, could there be a way where a $1.5 billion Trump tower. could be done well and done properly in the territory and be of benefit to us.
Nick Kirlew
Well, I still come back to, why would I give it to one? As far as I know, the Chan building, the 20-story Chan building, never went out to tender. I believe $157 million contract was signed. None of us, no one in Darwin, ratepayers, know how that was done. So, if the current government says I’m going to write to a company and give them what I call a free breakfast, we would say, hang on, why aren’t we doing this the other way? Why don’t we say this is the land that we think would be great, all the brown land. Let’s not take any of Nick’s parks. Sorry, they’re not my parks. All of our parks. Let’s find a piece of land that’s going fallow. Let’s design what we want. Then let’s go out to prospective people who build hotels.
Liz Trevaskis
And the Trump’s.
Nick Kirlew
They’re welcome to the party. They’re welcome to the party, aren’t they?
Liz Trevaskis
Okay, so we could do a $1.5 billion golden shiny tower, well, so long as everyone has an opportunity to propose.
Nick Kirlew
I want it to be a level– it’s not I want. How can I want? I think the community needs transparency in these types of things. And I think the community should have the right to say the future of Darwin. If we’re going to have a football stadium, fantastic. But let’s not just tell us where it’s going. Let’s understand how it’s going to fit into the scene work of our city.
Liz Trevaskis
Nick, one of my greatest planning bugbears in all of my life in the territory I don’t know if Plan had a role in any of this. Do you do anything to do with street crossings? Well, not really. Because there’s a crossing in the CBD where– it drives me crazy– the pedestrian crossing between Paspaileys and the tourist information center.
Nick Kirlew
Yeah, that’s fine.
Liz Trevaskis
Because there needed to be a crossing on that stretch of road. Everyone still crosses at the bit that’s not a crossing, and cars don’t stop at the bit that is a crossing because everyone else is crossing in the other spot. But that doesn’t sound like anything that you had anything to do with.
Nick Kirlew
Well, if the people of the Chan would take my suggestion that I might be a valid addition to the Council of Darwin, I can certainly bring it up and we can talk. Remember the council, they argued for ages about the multicoloured intersection. You know, anyway, there’s so many things.
Liz Trevaskis
This is obviously stuff that’s driving you and that you passionate about in terms of running for council. The other things that you’ve mentioned, though, specific to the ward, the electric scooters and the dangerous dogs on beaches. Why are those three things an issue for you that you would address if you were elected to council?
Nick Kirlew
It’s fantastic. In a three-week campaign, I’m meeting people and they bare their souls. They tell you stuff that they wouldn’t tell anybody else. So, one of our people came up to me and said, you know, I take my grandkids to the beach down there at Nightcliff foreshore. And people bring their dog and they let it off the leash. And you know how everybody’s dog’s good until they just romp up to some little kid. And we have to find it. We have to. I hate saying we have to. Community needs to find a way to use that facility correctly. Now, if it is a dog free bit of beach, remember and the birds from Siberia, Curlews. People say, what do you mean Curlew? That’s a bird that flies from Siberia to Casuarina Coastal Reserve. And we ask people not to take their dogs there so that that bird can get enough energy to fly back. We ask people perhaps not to take their dog to that little precious strip of sand at Nightcliff in the dry season when we’re down there with our family chancing that beautiful blue water. So, I think it’s fair. It’s fair to roadshow it, to talk to people about it. City of Darwin have been very, very poor on consultation. This is one of the things that I would try to bring. I would try to get the council, mayor, all councillors, to agree that community consultation goes up. And perhaps that should be one of my first things, is can we look at how dogs work on the beach?
Liz Trevaskis
And what about the electric scooters? What are people telling you about them?
Nick Kirlew
I’ve been thinking about this. A footpath. Why do they call it a footpath? I know, it’s because people walk on them. Now, did you know 80,000 people turned 80 in Australia this year? So, we want those 80,000 people to all come to Darwin and live out their lives walking on the footpaths. Next, push bikes. I admit to being a push bike rider. I don’t think I can do the 80 kilometre roads on a push bike. I’m a bit scared of that. So, we do need a way to move the push bikes around. And if you look at Nightcliff, there’s that strip and in general, the push bikes and the people can mix pretty well, right? It’s been going for a long time, people aren’t really complaining. But now, I have Nick, I can go to China on my website and import the fastest scooter in the world. And you didn’t even know I came. So here I am. And now apparently, I’m giving it to my kids to ride to school.
Liz Trevaskis
Yeah, illegally, by the way.
Nick Kirlew
It’s distressing. It’s distressing. It’s noisy. So, what am I going to do? A lady, she came up, she gave me the lecture. What you do is you put speed bumps. You know those little bumps with the little reflectors on them? And therefore, you mean you can’t do that speed. You have to slow down all the time. It’s someone else came up to me immediately and said that’s not possible.
Liz Trevaskis
It’s an interesting discussion because it’s not something that the territory government seems too keen to act on, even though people are not meant to be on these illegal and imported electric scooters. They’re meant to be just the purple beam scooters unless you’re on your own driveway or on your own property. If the territory government’s not doing something about it, local council could step in and do something.
Nick Kirlew
Remember Trevor, the rubbish warrior, right? And everybody, he was doing great. He was doing his little sculptures and leaving rubbish all over the city, very pretty. And then the previous mayor, not the one we got, the one before, the one before, started finding him. And eventually he disappeared. Well, now I have purple pieces of rubbish lying around all over, we, not me, we all have those things, right? in our streets, they lie in our gutters, they scratch our cars. So, first things first, Mr Purple, I want you to tidy up. Every day you must go and pick them up and put them back where they came from. Just a concept, I know other cities are doing it. So, we seem to have got the cheap version.
Liz Trevaskis
All right. Well, I’m very interested to know what listeners think about all of this stuff. Nick Kirlew, he is a voice that would be familiar to you from the ABC in his role with the Planning Action Network. He is running as an independent for the Chan Ward Council by-election. Early voting is open at the Rapid Creek shops until five o’clock today and then between eight and seven tomorrow. 8 and 6 on Friday, Election Day this Saturday at Nightcliff High from 8 until 6. So, if you live in the Chan Ward, you have to vote again. It’s never ending, the voting, but it’s an opportunity to have your say about who represents you on council. And let me know what you think about Nick’s ideas too, about maybe getting some dogs off some of our beaches and maybe getting electric scooters off the footpaths. 0487991057. Got a message from someone who says Darwin CBD could have more shaded arbours. I don’t know why the Rangoon Creeper didn’t work.