Patrick Maher is more than just the Save the Cranker guy
One of the voices behind 2024’s biggest development story is running in the Central Ward by-election.
There is no more fitting place to meet Adelaide City Council candidate Patrick Maher than Grenfell Street’s Crown & Anchor, a pub he had a hand in saving.
When Singapore-based developer Wee Hur Holdings applied to demolish the site and replace it with student accommodation in 2024, the response was swift.
In a landmark agreement, the pub was protected at the expense of its neighbouring venues, Roxie’s and Chateau Apollo, which have begun to form rubble behind the pub on the day CityMag meets Patrick.
Sitting at the bar with a pale ale in hand, Patrick reflects on how the “irreplaceable” pub mobilised a community and achieved a positive outcome.
“It was seen by many as an insurmountable issue,” he says.
“I think the outcome that we got was really good – it’s good for the pub, for the long haul, it’s good for South Australia and not just the live music venue, the hotel space, the food and beverage sector, it’s good for the expansion of Adelaide.”
It’s one they achieved by meeting with all sides of politics, and Patrick remains unaffiliated with any party in his run in the Central Ward by-election, which was triggered after a court result voided four seats.
After having a hand in saving the beloved pub and securing supporting legislation to protect other music venues with noise attenuation measures, Patrick hopes to do more from within Town Hall.
“I’ve got a lot more to offer than just being the Save the Cranker guy,” he says.
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“We dealt with the council last year, there’s a lot of support there for what we were doing, and there was also a lot of surprise that we were doing that, putting that amount of effort in and in the end, surprise with the result.
“We were able to do things that they [the council] weren’t able to do and personally, I thought that a lot of the stuff that we did, the council should have been doing.”
Patrick works in the public service and has worked on the Robodebt Royal Commission and the Disability Royal Commission.
He’s also a musician, though ironically has never performed on the Cranker stage, and drives for rideshare on the weekends.
“I don’t know that too many councillors drive around at three in the morning, up and down Rundle Street,” he says.
“I see the impact of the road closures, the way that the city plans its nightlife.
“I pay attention to that, because those decisions at council level, the decisions at state level as well, impact what I do for work, where I work, how I work.”
He uses Hindley Street as an example, which only has three parking bays where it is legal for a rideshare vehicle to do a pick-up, three spots that at night are often filled with police cars.
“I would suspect that most people ordering an Uber have no idea that every Uber they’ve ever gotten into on Hindley Street has been illegal,” Patrick says.
Patrick believes an evidence-based decision-making approach over an ideological one is what’s missing from the council, and parking debates are a prime example.
“Just do a study, just find out what is actually happening. Instead of making an ideological decision, run a study on Hutt Street, run a study on the bikeway,” he says.
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“Is it working? What’s not working? What do we need to do to make it work better?
“On the council, and any level of politics, there are a lot of people who are involved because they’re ideologically minded.
“There aren’t that many people who are involved purely out of competence or out of interest in the state on the whole rather than their own personal views.”
Patrick says development policy is another area that could be “more pragmatic” and less ideologically driven.
Living in a local heritage-listed workers’ cottage in the CBD with his cat, Margie, he wants to see respect for architecture and culture balanced with growth.
“I do agree that we probably need a larger population of people in the city, we need to sustain the culture that we’d like to see in the city, but I’d like to see it done in a responsible manner,” he says.
“I think a lot of the development decisions that we’ve had recently have not necessarily had the interests of the culture of Adelaide in mind, and ultimately the culture of Adelaide is the reason that people want to live here.”
Adelaide’s nightlife – though it’s declined in recent years – is a cultural drawcard and, in circles that overlap with the Cranker crew, the term “night mayor” gets thrown around often.
But Patrick isn’t suggesting that he’s your night mayor.
“There’s been lots of talk about having a representative for the night economy in the city, we have a lot of special interest groups, special interest candidates,” he says.
“We don’t necessarily have someone who is interested in the performance of the industry on the whole, for the benefit of every business, rather than a specific business, or for the benefit of all the punters who are South Australians, which is what we’re here for.
“The council would benefit from having someone who is a resident, someone who is a worker, is an employee, someone who is a small business operator in the city, in terms of rideshare and in terms of music performance, having all of that in a single person, I think is a great thing, and that’s why I’m running.”
Patrick says the council isn’t getting that broader responsibility right, which was on show last week when the state government moved to seize park lands ownership.
“Advocating for the park lands as an entity is a pretty important issue, but it’s also very difficult to talk about.
“It always gets tied up to a single issue of concern: today, it’s the golf, tomorrow will be something else.”
He points to the Walker Corporation’s second festival tower as another that could be argued isn’t in the public interest.
“We could go back about any issue on the park lands, but the overriding point, I think, is that the management of the park lands has to be for the benefit of all of South Australia,” he says.
“The park lands as a whole, it’s an iconic part of the city, we can’t lose it.”