Local Government in Australia is fairly limited in the services that are provided and the manner in which revenues are raised to match those services. The Brisbane City Council [BCC] is the largest form of local government in Australia after the amalgamation of several city and shire councils to create the BCC in 1924. The Council has an elected Executive in the Mayor, as well as a Civic Cabinet which acts as a bridge between Executive and Legislative. The Council also has a strong committee structure. (more)
The Schonell is a Brisbane theatre, and one of its few great art cinemas. It's in the middle of the University of Queensland St Lucia campus, the product of a confused but surprisingly functional moment of seventies architecture. A distinctive feature is the internal brick cloisters enclosing the stairs descending past tiers of seats: cinema as church. The Schonell
stopped trading as a cinema tonight
.
By coincidence I was there: I knew it was coming, but not that it was so soon. Voluntary Student Unionism is blamed for its closing, and though that certainly seems to have brought it to a head,
other factors are at work
:
"The Liberal Party actually voted to keep the Schonell open! They're claiming the financial loss the Labor Party says the Schonell was running at isn't accurate, and that the financial records actually show the Schonell breaking even."(more)
This isn't political, but it is about public space. Brisbane's had a cool project in recent years where the council supports artists painting traffic signal boxes. This is complemented by annotations on the web, including on flickr. (more)
