Hat tip Smoking Lamp for this story. (A CBD is a Central Business District for those who don’t know, which includes me).
A Sydney council hopes to establish what is possibly the nation’s first smoke-free CBD in a capital city.
North Sydney councillors this week unanimously passed a motion to ban smoking in every public place in what is Sydney’s second largest CBD.
Mayor Jilly Gibson hopes to eventually go even further by extending the ban across the entire municipality.
She said the latest move wasn’t about punishing smokers but about improving the amenity of the area for residents, workers, visitors and school children.
“It just seems like the right time,” Cr Gibson told AAP on Tuesday.
“Why not try these big ideas?
“Even if we reduce people’s smoking in the CBD by, let’s say, 50 per cent, that would be a huge result.”
She said the world had come a long way since her school days when one of her teachers chain-smoked his way through class.
Did they have such a smoking ban in their manifesto before they got elected? It doesn’t sound like it. It sounds more like this “big idea” was something she’d come up with one morning, and immediately thought that “It just seems like the right time.” Probably all of 5 minutes. And then phoned up a few of her fellow councillors, and they all said, “Great idea!” And unanimously passed a motion to ban smoking in every public place in one of Sydney’s business districts.
It reminds me of Peter Koo. When did these people stop being public servants, and start becoming petty tyrants?
Perhaps it’s simply that they see themselves as having been elected to do whatever they like. And if they want to, say, paint the town red, they’re perfectly entitled to do it.
While looking for a photo of Jilly Gibson which didn’t show her with an inane fixed smile on her face, I came across a story about her from 2014:
NORTH SYDNEY Mayor Jilly Gibson has been suspended from driving the mayoral car after she was accused of abandoning it behind a business in Crows Nest.
The council-owned car allegedly blocked access to Cutty Cellars bottle shop from the rear and was left there for four days earlier this month over a weekend.
Somehow or other this seems to fit the pattern. She thinks she’s entitled, as mayor, to leave her car anywhere she damn well likes.
Another story from 2014:
North Sydney councillors to be schooled in behavioural standards
North Sydney Council has moved to make annual code of conduct training compulsory for elected officials after it called in outside experts to help resolve conflicts between councillors.
In a closed session of council last Monday night, at which the Mayor Jilly Gibson was excluded because she refused to sign a confidentiality agreement, it was resolved to force all councillors to undertake training.
The State Government last year introduced a new model code of conduct which aims to improve the standards of behaviour of local government representatives and staff.
The code states that councillors must act lawfully and honestly, treat others with respect and not harass or discriminate against each other.
It also states their behaviour must not bring council into disrepute.
Sanctions for councillors who do not meet the standards include further training or counselling, forced apologies and suspensions for up to three months.
They all sound like spoiled brat children who’ve always got their way, and who have now been elected (presumably by other spoiled brat children in Sydney) to high office, and they are there continuing to act just like the spoiled brats they are.
More about her from linkedin:
Mayor
North Sydney Council
September 2012 – Present 6 years 1 month
North Sydney
Mayor – Popularly Elected
Patron
North Sydney Youth Orchestra
2013 – Present 5 years
Patron
Patron
North Sydney Symphony Orchestra
2012 – Present 6 years
North Sydney
Patron
Patron
Cantorian Welsh Choir
March 2016 – March 2017 1 year 1 month
Mcmahons Point, New South Wales, Australia
Councillor – Victoria Ward
North Sydney Council
March 1999 – September 2012 13 years 7 months
North Sydney Council
Elected Councillor at North Sydney Council, third term
Radio Presenter
2GB
1994 – 1995 1 year
TAFE teacher
Food School East Sydney College
1989 – 1992 3 years
Frank Davis 
“She said the latest move wasn’t about punishing smokers”
Well that’s all right then, I’m sure we’ll all jump on board. Restrict us any way you like, as long it’s not a punishment
Funny choice of words that, isn’t it, “Punishing”?
A punishment is something you get for doing something wrong. For her to choose that word, tells me she thinks smoking is wrong and something people should be punished for.
I think that word is also mostly applied to children. Adults get sentanced or fined. Children get punished for naughty behaviour
So we’re the naughty children and she is the nanny who needs to correct our behaviour
(I’m gonna stop typing now, before I accidently write a bad porno)
Timely and very well researched Frank. You are a Guru, knowing more about this puritanical Too Big For Her Boots petty tyrant than I did until yesterday. It’s now ‘socially acceptable’ for such entitled parasites, the odious ilk of D Arenot (going to smoke), to impose their lifestyle preferences on others, no choice, no debate, not even a DOSA. Our SYD office is in her bailiwick, high privilege, average house price £2.2M. But I can seamlessly commute by NSW gauge rail from Stanmore to Nth SYD in 20mins. High pax volume. 🚝
Left-wing fads often blossom early in Australia, and I have always found it something of a mystery why. Is it a historical pattern (the country’s origins as a prison and, later, the need for the new nation to attract respectable women as immigrants)? Is it the desire of an unimaginative political class to make the country distinctive without knowing how? Where does Dame Edna get her ideas from? It would be seriously useful to know the answer.
Intriguing questions with no brief answers, but Australian politicians have too much power, and deprive independent review agencies of funds to avoid embarrassment for their often ill informed brain snap decisions. Both major political parties seem to have a tacit agreement that it is ethical to engage in blatant pork barreling with public funds. Due process, if protracted, is ignored in favour of the TV news sound bite. As for Dame Edna, the po faced pinch lipped conformist types are perpetually offended by the acerbic wit of Barry Humphries, who retorts ‘you have no right to revoke my licence to offend’.
What a horrible woman. I know people who lived in Sydney but have now moved to Brisbane because of all the nasty control freaks in Sydney. Apparently they have shut down the night life in Sydney too. One mustn’t forget it was the Australians who started the plain packet nonsense.
You mean she didn’t die from all that secondhand smoke in school?
When I look at that face I immediately think dish-rag.
waltc says: September 26, 2018 at 8:40 pm You mean she didn’t die from all that secondhand smoke in school?
That reminds me of a Canadian woman several years back campaigning against the dangers from her father’s secondhand smoke whilst being driving hither and thither. Miraculously, she survived the ordeal and even bore children. Now she spends her time writing drivel and driving all across the country, polluting the air from coast to coast n her motorized vehicle, to warn people about smoking in cars. How can anyone take this woman seriously? Absurd. slugbop007
Reply
So she drove to the bottle store but was too pissed to drive home?
Caught a taxi? Didn’t remember for four days where the car was?
Looks a bit hard faced. Alcoholic?
“Why not try these big ideas>”
A Sydney council hopes to establish what is possibly the nation’s first smoke-free CBD in a capital city.
North Sydney councillors this week unanimously passed a motion to ban smoking in every public place in what is Sydney’s second largest CBD.
Mayor Jilly Gibson hopes to eventually go even further by extending the ban across the entire municipality
I am surprised about the number of Australians prepared to pay the extortionate cigarette tax there
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6076651/Cigarette-price-increase-Australia-just-DAYS-away.html
It looks like this
https://cfrankdavis.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/mayor_jilly_gibson.jpg?w=300&h=254
Geisterbahn of “mayor” has a few arrogance issues to address. Also, she looks much older than I do, so I assume she is at least 75. Why hasn’t she retired? Does she really believe she will live to see her 100th birthday?
More that we are forced to pay the obscenely high tobacco taxes by the Australian government, waging war against smokers. Predictably, with tobacco taxes at 800%, the black market is expanding, thefts and robbery increasing, and the deadweight regulatory burden of prohibitionist policies is costly. Government sponsored persecution, empowering lifestyle controllers lacking moral authority over others. Only one minor political party in Australia supports free choice; the others are almost vitriolic in repeating anti-smoking cant and propaganda.