Jess Miller, Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney LIVE

"If you don’t have a sense of humour in politics, you’re stuffed." - Jess Miller

On the Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney's menu: brown lentil spag bol, fine dining in Canberra, and Grow it Local 2013 with Jill Dupleix

Sides include: serving Margaret and Gough Whitlam, growing up on a herb farm, Ruddock's rudeness, education in the City of Sydney, and a few fun (but scary) facts about life in the big smoke. Oh, and the two wheeled vehicle that guided Jess into politics in the first place. 

To find out more about the project and Savva - head to threefoodmemories.com
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Email us at threefoodmemories@plated.com.au, we'd love to hear from you! 

TFM is produced and edited by Lauren McWhirter with original music by Russell Torrance. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the ground we stand on and I thank them for allowing Papa to tell stories on these glorious lands we share.

SPEAKER_03 0:23

My guest on this episode of Three Food Memories has never been discouraged by the difficulty of change. Cultivator, curator, cultural advocate, occasional agitator, she's the Deputy Lord Mayor of the City of Sydney and believes that cities are more than buildings and roads, they are living collections of people's stories and belonging. But beyond the council chambers is someone who understands that, like any great city, belonging is built around tables, conversations and shared meals. Please welcome Councillor Jess Miller to Three Food Memory.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Jess, I want to talk about you. You mentioned earlier about this room. This room has a bit of a history. Tell us about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

So I I don't recall this, but the the the urban legend of this room is that it used to be a bar, and you could access it, I think, through Town Hall, and it was a bar and a cafe, and so all the people that worked in the council used to come here and get drunk, as well as the general public, which is fabulous. And as the story goes, the reason why it closed ultimately was because the deputy Lord Mayor at the time, and I don't even know who that was, um, was standing by the window, and I think someone threw something through a window and hit them, and they became a bloody mess. And they so they said, That's it, no more, no more bars in town halls. So there you go. So here we are as a function space. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Now I'm gonna do some reading just, and there's a lot of it. So please, audience, please forgive me. You were elected to the position of Deputy Lord Mayor in 2025? Yes. Yes? Okay. During your time in the council, you've advocated for livable, sustainable, and an inclusive Sydney. And in addition to that, you're the Deputy Chair of the Transport, Heritage and Planning Committee. Yes. You're a member of the Cycling Advisory Panel, co-chair of the Creative Industries and Nighttime Industries Advisory Panel, former curator and board member of TEDx Sydney, board member of the National Arts School. Your policies and interests include, but not limited to, housing affordability, sustainable transport, urban greening, making Sydney's public spaces more vibrant and accessible. Jess, I'm exhausted. How do you keep up?

SPEAKER_01 2:54

I have a lot of help and a lot of support. So tonight you if you haven't already, you will have uh met Tori Brown, who is certainly my right-hand woman, and my other right-hand woman is Elmo Keep. And I also have an awesome um another person who can't be here, Barney. Um so it it's a lot of work, and I think what a lot of people don't understand is that this isn't a full-time job. So I also have my other job and other what's the other job? Oh, just bits and bobs of like what it's basically what any like what I'll do anything that anybody pays me to actually do, as well as heaps of stuff that no one will pay me to do. Um so don't ask me for business advice ever, because like I don't have I'm terrible at it. Um but yeah, I think it's it's you learn, and I've been I was first elected in 2016. So it's been almost 10 years of being a counsellor, which is a little bit full-on, but I think over time you just learn how you you learn what's important, you learn what's not, you learn you kind of learn what to pursue, what to let go of. Um, but you just need a lot of help and a really, really forgiving family.

SPEAKER_03 4:01

So before we get into your food memories, what's your passion with hospitality, particularly in this city?

SPEAKER_01 4:09

In this city, um I think it's probably it comes from like just being in hospitality and not try like like not really being able to not be in some way. I think if I think of all of the best nights, best mornings, best lunches, like any kind of best thing, it's probably the backdrop is usually a bar, a club, or a restaurant or a cafe. And so I feel like that's probably it's the collective sort of backdrop to where all the good things happen in a city. So yeah, and also I guess without hospitality, like I I I owe it a lot, like friendship, like I met my husband in as a waitress, like it, like I owe it kind of everything. Um it might have had something to do with birth my child, we won't go into that, but you know, like everything. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

So okay, when you strip away the economics, the planning, and the politics, what do and I'm and I'm particularly looking at hospitality right now in this current environment, what do restaurants, cafes, and bars actually give, you know, a a premier city like Sydney?

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Like a heartbeat and a soul, in a way, because as like cities become more dense, the the idea of large dinner t dinner tables and um lounge rooms and parties, like there are less of those. Like we are becoming densers, so the role that the the the outdoor spaces play becomes more and more important. It's sort of like an extension of our living rooms in a way, but also the these beautiful magical bump spaces where anything could happen. So I think that's really important. Like it's it's such a an expression of what could be, who we are, and then also it gives everybody, I think, in this city a connection back to wherever else they've been because most people in this city are from somewhere else, and that's a really beautiful thing. So I think hospitality and restaurants and the people within it are this really nice connection between the past, the present, and the future, which is quite a magical proposition if you think about it.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

Let's start with your first food memory brown lentils, spaghetti bolognese. So bad.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

So look, I grew up on a herb farm in um down on the Monition Peninsula, and most of the herbs we grew were legitimate. Um we had about we grew about there about at the time, because this was pre-bunning, so bunnings did some pretty funny things to the nursery and garden industry, and one of those was that um it really shrunk the diversity of herbs that became available. So, like when at Miller's Herbs, grown the old-fashioned way down in Somerville, um, we had about 13 types of herbs that we would sell at the market every weekend and on Wednesdays. So there was like apple mint, variegated apple mint, corsican mint, spear mint, peppermint, eau de cologne mint, common mint, thyme mint, sweet basil mint, like there are so many kinds of mints. Um, you know, all kinds of like there are five or six varietals of thyme. Like, so there's all the there's this amazing herbaceous palate that is radically unexplored. Now, this was all completely wasted on my mother because she could not, would not cook. It was awful, like she was really bad. And my dad was really afraid of flying. So, and we also didn't have a lot of money, so come, and we also were limited by when we could leave the farm because you couldn't go on big holidays in summer because someone had to water the plants, and you you know, so it was a bit limited. So it usually meant that around Easter time we went to this place called Otos, which is pretty much what it sounds like. It was it was an it was a it was a health retreat and it had woofers, willing workers on organic farms, and you there was no TV, there was no radio, there was there was like like the there was a few luxury cabins, but mostly it was like non-luxury cabins, and that's where we stayed. And it was all vegetarian food, and it's kind of out near Bucking, East Gippsland, kind of very so beautiful place, heaps of bush. It was actually quite magical, but you would spend your days going on bushwalks, listening to Johnny Didge, and then they had a meditation temple where you do, you know, yoga and meditation, obviously. But the highlight of Otos was breakfast. So they had this really beautiful kind of wooden, sort of cathedral-feeling communal space where everybody ate together, all the guests and all the workers ate together, and it smelt great and it had beautiful views over the bush. And the two chefs there were Neil and Carla. And they could do things with vegetarian food that, you know, beyond people's wildest beliefs. And included in their over of work was a riff on spaghetti bolognese using brown lentils.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

This is a point we can dip into your box now. Yeah. So which one would we take? I think. I think we take the legume. We can take, do we take the little cannoli, Tori? Do you think? Or the we take the little cannoli. So chomp away, make the noise, give everyone FOMO listening to it down the track. So back to Neil and Carla.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

So Neil and Carla, like their breakfasts were off the hook. It was like millet and compost and beautiful. Like their food was really, really, really nice. And you know, after you kind of stayed on toss, you know, you'd leave and on the checkout, there'd be like near a copy of Neil and Carla's cookbook. And so, of course, Mum pays the $8 for the self-published copy of um Neil and Carla's viral band. Yeah, sure was. For hand-drawn pictures, that's great. Um then, like, you know, you know, we we'd had our beautiful week at ONTOS, and you know, Mum comes back all inspired with Neil and Carla's bloody cookbook, and she decides that no longer would our spaghetti bolognese contain any kind of meat or anything remotely okay. And like her spag bowl at the best of times was not that good. Um, but it got progressively worse. So initially it began where she followed the directions in Neil and Carla's cookbook, and you know, the the brown lentils which formed the base were softened somewhat. Um, and you know, she'd chop the tomato, you know, make it nice. But then it just got worse and worse and worse. So ultimately, spag bowl at our place consisted of like half-cooked brown lentils with a jar of Dolmeo, friggin' brown spaghetti, not like the brown spaghetti, not even white spaghetti. And my brother and I just went looking at and go, oh shit.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Oh no, mum's made spag bowl again.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

And the only way, the only way you could even remotely rescue it was with like half a bloody thing of cheese and tomato sauce. Jess, why did you choose this?

SPEAKER_03 11:41

You were so bad. You have a you you you have a memory, you know, association with it, you know. So why about you choose this? Why did you why does this one stick in your pocket?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Oh, because it was just like, I think, like, I I I blame and I point to that memory because my brother's now a chef. And I believe firmly that the reason he is a chef is because of that bloody brown lentil spag bowl, because it was so bad. It was terrible, it was just beyond salvation. Um, but yeah, I think it just takes me back to a time where, and I also I think in hindsight, appreciate now that like she was just doing the best she could. It was full of good intentions, but the execution was flawed.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

But this is the thing, cooking is not this is one thing that I've learned in you know, speaking to so many people and and and listening to their memories, food, cooking is not for everybody. No, and we should not my mum, really not my mum. And I think the most important thing about like knowing that is we those of us who have access to good food and who can cook, yeah, I really feel for those people who've missed out along the way, but I don't exclude them like I probably would have once upon a time. But what was your mother? If cooking wasn't her thing, what was her thing?

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Oh, she was so she was brilliant. My mother's brilliant. She's like the smartest person I've ever met. She's so thoughtful, she's she's wonderful. Like she just maintains this very um innocent and optimistic view of the world. Like, she's wonderful. Um, she is so weirdly very good. Her biscuits and baking was good.

SPEAKER_03 13:21

You're either a cook or you're either a cook or a baker.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

She was a baker, and the chutneys and jamming was good too, because if you trace it back, um I think it's mum's mum, great, great, great-grandmother, maybe. She was part of the first chapter of CWA and Tasmania. And we've got like one of the most cherished family items that my brother pilfered was my grandmother's copy, like first edition of the CWA cookbook from Tassie.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

So let's let's actually now look at families and in particular the demographic of this city. I was born in this city, I've probably lived 85% of my life in this city. I raised my twin sons in this city, but I haven't seen the city change so much as I have in probably the last 10, 12 years. And it's been rapid. The change has been rapid. So when the boys were little, we had choices of the parks were being built, playground equipment, all that was happening around the Surrey Hills Redfern, sort of Darlinghurst area. If there wasn't a park there, there was going to be one next week or the week after. There's the new Wimbo Park that has come up just around the corner from us, and that's such a great park. Um it is a wonderful open public space. But the playground in an in and of itself, and this is no this is no um complaint about the city, but the little playground there is not as expansive as was once upon a time. And then kind of add it to the fact that in our little public school, the numbers are dropping. Where are the families going to?

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Uh, it's hard to say. Like I I would I would suspect um like just about a room or two further out of the inner west. Yeah, I would say, because I think it it's a confluence of things. Part of it is, I mean, housing and affordability and also supply. There are not, there is not a huge amount of two and three bedroom homes in the inner city. And if you've got, you can kind of make it work if you've got one kid. If you've got two kids, forget about it. If you've got teenagers, it gets really hard. So I think we're losing a lot of families to that. We are trying to rectify that by introducing some planning controls that encourage developers to set aside the first and second stories of homes, apartment buildings for two and three bedroom apartments, because there just aren't many of them. And like more than 70% of people in the city live in apartments. So that's the typology that we have. It's kind of what we need to embrace, but I think it's really challenging to like there are so many benefits of raising families in in the city, but on the flip side, you know, the the really good public schools are just a little bit further out. So I think we're seeing, and certainly in Green Square, the patterns and statistics around that would suggest that people are really happy and capable about raising kids until about year six, and then they go, uh-oh, what do we do, high school, and then they move.

SPEAKER_03 16:25

Which brings us to your Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

I'm I'm the gunning, you know, flying the fag for the Green Square High School. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 16:33

And this is your opportunity to tell everyone about that.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Well, there's a petition because, you know, obviously local government does not directly have a say or are able to provide educational facilities. So we we negotiated a really good deal for the primary school, which is incredibly important. Like we don't have the same, and I don't think that everybody always understands like what local government does and what state government does. Like we do a lot of planning stuff, but we don't provide education, health, etc. Um, we were able to negotiate a really good outcome with the primary school, and I firmly believe that given the amount of investment in community infrastructure we've already made in Green Square, we can do a really good deal with the department on a new kind of school, like a proper urban, inner city high school, campus style, maybe. Um, you know, we've got Ganyama Park, they're like, they don't have to build schools and ovals and community facilities, like they can think more about what's the content of the school, and I think the question that we really need to be asking ourselves and our kids are what kinds of skills are these kids really going to need if they're entering the workforce in the 2030s and 40s? Because I look over my daughter's homework and I'm like, okay, you can't distinguish anymore like which if a kid wrote this or AI wrote this. So what what are the kinds of skills we need to be encouraging kids with, and also acknowledging there hasn't been a significant reform in how education's been delivered ever, I don't think. We have a very specific idea of what SMART is, and we expect kids to really um comply with that, and in doing so, they miss out on being all these other kinds of things and recognizing that there's all different flavours of SMART. And so some of the ideas floating around this, what this new school could be, is like we're in the midst of the tech innovation precinct. What does that mean? Um is it a is it a bridging school to say work with Canva or Atlassian? Or is it a place where they can learn how to be Sparkies or builders because they're the skills that are irreplaceable? Or is it just a school that focuses on being very decent humans because I think we're entering a period of time that's going to be pretty rough, and those skills about how to get along, how to build relationships, how to overcome conflict, all that is just so critically important, but it's not something you get an A for.

SPEAKER_03 19:09

I wanna I want to go back and again bring in the hospitality element of our conversation. How does the change in demographics, because like I said, the city is changing, how does a change in demographics affect the hospitality sector in this city?

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Massively, yeah, it does because if you're under a lot of pressure financially, you've got less available income to go and spend on a nice dinner or go out. Um, but I mean I was also very shocked yesterday though, um, I looked across a report that was talking about how much money is lost to pokies every day in the city of Sydney, and it's in excess of a million dollars a day. A day. A day. It just in our little LGA, and it's predominantly young men, 18 to around about 30. Um, you know, it like they're just feeding these machines, and part of me recognises there's an element of addiction and is and sadness about that, but also such an opportunity cost because that money could be going into restaurants, art, theatre, music, shops. It's just being pilfered away into these machines.

SPEAKER_03 20:28

So it's very well known. Anyone who knows Jess well, it's very well known that Jess makes herself completely accessible to her constituents. Um, but in particular the hospitality sector. I mean, I speak to a lot of people in hospitality in you know my field, and they know who you are, and that's like, oh yeah, I asked this, she gave me this. Um, but you you can't save everyone, Jess. How do you support, how do you personally as a councillor of the city of Sydney, support hospitality businesses?

SPEAKER_01 21:01

I think like the first thing is just listening, firstly, like actually paying attention to what's going on, um, and and understanding, like a lot of like I can't solve all the problems, and I never pretend to because I would rather not like you know, promise the world and deliver an atlas. Like that's just sucks. So I think part of it is triaging. If I know the answer, of course I'll share it. But a lot of the the role that I do is um about finding out who has the information. So like it's a bit like being a bureaucratic Sherper. So like if you know Morgs or Nathan or whoever's like, hey, what's this thing about outdoor dining? I'm like, I actually don't know, but let me find out and we'll figure out how to get there. Um, and also part of it too is recognizing patterns. So oftentimes when you're hearing the same thing again and again, it's indicating that structurally or Systemically, something needs to change, and then it's asking, like, well, what is that change? Is it is now the right time to do that? Um, and and advocating internally for that.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

Let's move on to your second food memory. This is your time in Canberra. Oh, yeah. When you were walk working in fine dining restaurants, a range of them, Jess. So many. How did what how did you get to Canberra first?

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Oh, via Sao Paulo, Brazil. Yeah. Well, you know, it was like it was like a real come down.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

You feel like you like you're in this like boogs, like the biggest of like I maintain that Sao Paulo is like the most intensely hectic city in the world. It's like, whoo! And that was exactly where I needed to be, like from Frankston to like Sao Paulo was full on. But afterwards I did need to just, and then Canberra offered that.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

So I just I was I think I was also a little bit intimidated by Sydney. Well you're not sure what you're doing at the time. Yes, I I chose to do uni in Canberra, and I I I did a big 180 because when I left to go to Brazil, I was destined and determined to be an artist, and then like a painter or something like that. And then when I after I got back, I was like, I have nothing to say. Like, and oh my god, the world is a big, complex, scary place, and like Sal Polo is like it's the exempl, it's like in many ways, it's a city that tells you what's good, but it's also it exists as a cautionary tale of like what what happens when everything goes wrong in terms of transport, waste, planning, violence, like it is so extreme. Makes it the tension and the conflict make it wonderful, but it's so intense. So I just was like, I'll just do international relations at um at ANU and I'll do Spanish because I'll be able to phone that in. So yeah. And I did, and I just scraped by um uni because I spent most of my time in either cafes, clubs, pubs, or restaurants.

SPEAKER_03 24:11

But you were working in the restaurant. Yeah, yeah. So tell us about these things. Tell us about this particular memory in the restaurants that you were working in.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Oh, so which one? So I was I was at I was at the Street Theatre Cafe, and then I was I did Water's Edge, Rubicon.

SPEAKER_03 24:27

Atlantic.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Atlantic was the one. So I'd so my girlfriend and I had driven the Subaru all the way from Melbourne without sleeping. And we arrived in Canberra, and I was just like, you know, first, first job, first thing you've got to get a job, like my you've got to get a job. So I literally wandered into um, like, because I've been working at a a winery, fine dining place in the peninsula beforehand. I was like, oh, this will be easy, I'm gonna go where the big tips are. And so I walked into Atlantic because I just God, I don't even know. I certainly didn't Google it. I don't know how I found out. I might have read the good food guide and looked at which ones had the hats, and I'm like, oh, that one's got the hats, I'll go there. Um anyway, walk in there, probably. I think they were just about to start lunch service, and I walk in, and there's this man who is coming down the stairs holding a bicycle with this beautiful red hair, and I'm like, oh, okay. Um, and I walk up to him, he's so incredibly rude. I'd like, oh hi, you know, my name's Jess. Um, I just wanted to drop a resume. Are you? And he's like, Oh, I'll take it. And you know, he's really rude. I'm like, a bit of a dickhead, maybe I don't want to work here. Um come around and say, but anyway, I got the job at Atlantic, they gave me a trial. As it turned out, um, I was like, you know, my initial impression of this like guy being, oh, he's so sporty and so cool. He's got to, you know, rides his bike and he had like this little black puppy. I'm like, eh, he's okay. And then I realized the only reason that he had the bike is because a week earlier he'd lost his licence during driving. Um yeah, so I worked at Atlantic, and that's where um that guy I ended up marrying because we bonded over football, obviously. And he's he was actually quite sweet. Um but we had it was a very, I mean, I uh the place that I remember like Dave Wood was in a brilliant restaurateur. Like getting getting two hats in Canberra circa 2003 is no mean feat. Like it was a beautiful, small, very beautiful little restaurant, um, and it felt like a family. There are only a few of us that worked there. We had to maintain the hat, it was high pressure. It was when it was good, it was very, very good. When it was bad, it was awful. Um, but we had it, we had it, like many restaurants in Canberra, there's always a private room, and so one of the highlights was um that Goff and Margaret would come and have lunch at Atlantic, and you would just wish that you got to be. Like usually Dave, the boss, would um serve them, but sometimes he'd let you take a dish. And but they were so beautifully sweet, they were the loveliest couple, like the ultimate doyenne of Marnica. Um, yeah, Margaret was just sweet. She was so beautiful. And they're huge figures, aren't they?

SPEAKER_03 27:24

They're tall.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

They are very tall and commanding, yeah. And they know you and and they and they don't deviate from what they want. They know what they want. There is, would you like nope, we'll just have what we like. They didn't want to try anything new. Um, and that was like in very stark contrast to the other kinds of people that would come in, particularly during sitting weeks. And I remember in particular, one so at the time we had Ruddock was the immigration minister, Costello was the treasurer, and there was, and yeah, there was a it was a it was a time in politics, let me tell you. And I was studying politics, and so it was a very unique position, and and sadly it was pre-Twitter because my like tweets from the floor of my oh my god, they would have been so good. Um, because they get quite, you know, and then they say stuff.

SPEAKER_03 28:15

Can you tell us some of the stuff they said without naming names?

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Oh, I can oh god, what can I remember? The one I remember, the the one I really remember was Ruddick. Ruddick was sitting on the side of the table. Michelle Grattan, the political journey, was at the head of the table. I don't know whether she was bored or drunk, but her head kept kind of like moving into her soup.

SPEAKER_02 28:35

So Nick and I were looking at each other, kind of ready to pull the soup out at any moment.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

But I remember Ruddick. Um, we were doing it, it was a set menu, and you had to just go and ask them, would you like fish or would you like um meat? And he was just he refused to engage. So I'm trying my best. I'm like bloody 19 years old, trying not to like my only job at work every day was to not lose the hat. I was I just didn't want to be the one to lose the hat. Like that was it. So I tried so hard, and he wouldn't look at me. And I was like, anyway, he rather than tell me whether he wanted the fish or the beef, he whispered in the ear of his aide, who then told me. And I'm like, who the fuck is this guy? And then I was like, then I was like, is this you say, Oh, that's immigration? I'm like, oh yeah, that'll be right. Um and I but it was very uncomfortable because you were like, I'm trying my best to serve you, and you're making it really hard. And I'm scared of getting in trouble because I know that you the power imbalance here is so incredibly obvious. Um, but then about like 20 years later, somebody sat me next to Ruddick at um a Channel 7 Youth Award dinner, which was a long dinner, and I'd probably had a couple, and I said, You might not remember this.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

And he was the mayor of Hornsby at the time, Mayor Rudddock.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

But when I was 19, you you I just was like, I just so like And his response? He was he was horrified. He was like, Oh, I don't remember that. I'm sure it tipped. I'm like, it happened. It happened, and then Costello would like order these $400 bottles of wine, throw down the Amex and not tip. It was so insulting. So it was so bad. So like that was Atlantic, and then we were also moonlighting. Um, I think Atlantic closed eventually. Dave and his wife went to be fabulous over in LA, and that's where they are now. But then we worked at um Ottoman, which is run by the most gorgeous Sharif Kyer. Like, he's just this beautiful, beautiful, he and Gubaha, like we thought we had a family at Atlantic, and then we moved to um to Ottoman, and it was like, oh god, now we've got a Turkish family, and it's thick.

SPEAKER_03 31:01

So you've got this, you've got this kind of mix of experiences. You've got these, you're working with these very hospitable, very family-driven businesses. Yeah. Right next to the the, you know, the politicians of the day. Oh, yeah. Who were, by the sounds of it, horrid.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Not all of them. Like those, those ones were, yeah. But I mean, it depends how good you're. I mean, the most interesting ones, because at Ottoman they had more private, they had more private rooms. And so Ottomans are silver service, so you had to learn that. So there wasn't, and it was all set menu, so you there was less emphasis on taking orders and and upselling and stuff like that. But you just had to make sure you didn't drop the Turkish food covered in like tomato in their lap. Like that was the main, like when you went to work, you're like, don't drop it on them, don't drop it on them. And they had this, um, these two great one room, and I would run food, and that was I was happy with that because I was quite good at the silver service, and that's my party trick. Like, I'll silver serve people and be like, oh, silver service. I'm like, I was a waitress. But in the cigar room, so when Parliament was sitting and you'd have like you basically have two cabinet meetings because there aren't many restaurants that can accommodate the full cabinet apart from Ottoman. So as the food runner, I'm simultaneously going from the government cabinet where they're getting really loose talking shit about the other mob, and then going to the other room and being like, what? And so it was it's this kind of like stereo political conversation, and I'm just like trying not to spill stuff on them, but lapping up all this information because I've got a politics tutorial tomorrow morning, and oh my god, like I reckon I only passed that subject because the tutor was like, What happened last night?

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Well, you know, and all the socialist alliance kids would be talking about all the proletariat and the right.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

I'd be like, Guess what the Minister for Defence said last night? And they'd be like, Wow.

SPEAKER_03 33:03

Yeah, so it was very, it was very informative. So these informative experiences, do you think they're the things actually let's go back to our food box, what will we have from it now? I reckon we have the tomato in hope that just doesn't drop a guess.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

I did jobs and that. Oh, I did jobs and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 33:19

Um so these formative years, do you think they laid or an insight into you know political Canberra, Canberra politics? Do you think they sort of gave you a foundation to be a politician? No. No. No. So why didn't you decide to be a politician?

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Because I was pissed off about something. Like, I think that's what I don't know. I've never I've really railed against. Like, I was within an ANU cohort where people from my year, I remember like Leo Um Shanahan went on to be a journo, and people have gone off to be quite like you know, Jerome Laksar was in my cohort and stuff like that. I was not interested in any of that stuff. They were the kinds of kids that I was like, kick me in the shins and they'd get up and talk about, oh, workers and this and that, and I'd be like, Well, where did you, what if would you like, do you even have a job? Like, and I would get a bit fiery on that stuff, but I had absolutely no interest in that as a pursuit. I was more inclined toward um international relations proper, like diplomacy. I was like anything that could get me out of Australia, I was gravitating toward. So no, I was that was not my pathway.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

So here you are now, the Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney. How did we get here? Were you a school prefect or a sports captain or any of that? Nothing. So how did we get here, Jess? Because I get like I like I get annoyed. Was there one thing in particular that annoyed you so annoyed you in all the time?

SPEAKER_01 34:47

It was the bike lanes. It was the bike lanes. It was the bike lanes, yeah. Because I was living in Marrickville and my job was in East Sydney, and I am impatient and I get frustrated. And I would refuse to take a bus all the way there, so I was like, stuff it, I'm gonna try and ride my bike. And I it was really hard because you have like Illawarra Road, it's a really tough route to get from Marackville to East Sydney. Um, and then you know, I'd never heard of Clover, I didn't really have any interest, but the only people that I kind of knew in Sydney was a mate who I met in Brazil, who was also an exchange student, and another friend from uni in Melbourne. And so the one was a cultural kind of vanguard, and she was very cool, and the other one was a rat bag activist who was incredibly brilliant, and she they both remained good friends. Um, so they were just my ins, and so Holly was like, just ride a bike, I've got a spare bike. Do you want it? She was like, Yeah, okay, cool. And so, anyway, um, I just started following people trying to figure out what the routes avoided being killed, but then you know, quite enjoyed there, like there was this at the time, there's this kind of like bike culture that was made up partly by the couriers and partly by like some cool like chicks, you know. And so, yeah, it was a bit of a and there was um critical mass, which was also this thing where a bunch of people, which was fun, like a bunch of people on bikes would just ride over the bridge, take up a lane of traffic, and be like, well, you have to stop now because we're here and we're slowing it down. So yeah, um, when they when they started really ripping into Clover on the bike lane, specifically Alan Jones, I was like, this is shit. Like, it's not fair that you're having this old angry guy who is incredibly like threatening and and violent toward the in the press. Like, there was a picture I remember in the telly of a cartoon of Clover's severed head in a tumble draw. Like, it was just the tone of that was intense.

SPEAKER_03 37:01

So we saw what happened to who was the the the comedian journalist who had a photo of Donald Trump's head severed. Oh yeah. Do you remember what happened to it? Kathy Griffith. Kathy Griffin, we saw what happened to her. Interesting what happened to that the the cartoonist in the um who did that of Clover? Zero.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Yeah, no, nothing. But she's actually got a copy of it in her office.

SPEAKER_03 37:24

As you walk in.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Um but yeah, so I just thought, yeah, that that really sucked. I remember um Alan Jones called a town hall meeting here at Town Hall to really rile up the business community about how awful these bike lanes would be and all this sort of stuff. And they were kind of a group, a group of younger people who um insisted on doing laps of the town hall the whole time with our bells ringing, and um it was Josh Kaplan who made t-shirts being like on your bike, Alan, and so it I think it elicited this sort of cultural response where people were um yeah, motivated, I guess. And that's what got and I just the unfairness of it all bothered me, and so when it came time, I think somebody asked me to hand out flies, or no, maybe it was I think there was a gorilla, there was a gallery in there too. I may have slightly done something else about that.

SPEAKER_03 38:23

So we know we know uh there's a fair bit of ego in politics, we know that. But how important is it to have a personality in politics? How important is it to show your real self? And I say that to someone who does that every single day.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

I don't I think it's just you like the it's less about um that you've got to have a sense of humour.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

Like you've re-if you don't have a sense of humour in politics, you're stuffed because it's just it you you you can't take it all personally. Like it's really um And you can carry the people with the humour. Oh I don't like sometimes things are not a joke. Like you have to know when it's I think I have to have an internal sense of humour where I can see that even in the moment something can feel incredibly hot and difficult and emotional, the ability to be able to like just quickly step out of that and go, hang on a minute. Like there is something funny about this. I don't know what it is yet because it sucks and I'm in it, but ultimately there will be something, there will be something about this that one day I will find quite.

SPEAKER_03 39:37

So tell me about who came up with that uh you did a two little two real story on the pingers in the city. Who came up with that? That was all my fault.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

Who no no no, I'm not gonna blame it on anyone else.

SPEAKER_03 39:50

Tell us about the picture.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

No, because I like I had to try and understand what it like. It's a very complicated and boring and technical topic, right? Right. Like it's about um, you know, like I even was, you know, struggling to go, okay, we've got G5, we've got signals, we've got internet. It's a very complicated thing. And so I'm like, help me understand if I need to understand it so I can explain it. And it's like, oh, so these things are like they're pingers, they're pinging, you know, and I was like, if that makes sense to me, it's gonna make sense to everybody else. But also, like, it's funny. I think it's funny.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

And you know, anyone, and and you know, people, I think other like more sensible people be like, oh, you well, you can't do that, and then the night that I'm just like, well, why not?

SPEAKER_01 40:38

Let's let's you know if it gets the message across and it's yeah, and like you know, and and then if they go, what do you you know, you that's a drug reference or whatever, you're like, is it?

SPEAKER_03 40:52

I don't know what you're talking about. Is that is that what they call gaslighting or ghosting? Let's say plausible deniability.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

That's what that is.

SPEAKER_03 41:03

Or implausible deniability, I don't know, whatever it may be. So I'm thinking about that incident that happened at the press club yesterday. Oh yeah. That we we won't we'll leave it at that. We all know what it was. Yeah. Has the game when it comes to politics, has the game changed, or are politicians still playing on public sphere?

SPEAKER_01 41:24

Uh absolutely playing on public on public fear. I would say that the biggest shift that we're in at the moment, and I I think about it, is the mode of communication. And I think a lot of the traditional activist groups, lobbyists, media, and institutions have always used this very linear form of campaigning. And it's kind of like when I was learning comms or involved in agencies and stuff, like the game plan was pretty clear. Like you would come up with a comm strategy, you would identify your audience, you'd kind of have a persona for that audience, you'd work out what the key message is, what do you want them to think, feel, or do? Um, and then you would figure out what the channel for delivery would be. And you know, your A plus triple point score was landing a front page on the Daily Tele or the Sydney Morning Herald, that would set the news agenda for the day, the radio would pick that up, you TV would reference uh papers which would reference radio, it'd go national, that was like ding ding ding ding, we've won. Now I think of um communication culture more as an atmosphere because the front page of the Daily Tele or Sydney Morning Herald is not being seen by 87% of people who now get their news from their feed. The definition of news is so loosey-goosey that you you you they think they're getting their news, but it might just be a clip from a clip from a clip that's been editorialized by an influencer by something, by something. So I think a more um practical way of thinking about communication culture and political culture to understand what the hell is happening is to recognize that people exist within atmospheres that are influenced by multiple things. And if you're kind of sensitive, it's sort of like when a um you know, when you feel the weather changing, like first you're like, oh, hang on a minute, like that something smells a bit different. Oh, there's been a drop in temperature, a drop in pressure. It's really discreet. But then all of a sudden it starts raining, and you're like, Oh, I I can't pinpoint the exact moment that everything changed, but there are a bunch of things that have discreetly shifted to create a feeling, and I think that's what's happening now, and I think that that's Really interesting for people to understand because the old ways of trying to communicate don't work because it's like shifting an atmosphere that we live in versus trying to throw thunderbolts. And what happens when you throw thunderbolts in a metaphoric communication way is that people scatter. And so I think what campaigners, brands, people, politicians kind of need to recognise is the atmosphere within which they exist is not necessarily the atmosphere in which others exist. And we kind of have to be conscious of where we want to exist and who we allow to shift and persuade and shape what influences our thoughts and feelings.

SPEAKER_03 44:42

So do you think uh pessimism is a is a luxury in politics? Because if you stop believing in change, and you're a big believer in change, if you stop believing that change is possible, what is left to work and live for?

SPEAKER_01 45:00

I think there's two ways to think about that. I think there are people for whom change is is not good. They don't want change. So you have to recognise that as well. Like if you're if you've if you're on a good wicket and everything is pretty good for you, you will resist change. And so I think that's the tension that we experience. And I think it's overly simplistic now to think of people in terms of a linear spectrum from progressive to conservative or middle or centre. It's like a more interesting question is um what what what do you love about where you live or your life or what matters to you? Because that will tell you what people are willing to protect. And it will also indicate to you if you threaten that thing, you've got a good chance of understanding how they might react. So I feel like a lot of what we're seeing at the moment is a very emotional reaction from people who feel under threat.

SPEAKER_03 46:08

Can I ask, what how do you approach that then when you're communicating to you know the constituents of the city?

SPEAKER_01 46:15

I think it's about involving people in stuff because if the reality of your atmosphere is not real, then you will you're you're more susceptible to feeling fear. And I think the antidote to all of that is real human connection. And so if you want to pull people out of the the feed or the algorithm or the the doldrums, um like you know, you've just got to put them in a pub with other people, like trivia night, karaoke, club sport, bloody walk a dog, run into someone, like that's the that's the thing that actually it will fix it. And so, yeah, like you know, if someone said, okay, how do you fix all the problems of like if I had to just choose one, it would be like, okay, community sport, because I think that's a real triple point score because you're bringing together, you've got a health benefit, an outdoor benefit, uh, you know, people are learning leadership and organizational skills, you know, someone's got to run the canteen, someone's got to do the oranges, people have jobs to do, they work as a team. Like it's really it's the opposite of like sitting, it's the opposite of a kid sitting in their room by themselves in the dark, like banging stuff up. Yeah, that's what I would do.

SPEAKER_03 47:39

Your third memory? Build it and they will come. It's the TEDx Sydney food curation.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

That's all Remo's fault. That's all Remo's fault. That was so nice. Yeah, that was such a nice memory. Tell us about it. Well, I was at Republic of Everyone, and we would and we we applied for a grant from Waverly Council on composting, and so the challenge was to think of a way of getting data for composting, and so me being me decided not to do the the straightforward, easy thing. I concocted this elaborate thing because it sounded more fun, where we it was, I don't know why that, I don't know who said yes. It was weird, but I said it was like the the the theory was that if you grew your own stuff, like if you grew your own herbs or veggies, there's a good chance you're gonna be a composter. So that was the logic. And so we had to find and map all these people who grew stuff in Waverley Council. So the bribe was that if you put your patch on a map, then you would score yourself a ticket to a grow-it local dinner. And that dinner was gonna be prepared by the three blue ducks, who then and now are still the hottest, the hottest things in uh, you know, well then who knows where they are now, they're all over the shop. But at the time, you know, they were they were awesome, they were lovely young blokes that had a great restaurant in Bronte, and so they would cook you dinner, and you would get to meet all your neighbours and blah de blah blah. So that was the only way you could score an invite, and they had to make a menu based on the stuff that people brought, which is a real creative brief. And people bought some random stuff, and so you had to drop off your staff at the the Bodai Farmers Market on the Sunday, and then they cooked it up and made this beautiful dinner on the oh no, you dropped it off on a Sunday, dinner was on the Sunday night. Um, and that that was the that was the campaign and the trick, and we did that. Now, the bit that I the funny bit of the story was that the dinner, and I do not have a photographic memory, but the dinner was planned to be on March 30. The dinner was on March 30. I was due to have a baby on April 6th, and uh everyone was like, they always come late. The first one always comes late, and I'm like, yeah, this is no worries. Um she didn't come late. So there was this like there was this phone call, like, oh god, it was funny. So she came on March 26th, four days before the event. So I went into Labour on the 24th of March, it took a while, um, and I was basically like, okay, guys, we've talked about the contingency plan, and I'd written it because like the best bit of being pregnant that last bit is like you've got really good superpower hormones and you can get shit done. And I was just like, never been clearer in my life. Um, and it was basically like everyone, the contingency plan is going, it's you, and then just for like good measure, I was like, and if you're reading this right now, it means that I am having a baby. So, as inconvenient as this might be for any of you, I am in the middle of having a baby, so do not disappoint me and don't let me down. And they didn't, it was a beautiful night, and Remo was there, and I went with Jeremima, who was four days old, and we dressed her in a little carrot suit, and we've got this gorgeous, gorgeous and Costa was there, and Kinky the Chicken, his chicken at the time, um pulled out the Lucky Door prize like out of a colander.

unknown 51:36

So cute.

SPEAKER_01 51:37

And he like holds his little kinky chicken like this, and I had my little baby like this, and it's a really cute picture. And um, I must have been delirious because like Remo had this great idea. He's like, this is great. And I'm like, yeah, it's great, isn't it? We had a hundred people, maybe two. We had more, maybe two. So we spilled out on it, it was gorgeous. And the beautiful thing about it is that people who came, like, they didn't know each other, and but they got to know each other because they had it in, which was like, Oh, what did you bring? What did you? And there was one woman who was a forensic um scientist by day, and she was like a a gleaner by night. So like she she brought like a bag of shit she'd stolen from other people's. She was great, she was glorious. Um, but yeah, and it was Remo's idea that said, like, okay, you've done it for 200. Can we do it for what was it, two thousand, two and a half thousand? And I'm like, yeah, of course we can. And that's and so I joined Jill DePlay, um, who's obviously the godmother of food in in Sydney then and now, um, and together we figured out how to make this stuff work. And so instead of asking people for like gleaned lemons, um, we had people like Jan who donated an entire Angus cow, which was broken down on the heritage purple carpet of the forecourt of the opera house, um, so people could say the point was it everything came within a 100k radius. Um, Peppice was hand churning butter. Like this is when, or like it I invited a lot of them to come because these like then these were kind of the new kids on the block, and they these are now the like have gone on to do just such beautiful things. Like Michael from Brassery Bread was doing, you know, baking everything on the house. Matt Moran was the head chef with Simon, um, who's now at Baronia Kitchen, and you know, they didn't that it was very interesting because they didn't know what they were going to get. They knew bits, but the constant tension was between us, who were the pain in the ass curators, but we also then had to manage the logistics because you couldn't get the food too quick, otherwise it would spoil. So there was this very tiny window within which everybody had to drop their stuff off. And we had Milkwood bought, you know, kilograms of handmade potatoes from the Blue Mountains. There was a guy, young Henry's like there's a video with um Oscar without a beard and with short hair and rich, and they found a guy who grew hops out in the western suburbs, and they made a beer using that. Um, yeah, but then little people would like there was big things. We put a bloody, what do we put? A bloody um a beehive in the botanic gardens. Yeah, so every element of the it was very, it was very hard and the spreadsheet coordination, like, because every time you just go, oh, we're gonna do this thing, but at every junction it's like, oh shit, how do we pull this bit off and how do we do that? And oh my god, it it was epic. And just asking I was just constantly asking people for stuff, and so it would be like, oh, okay, how do we so logistically like I asked Bruce from Go Get if we could offer our growers um a chance to you know use a Go Get for free to drop off to take stuff, and then he said yes, and people just said yes.

SPEAKER_03 55:07

How do you think that something like this would work if we revived it today?

SPEAKER_01 55:11

It's a great question. I don't know. Give it a go. I'm like, give it a go. Some like I'm busy, but you know, here you go. Um I don't know. Like, I think I think people um Do you think we need it more now? I do, yeah. And I think I think we underestimate that I I I think we assume that nobody wants to be asked to do something, whereas I think being asked to give is actually like giving people an opportunity to be generous in a big or small way, especially a small way within their means is a beautiful thing, and because by doing so they feel part of.

SPEAKER_03 55:53

Yeah. We've come to the part of the evening where I ask my guests to choose a social cause that is special to them. So without um having Jess choose a favourite, I'm going to choose the social cause this evening.

SPEAKER_01 56:06

Can't have favorites.

SPEAKER_03 56:07

Can't have favourites. Um I'd like to take this one and shine light on a social impact business doing impactful work, and the organization is called the Circular Hospitality Group because they're proving that hospitality businesses can do the right thing for the planet. Circular Hospitality Group isn't just about reducing waste, it's about building hospitality businesses that can thrive in the long term and can just be around when we really need them. To tell us more about this organisation, I've asked Janine Braboza to join me and Jess up here. You need to come and sit on my chair, Janine, and tell the audience. Tell us about the circular hospitality group.

SPEAKER_00 57:00

So um there's three of us. We're very little. Um myself, Rebecca Bernstone, who's over there, who's a bit of a hospitality operations guru, and um a wonderful lady called Joanna Savile, who's in Paris at the moment. She's always somewhere. She's always somewhere great. So she was former editor of Good Food Guide and has been involved in government placemaking and all kinds of interesting things. Um I have a PR agency that works in hospitality, and we had just noticed that a lot of the people who are amazing hospitality businesses that we all collectively worked with just do incredible work in many different ways in sustainability, not just environmentally, not just about waste, not just about, you know, their carbon emissions, but with people as well. And that a lot of them weren't able to talk about it, you know. And I think there's been a lot of um hospitality is a really hard industry, the margins are really tight, there's been a little bit of a pylon in terms of, you know, staff practices and things, and we really felt that um we wanted to assist hospitality businesses doing great work that didn't have much awareness around it to kind of form a bit of a community. And the way we felt we could do that was by helping them through accreditation. So you might have heard of B Corp, and you know, there's ways to accredit in sustainability, but we felt some of those were quite challenging for hospitality and not very specific to the industry. So we are working with a group out of the UK to help hospitality businesses here accredit to show the great work that they do.

SPEAKER_03 58:46

Why should the average city scientist care about organisations who have this accreditation?

SPEAKER_00 58:52

I mean, I think we all we all want to care about sustainability and um, you know, the environment and the people that we're choosing to buy from and spend our money with. Um and a lot of hospitality businesses are doing incredible work very quietly with people, with community. I think like Jess has talked a lot about it, they're such an important part of communities and they're giving back constantly, often. Um I think if we if we don't care about the businesses that are doing really good things, we will lose them.

SPEAKER_03 59:30

So, what's the biggest myth about, do you think, in your experience? I'm thinking about my own business here too now, the biggest myth about sustainability and hospitality?

SPEAKER_00 59:40

Um I think one of the myths is that it's all about the environment. The environment is really important, but it's also very much about people and building a sustainable business that's going to be around for a really long time. Um and I think the other myth is that it's a luxury, that it's kind of a nice to have, because as I said, margins are so so tight in hospitality and increasingly so, and actually, sustainability a lot of the time is about what they can do to survive and and and thrive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:11

And so can you give some examples of what organizations are doing with their accreditation?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:16

Yeah, there's um, gosh, we've been talking to so many businesses who do a range of incredible things that nobody would know about. They're they're not loud about it, there's there's very little awareness, they're just getting on with it. There's, you know, caterers who are weighing all of their waste and then working out the proportion of composting to make sure that it's as minimal as possible. Um there's groups like Hollywood Quarter who are banding together to find kind of great methods of waste disposal as a collective, which is much easier than doing it individually. For small businesses, it can be really hard to do these things on their own. Um, so yeah, there's just lots of examples.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:03

So, where can we send people to find more information about circular hospitality group?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

Um there's, I think there's there's really good assets on what's happening globally in sustainability and hospitality on the Food Made Good Instagram. I'd say go look at that because Australia is starting to really pop up on that feed and they're using examples of amazing things that are happening here, but you also get a sense of globally what businesses are doing. Um, food made good on Instagram.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:34

Janine, thank you very much for telling the story. Everybody, Janine Braboza. Thank you. And so just really quickly, there is a scary statistic as a Sydney Cider that I came across just recently. What is it, Jess? By 2030, by 2030 we will have run out of landfill. Landfill.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:59

A fact. It's a fact. Um, yeah, we've been banging this drum for a while, but I think we've had unfortunately we had uh one of my favourite, yeah. Anyway, Gabrielle Upton did nothing on waste for the best part of ten years, which means that we are in this position where there's a real scramble, I think. Like there was a bit of a sliding windows moment where we could have done some really interesting stuff, but now we're playing catch-up. But um uh the the good news is that food and organic composting will become legislated for in the coming years, like quite shortly. Um if you want change, like sure you can encourage it, but ultimately if you want it to happen immediately, you legislate for it. So I think that'll unfortunately like that will be the stick required to force the innovation. The big tragedy, and like if there are any millionaires listening at the moment, you should really be backing um companies like Goterra. Um, you know, brilliant local um uh Canberra-based founder, female, has just come up with this brilliant way of turning organic compost into fertilizer. The city have been trialling this now for about four or five years, it's fantastic. They're kind of colloquially known as you know, Clover's angry army of maggots, um, which is a very apt description, really. Um, but sadly, they've just been on this big capital raise and haven't been able to get the money required to scale this, and it's the most elegant solution that I've seen to the problem, and it's it's uh we we're committed um at the city to continue with it, but I mean every other council should be doing the same.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:43

In the spirit of Martha Stewart and her kitchen meets life wisdom tradition here at Three Food Memories, what would be your kitchen meets life experience that you would like to share with us today?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:57

Oh, um make a big mess. Get someone else clean up. No, make a big uh no, make make a big mess and and clean up later. Like I think you kind of sometimes get you know, a bit like if you if you clean up as you go, sometimes you miss out on the energy and the drama and the moment of making the thing and you get distracted. So there's always time to clean up and you can always leave it for tomorrow, I think.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:26

You know, the thing can stay full and building.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:29

It can, like, be and you know, don't don't be like, oh, I'm gonna call this short and so I can clean like what a waste of life. Or like if you're rich enough, get someone else to do the dishes, like yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:40

Jess, this is your opportunity to ask me a question. What would you like to know?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:45

When what is the thing that you think your people in hospitality have learned most about dealing with pressure? Because that's one thing I've noticed with hospitality people is that they have a very different relationship with pressure.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:02

I'm gonna apply that to me and my experience. It's kind of pressure is about reading the room. Like you know how you know, you know, you've got that, you're you're in a pressure called Goron and you know what's going on in there, but you you think, okay, I can't get out of this, but there's got to be some sort of wiggle room, there's got to be something that I can do just to give myself a little bit of space. Because if I don't if I can't breathe in this space and I can't function, then the next bit's not gonna happen. So I kind of think, okay, where have I got my space? And once I'm good and strong, and you know, Pilates gut, nuts to guts, as they teach us. Um, once I've got that bit in place, then I'm ready to take it on. So I think it's about fortification and in hospitality, it's not just about hospital. People are not in hospital, it's a whole it's it it it's kind of a location, uh, a vocation. It's like being a nun, it's like being a brother, it's like being a priest. You really have to love people to be there because the show. That we cop. But not that much, yeah. But the shit we cop, and you you you're kind of there, and people look to you, and and sort of as I get older and as and I am in hospitality and and and with three food memories, people are looking at for me for answers and a bit of support. And I can't, I I really am drawing on the 30-something years of experience. So I think the older you are, as long as you have the energy, I think you're better at it, and then you're better at lifting those younger ones that are coming up through, you know, the ranks. So that's how I deal with pressure. But I also had good guidance as well. So I never had anyone that was on me, you know. I mean, I remember when I first started catering, I was, I w we were at a catering business here. And Marimo, you might remember, it's just new with Norma Willis. She's a Sydney icon from many, many years ago. And in sort of all the ante-rooms, we used to do dinners for thousands of people, and we would do, you know, four or five courses, and we'd feed the great hall in there. And that was it, but we worked as a team and we were taught. So that's how we managed. We really relied on that. Did I answer that question? Yeah, I did. Thank you. Jess, as a as a as a parent, parent to parent, we don't have the the luxury of pessimism. So let me give you a vacation from politics for a moment. As Jess Miller, parent to parent, rather than a deputy lord mayor of Sydney, what is it that you hope for for your child's future not only in this city but the world?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:36

Oh gosh. Um I just hope that they've got the skills to like I think it's there's some pretty major challenges coming down the pipeline. Like and so I think the the focus is really fortifying them to be able to cope. Like I think, and and I know that sounds kind of like a low expectation, but I think it's realistic. Like I think it's it's gonna be tough for them. I think most indicators would suggest that this coming generation is the only one that may not be richer, smarter, or luckier than the last. So I think it's yeah, it's really pretty just like bootstrapping these kids to be able to deal with some pretty gnarly things.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:26

Jess, I'm not sure if you can see all the thought bubbles of the people in this room, but I can read them and I know what they all want for the city, and I all know, and I also know what part they would like you to play in it and its future. Ladies and gentlemen, please thank Jess Miller for the sickness. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:45

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:51

That's it for this episode of Three Food Memories. Be sure to spread the plated love and check out our hundred-plus back episodes. You can catch them on YouTube as well. Just search for Three Food Memories. For all things TFM, head to the socials at Three Food Memories and at Stavas Savas. For more info, send us a message, head to threefoodmemories.com. Three Food Memories is produced and edited by Lauren McQuerta with original music by Russell Torrance. Nastika La Philly, and bye for now.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:22

Thank you for listening to Pope's Podcast. Don't forget to like and subscribe and tell your friends. Bye! Bye.