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It was only in May that the outgoing Waverley mayor Will Nemesh was out talking up his council’s plans to turn Bondi Junction into a “vibrant, accessible” hub of Sydney’s well-heeled eastern suburbs.
Just a few months later, though, Nemesh would decide against a bid for re-election. On Wednesday, council announced the Labor-aligned councillor Steven Lewis had taken his place.
Nemesh, who also works in planning and public affairs at the property developer, Fivex, didn’t get back to us on Thursday, when we tried asking why he had effectively bowed out of the leadership contest.
Our guess is a few residents won’t be sad to see him go, such was the level of blowback faced by council following its adoption of the Bondi Junction master plan, which would deliver on Waverley’s obligation to build some 2400 dwellings by mid-2029 under the Minns government’s housing agenda.
The incoming mayor tapped the brakes in a statement on Wednesday, saying the proposal’s implementation would be paused for more consultation.
Nemesh also faced simmering concern from some residents over his job at Fivex. In an online petition, residents requested he “not seek another term as mayor” and that he “recuse himself from any further council decisions that impact property developers” and related entities, like real estate agents.
The petition said it is “inappropriate from a governance and risk standpoint” for Nemesh to make decisions that impact property developers, regardless of whether his employer Fivex is directly involved in Waverley projects. (Nemesh didn’t respond to a request for comment on this either.)
The backlash to the master plan isn’t likely to end with Nemesh’s mayoralty. On Thursday, Lewis told CBD the community has aired “strong views” about the “volume and density” of the proposed new housing in the more than 800 submissions fielded by council on the proposal.
“I intend to address those concerns,” Lewis told us. “As part of the master plan, transport infrastructure must be addressed by the state government, with the current Bondi Junction train station and bus interchange woefully inadequate.”
Paging Ambassador Brat
It’s been close to two years since the United States last had an ambassador in the Australian capital. But if word out of Washington, DC is any indicator, we might not have to wait too much longer.
David Brat, who was finally confirmed by the US Senate last month, could finally arrive in Australia in the coming days, CBD hears. We won’t be holding our breath.
The ambassador, we’re told, has experienced a bit of a hold-up trying to get his dog into the country. Brat’s dog woes – and every imaginable pun – were first reported by The Australian Financial Review on Thursday. They also go some way to explaining his delayed arrival.
When reached on Thursday, a spokeswoman for the US embassy in Canberra would not confirm or deny Brat’s arrival timeline, other than to say she’d let us know when he’s ready to speak to the press.
Regular readers will recall this isn’t the first time Brat has surfaced in this column. Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, has already given the man a warm welcome. Then there were the plane spotters who set off false alarms, claiming the incoming ambassador was on board a “US government Gulfstream G700” that landed in Sydney late last month.
Hopefully this doesn’t go on too much longer.
A parliamentary welcome
Last year, the former Turnbull and Morrison government adviser Harry Godber stood down as policy boss of the Scott Farquhar-led Tech Council of Australia, after being bailed on domestic violence charges that have since been withdrawn.
“I’m happy to confirm the charges raised last year were dropped in their entirety and the matter dismissed on the request of NSW Police,” Godber said in a statement. “I agreed [to] an AVO strictly on a non-admissions basis, as is common practice when such matters are dropped at police request.”
So it would now appear it’s back to business for Godber, who’s been chief executive of the start-up organisation Spark for the last three or so years. Next week, he’ll be at NSW parliament.
In an email on Wednesday afternoon, Godber said the NSW Parliamentary Friends of Innovation, Ventures, Entrepreneurs and Technology had “opened the door to us”, and urged guests to sign up for “very limited seats”.
“It is a rare thing for the start-up community to be invited inside Parliament House – let alone at no cost,” Godber wrote in the email, seen by CBD. “Most of the conversation about how technology gets governed happens without us in the room. On the Wednesday morning of festival week, we are having it in theirs – and we would like you there.”
The event will involve a sit down with NSW Labor MP Jason Yat-Sen Li and Liberal Jacqui Munro, along with David Brudenell, co-CEO and executive chair of the agentic AI company Decidr.
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John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.From our partners
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