Crime and Bewilderment

My dear old dad died on is 96^th birthday two years ago. Like many a proud man, his “home was his castle” and I knew that needed to be there to the end if his final years were to be happy ones. And being proud and independent we needed to call his carers, housekeepers.

One day, when my dad was around 94, I got a call at the office from a very anxious housekeeper. “He’s got a gun under the bed and he won’t let me get it!”.

I could just imagine my dad standing in front of the bed with his arms crossed. “No, you’re not taking it. I might need it!”.

As it later turned out, it was only an air gun and he didn’t have any pellets anyway. But he wasn’t giving it up. I understood that he felt the need to protect his person and his property, so I needed to help him.

The next weekend I visited him in his country cottage with a present.

“I’ve got something for you dad”.

“What’s that son?”

“It’s a baseball bat. Give me the gun”.

And so, we swapped. He put the baseball bat under the bed and I wrapped the gun in a blanket, and feeling like a criminal, I put it in the boot of the car. I delivered the gun to the local police station where the coppers accepted it gratefully but laughed their heads off at the story.

Many people like my Dad worry about violence and the media is full of stories about street crime, home invasions and violence generally. It sparks fears that our communities are becoming more dangerous. We hear exploitative politicians saying, “it’s out of control”.

The other day, my researcher Charlie showed me an alarming press report with the headline “200 Youths In City Brawl”.  It went on “Police broke up 77 brawls among roving gangs in the city and 48 suburbs of Melbourne over the weekend”.

I was shocked and then I looked at the date of the report. It was Monday October 3, 1966.

So, we’ve had the problem of violence for a long time. We think it’s getting worse but a UN report by its specialist drug and crime agency, concludes that the worldwide long-term trend is for decreasing crime, primarily in developed high income countries.

And a report by the Victorian Crime Statistics Unit says that crime in my home city of Melbourne is actually dropping when allowance is made for population growth. In the last 5 years, the “victimisation rate” as they call it, dropped by 4.4%.

The biggest problem is the perceptions of crime. Headline chasing newspapers and internet sites worldwide, search out any story which makes us think it’s worse than it is. A mass killing, particularly in America, echoes around the world.

We should never relax about crime, but it’s not as bad as we are encouraged to think.

I reckon that every government in the world should show the guts that Australian Prime Minister John Howard did in 1996 and ban guns.

And regarding other forms of crime, we should look beyond the daily headlines to find the real facts and then just get on with job of contributing to the wealth and well-being of our family and friends. The richer the country or suburb, the safer you are.

After all, as Franklin D Roosevelt said in his inaugural address, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.

Living With Dying

I was sitting in Melbourne’s great Catholic Cathedral St Patricks earlier this week at the State Funeral of the wonderful co-owner of Pellegrini’s Cafe Sisto Malaspina.

St Patricks is the tallest church in Australia and with its position on Eastern Hill, the highest point of Melbourne’s CBD, it looks down on all the others, including the St. Paul’s Anglican Cathedral which was finished 6 years earlier in 1891. They used to hate each other back in those days.

“They still do”, says my research assistant Louise.

I’m not so sure about that, but the competing faiths of Marvellous Melbourne, as she was known in those heady after-the- gold-rush days, certainly clustered in and around the city’s well-planned mile square business district.

Within a cricket pitch or so of St Pats, is a Jewish synagogue, the City Temple of the Salvation Army including its printing works and a Lutheran church.

Catholics were pretty big 100 years ago. The Irish migration to the Gold Rush resulted in Catholics amounting to about 40% of Melbourne’s population.

Sitting in a grand old Cathedral at the funeral of a loved one who has died before his time, causes quite a reflection on life.

It was a beautiful service and hats off to the Archbishop who had the biggest hat of all. Our Catholic sisters and brothers sure know how to do a funeral, and everyone got something out of it including me.  As I sat there, I thought “What would you do if you knew this was the last day of your life?”

And I was reminded of the story of Kevin. I worked with Kevin more than 30 years ago before I started my own business. Kevin was an outstanding advertising executive. He was a good family man with a good income and strong list of clients. Life was perfect.

But one day, without warning, we were all saddened to hear that Kevin had been given 3 months to live.

And Kevin’s reaction was incredible. For the whole time we’d known him, Kevin had worn a really bad wig.

The day after getting the shocking news, the wig was gone, and a very handsome but balding Kevin seemed to have a new, albeit short, lease on life. He resigned forthwith, cashed up his long service leave and booked the trip to Europe he’d always longed for. Sadly, for some of us, he left his wife and took up with, what we now suspect was his long-term girlfriend.

And off he went. It was a new exhilarating Kevin setting out on the last 3 months of his life- Europe, freedom, dancing, red wine, what else would you want?

But he didn’t die!

On his return, and after much soul searching, he reconciled with his wife and lived another 20 years or so.

Charlie, my other research colleague for this blog, tells the story of an old English yachty mate of his who was also diagnosed with terminal ‘jimmy dancer’. He sent letters to his kids who all lived over seas and set sail eastwards from his yacht club. Five years later he returned from the west.

So, what does 2 hours in the cathedral mourning my old friend Sisto tell me?

Well it’s just this. Do what you really want to do and stick to the rules of life that you’d be proud for your grandkids to follow. It shouldn’t be that hard.

The uncertainly of life should be all the motivation we need to not hold back and to live life to the full.

Sisto - Bringing People Together

This is a very Melbourne story, but it applies to all of Australia.

A great tragedy occurred a week ago just around the corner from where I live. A moment of madness broke out on the streets when one crazy guy went into such a frenzy that repeated taser hits could not bring him down. Some called it a “terrorist incident”. I don’t. To me it was an act of random insanity, probably drug fuelled, that murdered Sisto – one of my dearest friends and one of the most loved people in Melbourne. I see no reason to apply a divisive label to the horrible death of a man who was so loved for bringing people together.

I’ve known Sisto and his business partner Nino since 1976. They started the famous Italian ristorante and espresso bar Pellegrini’s two years earlier and provided Melbournians in the CBD with their first cappuccinos. They still provide the best.

For more than 40 years Sisto was as Melbourne as a Bourke Street tram or a torpedo punt. And next Tuesday, his immense and humble contribution to our town will be recognised at a State Funeral in the grand St Patricks Cathedral.

What is it that brings such emotion out of all of us, me included, at the death of Sisto. Well it’s simply this.  He loved us, he loved his town and we loved him. His never-ending smile sent us on our way into the world with renewed delight. The warmth and openness of his welcome always made us smile. Some years ago, as I was calling in for my morning coffee he commented that he loved the maroon jacket he’d seen me wear on television the previous week. He was so taken with it, that I got one made for him exactly the same. He always loved it, but as you can see, added his own Italian colour and style with the cravat and the scarf.

Look at the two smiles. He had the sort of smile that always made you smile too. This Italian immigrant brought pure joy to millions.

These days many of us are far too inclined to turn on our immigration system. We are stupid to do so.

97% of us are either immigrants or the offspring of generations of immigrants. Right now, around 50% of Australians are first- or second-generation migrants. And it is wrong of our politicians to turn events such as the death of Sisto into fear and hatred of immigrants.

Our Prime Minister arrived unannounced at Sisto’s café several days ago with an entourage of photographers. He didn’t tell the family, he didn’t tell the staff.  He was there to take advantage of the situation. Wrong. Sisto had many friends and none of the them appreciated his death being used as a political moment.

The story of Sisto is the story of Australia. We embrace each other.  We are all equal. That’s the way Sisto looked at it.

Some years ago I had a late meeting with Kevin Rudd in his Foreign Minister period and he suggested that we have dinner. I’m not a big evening or dinner person but I agreed, and we went down to the classy Grossi Florentino’s.

Kevin got a bit over enthusiastic about embracing Melbourne’s Italian scene by delivering a history of Italy. I could see we were fast losing the waiter, as well as a few neighbouring diners, so as soon as we finished our mains, I suggested that we have coffee at Pellegrini’s 50 meters up the street. It's a tiny place, perhaps 4 meters wide with a long bar down one side and a kitchen out the back.

I could see that the Foreign Minister was feeling a little out of his comfort zone as we squeezed our way through the crowded bar area. This certainly wasn't a private entrance to the office of the Secretary General of the United Nations.  All the stools were full, so I walked through into the kitchen. And there was Sisto; face lit up, arms outspread.

“Hello” said the Foreign Minster “I’m Kevin”.

“And I’m Sisto. Welcome, please sit down”

You could see a sense of crisis engulfing the Foreign Minister. “err here – in the kitchen?”

“This is Melbourne Minister”, I said.

He was out of his comfort zone but to most Australians this is our comfort zone. And this is the story of everyone like Sisto who have made modern Australia. 

On another occasion I took an American mate of mine Bo Cutter to Pellegrini’s. He was the budget director in the Clinton Whitehouse. I told him I’d meet him out the front of Pellegrini’s but desperate to get there on time, I parked my car illegally right outside. I could see Sisto beaming at me and as I abandoned my car I spied Mick Gatto and a couple of his helpers having a coffee.

“Mick, I haven’t got time to park my car”.

“Don’t worry pal we’ll look after it”.

Some might have thought that might be the last time I’d see my car, but no. Five minutes later one of Mick’s boys appeared as I was sitting with Bo and explained “Mr Gatto said to let us know when you need your car and we’ll bring it back.”

And that’s Pellegrini’s, that’s Melbourne and that’s Australia. Doesn't matter who you are if you’re fair dinkum about looking after each other.

Sisto’s death is tragic and should never have happened but he lives on in the lives of the millions he touched with his smile …. and his coffee.

We are a great nation of 25 million people and our long and rich migrant histories over many generations should always be a source of pride and never division. Paul Keating once said that the job of a leader is twofold: to keep the country safe and to keep the people together.

That’s the story of Sisto. He never stopped bringing people together.