Dawn Crichlow: Gold Coast councillor’s incredible 29 year career of public service
Gold Coast councillor Dawn Crichlow will retire next year after 29 years in office. This is the incredible story of her near three decades at city hall.
History
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THE Gold Coast community will gather this weekend to celebrate the career of Southport councillor Dawn Crichlow.
The long-time local representative will bow out from politics at the March election after 29 years at City Hall.
Cr Crichlow has long been synonymous with the area she represents and is a common sight in the area, along with her beloved dog Princess Pookie.
It is said that all politics is local and that’s how it began for the future politician in the late 1980s.
At the time Dawn Crichlow was a small-business owner operating a florist in Nerang St.
But when the street was closed and converted to a mall, she was galvanised and furious at the “devastating” impact it had on traders.
In 1991 she ran a successful campaign to get elected in Southport on a campaign pledge to get the mall demolished.
She was one of three women successfully elected on March 23,1991, along with Palm Beach incumbent Daphne McDonald and Kerry Smith.
Her first time in office was largely focused with the then-upcoming amalgamation of the Gold Coast and Albert Shire councils, something she vigorously opposed.
Just a year after the 1994 elections, the two local government bodies were combined to form a new “super council”.
Many at the time were deeply unhappy with the move and a referendum was held in mid-1996, with Cr Crichlow campaigning with close friend Lex Bell to restore the old councils.
In early 1998 an incident occurred which Cr Crichlow later declared to be the lowest moment of her career – city leaders voted to sack chief executive Dr Douglas Daines in what is often regarded as the city’s most famous council meeting.
“It was terrible because there was a good man who was trying to bring us forward but he stepped on the toes of people and so they ganged up and got rid of him,” she said in 2016.
But that same year she also saw success when the Southport Mall was closed and demolished, finally fulfilling her election commitment.
Throughout her entire career Cr Crichlow has been famous for her stunts and often eccentric approach to solving community problems.
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Among her best-remembered are the installation of speakers at bus stops near Australia Fair which played opera music to deter teen gangs from loitering, calls to ban the wearing of neckties on the Gold Coast and a suggestion to have an eagle trained to herd the city’s bat population into the Ernest Junction Railway tunnel where they could be culled.
She was never afraid to pose with her head in a guillotine or with a full-grown lion at a circus to show her support of performing animals.
In 2004 Cr Crichlow proved instrumental in exposing the “bloc”, a group of like-minded councillors and candidates.
This led to the 2005 Crime and Misconducted Commission inquiry into the council.
During her career she gained many admirers but also made plenty of enemies, having longstanding rivalries with then-mayor Ron Clarke and councillors Jan Grew and Bob La Castra.
Following the 2012 election, Cr Crichlow was initially an enthusiastic supporter of Tom Tate’s mayoralty but they fell out in 2017 over Cr Tate’s proposal to build a second casino in Southport.
Cr Crichlow will leave office in late March 2020.
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