Geelong’s Mayor Mohawk Darryn Lyons a dead parrot talking

IT’S a few minutes before Darryn Lyons is due at the Town Hall to be told formally what he knows already from well-oiled leaks: he is no longer Geelong’s mayor, writes Andew Rule.

Darryn Lyons Geelong Mayor

IT’S a few minutes before Darryn Lyons is due at the Town Hall to be told formally what he knows already from well-oiled leaks: he is no longer Geelong’s mayor because the council is as dead as the parrot in the Monty Python sketch.

He is, as John Cleese might say, an ex-mayor. And, like the late parrot, he is in a lively shade of blue, in this case clashing bravely with a purple shirt, pants and cowboy boots.

The fact he already knows the bad news doesn’t make it any easier for Mayor Mohawk, who it seems has played ringmaster, strongman and clown in the city by the bay for more than two years.

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He sits dejectedly beneath a huge reindeer head in a nook overlooking the pool of the grand bayside house he shares with the ex-mayoress, Elissa Friday. The signature punk cockatoo crest is subdued, the bleached hair combed flat.

Lyons is less dead man walking than dead man talking. He drags on a smoke — a sign of stress after a sleepless night — and recites his lines for maybe the dozenth time since reporters started calling at dawn.

Lyons lively shade of blue clashing bravely with a purple shirt. Picture: Jay Town

Lyons in his lavishly decorated Geelong home. Picture: Jay Town

“I’m driven by vision, passion and change” is one.

“I had an overwhelming mandate to get the council moving” is another.

Then there’s “stopping shirkers from throwing up red tape” in delivering his promise to ensure “Geelong is open for business”.

There’s plenty more where they came from.

He bowls them up as dutifully as a cricketer in the nets. But he doesn’t much like bowling to others. A lifelong cricketer, he’s always been more a flashy slogger, out to make a ton of runs with a bravura display.

But those sorts of batsmen run the risk of being clean-bowled on their way to a score. Which is what has happened.

The one-time paparazzi king says he “must respect the umpire’s decision” but he doesn’t have to like it.

“I have been on the front foot from the start,” he says, “working ludicrous hours every day.

“It’s tough. It’s brought me to tears at times.

“I wanted to turn Sleepy Hollow into the most liveable regional city.”

Lyons said he “transcended party politics”. Picture: Nigel Hallett

Lyons was never one to shun the spotlight. Picture: Jay Town

He says he transcended party politics in trying to be a “can-do business person” with his home town’s best interests at heart. Twice, he quotes a local government “community satisfaction survey” that says Geelong residents’ satisfaction has jumped from 55 to 69 per cent in his term, against a state average of 53.

The hyperactive young photographer from Leopold who parlayed his start at the Geelong Advertiser into Fleet Street fame — and a fortune — came home to invest money and worldly experience in what he saw as the jewel by Corio Bay.

Not everyone agreed with what appeared to be his brash, crash-through approach. Some local political figures and business people derided him as “a one-trick pony” intent on turning Geelong into “Darrynville”.

The wounded Lyons is cagey about party politics.

“I’m a little bit Labor, a little bit Liberal and a bit Green — a dangerous mixture. But I bleed blue and white,” he adds. Football — as in the Cats — is much safer ground.

But when he says he “won’t play the man”, he’s not talking footy.

He means he won’t name those who some Lyons supporters believe have plotted to nuke the entire council just to “nail” the man who potential political foes fear because so many voters fancy him in the working-class suburbs around Geelong.

Lyons frowns about people he thinks will be “popping champagne corks” because he’s been knifed. He’s happier talking about the support that poured in for him when the news broke yesterday.

Dozens of messages, he says, flicking through his phone and reading them out. One is from the mayor of Perth. Many are from old mates in the media.

The former Geelong mayor suggests a book called When Bad Things Happen to Good People, which seems to justify Lyons’ contention he inherited a dysfunctional council and tried to fix it.

The most touching message is from his mum, who ends it with: “Hope you can hold it together.”

For a second it looks as if he won’t. He swallows hard, goes out and gets in his Range Rover with the “MAYOR” numberplates.

He’s going to change the plates, he says with a grin. He is thinking of getting “X-MAYOR”.

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