The Source: Marathon Melbourne City Council meeting bigger than Ben Hur

What was going on at Melbourne’s Town Hall this week? In a meeting that was bigger than Ben Hur, about the only thing that went forward was a councillor dialling in from a moving car.

Lord Mayor Nick Reece was handing out Kit-Kats ahead of a marathon council meeting this week.

Bigger than Ben Hur, the City of Melbourne’s meeting on Tuesday night lasted an epic five hours and 38 minutes. (The Source follows these things so you don’t have to.)

And what a night at Town Hall it was.

It started with Lord Mayor Nick Reece — Charlton Heston he ain’t — giving away Kit-Kats to members of the public. Who knows why.

Plenty of cyclists rolled up to question why the council was spending less on bike lanes but such was the glacial nature of proceedings many gave up and went home.

Gladys Liu (right) joins the City of Melbourne meeting while travelling in a car.

Councillor Gladys Lui appeared for a while via Zoom from the passenger seat of a moving car. Some might say that was the only thing that moved forward that night.

Spare a thought too for Kensington Association spokeswoman Kate Kennedy who asked why there was nothing in the budget to improve Moonee Ponds Creek even though Reece had promised in the election the site would get a “game-changing investment”.

Reece then somewhat bizarrely told her the site was an “absolute priority”. Yeah, one of those priorities that’s not actually funded.

Home sweet home no more for the AFP

It was once an elite hub of crime-fighting in graffiti-plagued Melbourne town.

Now, the Australian Federal Police’s former headquarters on Latrobe St is looking decidedly second-hand.

The latest insult to its former inhabitants comes in the form of the letters ACAB liberally scrawled around the building.

Graffiti on the former home of the AFP in Melbourne.

For those not in the know, ACAB is an acronym which stands for All Cops Are Bastards.

We’re not certain things would look any better inside.

The Herald Sun revealed last year how trespassers had been running amok inside since officers moved to new premises on Lonsdale St.

A TikTok video entitled “Squater (sic) Encounter” showed the place looking the worse for wear, covered in graffiti and damaged by vandals.