Club owner aiming to be lord mayor ties city revival to mental health

Providing urgent mental health support to Melbourne’s residents will underpin the return of the city to its pre-COVID glory, says would-be lord mayor Nick Russian.

Russian, a prominent nightclub owner and his Bring Back Melbourne team believe increasing mental health funding and linking residents, business owners and international students to services is crucial to their strategy to revitalise the city.

Nick Russian runs a range of businesses including events, cleaning, labor hire and soon-to-open nightclub Bambi at the old Cherry Bar site in ACDC Lane.Credit: Jason South

"My background in hospitality, in small business, I'm just in tune with so many people at the moment who are going through just a disastrous time and mental health is such an important thing," said Mr Russian, who ran celebrity hotspot Eve Bar in South Melbourne.

"We really need people back in the city."

Nick and Rozalia Russian at Melbourne Cup Day 2019.Credit: Mackenzie Sweetnam/Getty Images

Mr Russian, whose Instagram influencer and fashion designer wife Rozalia boasts Kylie Jenner as a client, is running on an unofficial Liberal ticket with psychologist Michael Burge as deputy and current councillor Philip Le Liu as his first council candidate.

Mr Le Liu, who was behind the council’s recent food vouchers to international students, said people would need help to prepare to work, play and move around the city after months of staying at home.

He said mental health support should include an outreach taskforce that could provide tailored packages using existing federal and state funded services, plus additional funding and advocacy from the council.

"If you look at the amount of money council has set aside for mental health, it is not even close enough to what is going to be, in my opinion, an avalanche of people trying to access it," Mr Le Liu said.

“Not putting [enough] money towards mental health … is going to cost us more in the long run, in terms of … productivity.”

The team is running on an anti-drugs platform, and would also implement increased reporting on and support for the homeless with an aim to get them off the city's streets.

Melbourne City councillor Philip Le Liu in running on the Bring Back Melbourne ticket.Credit: Luis Ascui

The ticket has swapped preferences with Wayne Tseng from Team Zorin and Gary Morgan from Morgan-Watts.

Mr Tseng and Mr Morgan say that was based on a shared belief that Melbourne should be reopened after its extended COVID-19 lockdown and a claim that their competitors are too close to the Labor state government.

Wayne Tseng from Team Zorin.

All three teams are opposing plans to open the state's second safe-injecting room near the Queen Victoria Market.

Lord mayor Sally Capp’s running mate Nicholas Reece is a Labor member, as is the endorsed Labor candidate Phil Reed and Back to Business candidate Jennifer Yang.

"It will be alarming to know that we will have wall-to-wall Labor from Spring Street down to Swanston," said Mr Tseng, a former Liberal member and candidate.

Councillor Jackie Watts, lead council candidate on the Morgan-Watts team, is a Labor member but Mr Morgan said that was irrelevant because she did not always support the party's line.

Cr Watts has been a vocal opponent of the Andrews government’s plans to open a safe-injecting room near the Queen Victoria Market.

“We're all business people. We own businesses, we run businesses, and we understand business. And we understand how it's so important to end the COVID stage four situation now and allow people to go back to work and get into the offices and open up the shops and restaurants,” Mr Morgan said.

Pollster Gary Morgan of Roy Morgan Research is running for Lord Mayor.Credit: Jesse Marlow

Mr Morgan, executive chairman of polling company Roy Morgan, also wants to extend the free tram zone and cut rates.

He has proposed repurposing vacant buildings to house public housing residents and wants to find more solutions to homelessness.

Meanwhile, Team Zorin wants to invest in digital jobs like robotics and would hand residents a vote on council issues using a participatory democracy platform.

Mr Tseng also wants to cut rates for retail and hospitality venues that have been sitting vacant, to roll out more security cameras, and to increase the free tram zone.

Bring Back Melbourne’s other policies to encourage people to return to the CBD include attracting and retaining big events, offering incentives to businesses to entice their workers back to the office, and halving parking fees to help the city better compete with Chadstone Shopping Centre, which offers free parking.

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