His group have played a major role in the preservation, leadership and arguably wobbles at the ARC which claims to be the biggest community centre in australia on some 3.4 hectares with 42 separate tenancies etc etc. over the same 20 years plus.

It is fair to say Mamouney et al take credit for the place NOT being high rise apartments over all those decades since Whitlam turned it into an immigration hostel in the 70ies. On the other hand the ‘new’ board (read local ALP Left machine) since 2006 or so have not covered themselves in glory either with some glaring departures from orthodox governance e.g. no competitive job selection process for their $65K pa general manager position for 12 months now.

My point relating to the story above is that Sidetrack’s departure (?) will change the balance of power in the fairly closed shop of the ARC, next AGM is Nov 4th (however this writer shall have to miss it being somewhat persona non grata … for posts such as this one!).