LIQUOR BARON’S CRASH LANDING- it is time Barry please and skol to Sargeant as his job disappears.

The man they called “the Power on Tap” Barry Sargeant, the Director General of Liquor Licencing has been removed from his licencing premises by the new government.

Shaken and stirred, Sargeant was shown the barroom door exit last week as the Premer, Mark McGowan’s senior bureaucrat ‘slice-and-dice’ program swung into action.

There should be no crying in your beer over Barry. It is he who granted the Shire of York its Tavern Licence that may give York ratepayers a massive fiscal hangover for years to come, unless the current Shire Council finds an equitable solution.
Or others in authority do it for them, and quickly.

Numerous pundits believe the chances of the former is about the same as the AFL Grand Final being played at Forrest Oval between the Dockers and the Eagles.

In effect, what Sargeant did was pervert the course of justice under any and all laws of fair trading because there was no WA State statute to stop him, and as he so eloquently and arrogantly put it- ‘because I can’ even if it was an unconscionable act.

While the extremely grubby Shire of York, at that time, rubbed its hands together in pseudo-economic ecstasy as it drew up plans for financial failure for its Forrest Bare& Grilled and its sad, silent and empty convention centre.

No-one likes to hear of any persons’ career being pole-axed, but with Sargeant there is plenty of reasons for acrimony.

One of Barry’s better efforts was to accept a fully paid, luxury travel package to Macau from James Packer’s Crown Casino, Perth, because Packer was losing out in the high-roller Asian gambler stakes. Sargeant should have been sacked on the spot.

Instead Sargeant returned a multi-billionaires’ hero with Crown Perth, Australia’s most monopolistic gambling den’s, profits soaring by $76 million.

He then reduced the number of annoying Department of Liquor Licencing Inspectors patrolling Packer’s empire to the bare minimum.

At the same time his boss, Terry Waldron, in in his last days in office as Minister for Racing, Gaming and Liquor, gave Packer a 3 % tax concession.

Sargeant did York no favours and neither has the still incumbent, Director General of the Department of Local Government. (The words and Communities has been axed from the Ministers’ title.)

Jennifer Matthews, has had an uncomplimentary novel of complaints written about her exploits over the past nine years- that those now in power know about.

Maybe she should put her hair in a bun, just in case the axeman cometh.

David Taylor.