Extract from ABC News
In 1982, someone stole a painting of former Australian prime minister John Curtin from the wall of the hotel in Carlton that bears his name.
"It's bloody stupid," the licensee of the pub, Frank Camilleri, said at the time.
"The painting is no good to anyone else, but it means a lot to the pub."
Nearly 40 years later, there's another loss looming.
The current managers of the hotel revealed yesterday that the building was set to be sold at the end of its current lease.
After more than 160 years, it looks like it's almost time for last drinks at the John Curtin.
"It's just heartbreaking," manager Ben Russell said, adding he feared the building could end up being developed into apartments.
And what a long and winding road it's been for the hotel that began life as the Lygon Hotel in the 1860s, established itself as the labour movement's second home in the mid 20th century, and played host to live and sweaty pub rock music in the 21st century.
The sale of the historic hotel is being managed by the CBRE commercial real estate agency, which the ABC has contacted for comment.
A long history with Australia's labour movement
Bakers met in the pub in the 1870s to push for a 10-hour day, uniform wages and a promise that no worker would be made to sleep in the same place they do their work.
Deals were done between union leaders and politicians 100 years later, and scoops were slipped to journalists over pints at the front bar.
The only thing that's seeped into the floorboards more than beer over the years is history.
"This is an incredibly important locus of the labour movement in Australia and that means, of course, it's an incredibly important part of Australia's political history," La Trobe University history professor Clare Wright said.
"The deals that would've gone down, the conversations that would've been had, the alliances that were struck, the enmities that were cemented: all of this happened within these walls.
Unions mount a bid to buy the pub
Desperate meetings are being held, and numbers are being crunched in a bid to ensure the historic hotel's future.
Trades Hall secretary Luke Hilakari said unions were trying to put together a bid to buy the John Curtin Hotel themselves.
"This is a pub that's existed since the 1860s. It's right across the road from Trades Hall. It's where every union leader, every Prime Minister, has gone and had a drink," he said.
"What we'd like to do is see if there's a number of unions that would contribute some money, together, to see if we can talk to the owners [and] purchase it."
It's not the first time unions have considered buying the pub where so many of their leaders have downed pints and done deals over the years.
As far back as 1971, the ACTU — through the discount store it owned at the time, Bourke's — was seriously considering buying the hotel.
Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, then ACTU president, said the organisation was interested in any venture that would lower prices.
Presumably he was talking about beer.
The idea was raised again in 1976, with 15 unions getting together a bid of around $500,000 to buy the hotel.
Mr Hawke famously used the John Curtin as a second office, to the point where journalists tapped out their stories in their own room within the hotel.
The ABC even interviewed barmaids at the pub in the 1970s, when Hawke was a rising star at the ACTU, to get a sense of the man.
"Yes, he comes in here, just like all the other boys, buys a steak sandwich, and we take it over to him," one of them said.
"He's always been rude to me," said another.
The John Curtin was where Labor heavyweights Steve Bracks, Daniel Andrews and Bill Shorten gathered for a beer in honour of Mr Hawke after he died in 2019.
While the sale of the pub is yet to be finalised, its future — including whether or not it will continue operating as a hotel with a special place in the city's history — remains up in the air.
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