Gaura Gopal Debates City Council Official on Adelaide Chanting Ban

Council that's keeping the Hare Krishnas off the streets and what could be our biggest bark painting goes on display. This is Today on 9. Good you could be with us on today, Monday morning. The Adelaide City Council has gone into a row with the Hare Krishnas, the saffron robed chanters seen on the streets of most cities around the world.

And what's put Adelaide's city fathers offside with the Hare Krishnas is a ban on their chanting. The council says it doesn't want city shoppers harassed. Apparently they're their words, not ours. with us this morning is Gary Anderson, also known as Gaurav Gopal, who's publicity manager for the Krishnas, and Michael Llewellyn-Smith, who's the city manager for the Adelaide Council. Good morning to you both.

Good morning. Hello, listeners. Gary, if I can start with you, what precisely do the Hare Krishnas wish to do in Adelaide? Well, we're travelling around the country gathering signatures for the release of our people in the Soviet Union who have been wrongly imprisoned, and also we feel that they should be chanting on the streets of Moscow and Leningrad, ironically of which they are now and when we came to adelaide i put an application into the mall administration and later to the council so we could chant on the streets here like we do everywhere we go with our traveling temple and as a result of that application i found we were knocked back and told that due to previous activities of the hari krishna movement here in adelaide there's no way we can allow you people to go on the streets now what are those previous activities well in in the early 70s due to some of our um over enthusiasm you might say um you know some members of the public made complaints but uh you know that was in our pioneering stages and we do apologize for those activities and councils all over the country have understood that in melbourne in sydney in brisbane the hari krishna people are chanting on the streets and and they respect the fact that we have matured over the years, and our presentation has been in a very respected way to the public.

Okay, so to obtain signatures for the release of those Hare Krishnas in the Soviet Union, you are wanting to chant. Is that all you want to do? Yes, we want to chant because the Hare Krishna people are known all over the world for their chanting. But that's all you want to do in Adelaide?

You just want to chant? Oh, we are engaged in a campaign to gather signatures. As a matter of fact, in the last two weeks, we've gathered 4,500 signatures as part of our campaign. And surely this must speak for the people of Adelaide.

It must show the Council that the people of Adelaide don't mind the Hare Krishna people chanting in Russia. What does speak of Adelaide? Well, let's ask Michael Llewellyn-Smith. Michael, what is the problem about chanting in Adelaide?

I think you have to remember there's quite a long background to dealing with the Hare Krishna in Adelaide. And we need to distinguish between the two issues. there's certainly no objection to obtaining the signatures on the street indeed we have given approval for the bus to be located quite close to Rundle Mall where that can be done but during the 70s and certainly in the early 80s previous councils have had a lot of complaints from the shopkeepers in Rundle Mall and I think you have to remember that Rundle Mall is the principal shopping area in the city of Adelaide and indeed the metropolitan region now in suburban shopping centers you'd have to get permission from the shopping center management to entertain sing chant whatever and in the city of adelaide's case it's a requirement that such permission is actually granted by the council itself the full council it's not something which is delegated to the administration as far ago as 1984 the hari krishna actually took us on in the courts and in fact it went all the way up to the high court so there's a long-standing feud there's animosity between the two there certainly was a lot of difficulties in the past and indeed the last application that we had was in 1984 in a written sense to the council that was processed through the council and because of the high court case which was found in the council's favor a lot of fines were imposed on the hari krishna at that time because they were not prepared to comply with the conditions which the council had sought to impose so the issue as it stands now is that the council decision not to allow the hari krishnas on the streets of adelaide is one based on animosity based on bad background based on ill feeling well let me just distinguish between what's the current situation we received a verbal request last thursday for them to do a chant this current week and i said earlier that permission can only be given by the full council itself so it does require so afraid a bit of lead time for any requests to be processed through the So if the Hare Krishnas put their request in writing and the Council then looked at it, is it possible that they could get permission?

That would certainly be possible. The previous decision was in 1985, the last time that it was raised officially with us. We've had no formal communications from them to seek that request since 1985 when Lord Mayor Jarvis actually met with the people And there was a letter sent back suggesting if they wish to pursue it formally, then we'd be happy to do so. Elizabeth, that's not exactly correct.

We have applied on many occasions, and the council have not replied to our application to chant on the streets. Have you made written applications? Yes, we have. And in this case?

In this case, I went to the council, and I was told by the mall management that it's pointless to actually write a letter because within the bylaws of the council, now the harry krishna movement they don't say the word banned they say the activity we want to do is banned it's they're very clever with their word jugglery but the point is uh we want to uh point out that all over the world the harry krishna movement are chanting on the streets now it's about time this becomes resolved it's about time they understand that we only want to chant half an hour twice a week now what is the what is the problem in doing that well it seems that there is a big problem and unfortunately i'm out of time to continue it but uh we'll keep a tap on what's going on and uh see what does occur thanks for your time both of you this morning just one point before i go we are going to gather signatures today um in fact 10 of these books are going all over adelaide uh to also seek support for us chanting on the streets in adelaide okay but at this stage it will be a very silent uh protest huh well we're we're very silent people in the sense that we'd like to uh present our peaceful solution okay thank you very much thank you the Hare Krishnas versus the Adelaide City Council and regardless of the rights and wrongs of that situation there was a certain inevitability about it wasn't it, that that sort of argument was going to come up it did seem that way later this week in Melbourne, another Australian capital, one of Australia's largest