The John Curtin Hotel on Lygon St - one of Melbourne's oldest pubs and best live music venues, with a rich cultural heritage associated with the labour movement - has announced that its landlord is selling the premises for commercial development. The likely end result of this would mean it is turned into apartments.

This would be a devastating blow both to Melbourne's music scene, which has suffered greatly from the lack of support during the Covid-19 pandemic, and to Melbourne's architectural heritage, which has not been protected by the grossly inadequate heritage listing system.

In recent years numerous pubs, clubs and music venues have been lost to the greed of developers. Just last year, the cowboy developers who illegally demolished the Corkman Pub only three blocks away lost their appeal against jail time for their destruction of the iconic 1858 venue. Whether technically lawful or not, we cannot allow such a precious space as The Curtin be taken away from the community.

We demand the Victorian state government, City of Melbourne and Victorian Trades Hall Council to do everything in their power to ensure The Curtin stays open as a public bar and music venue. If necessary, it should be compulsorily acquired using public funds and turned into a community-owned space.

We call upon community groups, musicians, unions and everyone who cares about Melbourne's cultural life to campaign together to save The Curtin, whatever it takes.