Aug 14, 2018
- People & Culture
My Melbourne: a tale of two cities
50 years of change through Citywide workers’ eyes
When Maltese migrant George Spiteri jumped off the boat, Melbourne mid-1960s was little more than a big local town with little to boast in the way of world status credentials.
Things hadn’t changed much when Rosario ‘Ronnie’ Dalli arrived a few years later behind his fellow Maltese émigré, finding only a nine-to-five Monday to Friday working town with office buildings barely rising above 15 storeys.
Some 26 lord mayors and 10 Victorian premiers later, George and Ronnie between them have chalked up almost a century of service exclusively to the City of Melbourne.
It’s a period of time in which Melbourne has literally grown and matured to claim the crown of world’s most liveable city seven times, with George and Ronnie bearing witness from the coalface to the city’s astonishing change.
Both men – who currently work on Citywide’s civil infrastructure works team – were originally employed by the then Melbourne City Council (MCC) before it established Citywide as a wholly-owned commercial subsidiary in 1995 with George and Ronnie transferring across.
Today, they are still based out of the same depot in North Melbourne as when they started with the MCC’s City Engineer’s Department.
It’s fair to say by their own bare hands, both George and Ronnie have devoted themselves to maintaining what has become the world’s most liveable city.
Photos available. For media enquiries, contact:
Simon Mossman, Group Corporate Communications – Citywide
0427 307 216, simon.mossman@citywide.com.au
