Big Rob. He’s controversial and polarising. He calls himself a free spirit and likes to bend the rules.

You might know him from the days of Big Rob’s kebab shop on Keen Street, or know him as a social media agitator with a bee in his bonnet about Lismore City Council. He’s got numerous law degrees and intends to run for local council (again) in this year’s election. 

So, what is he really about? Why does he block so many people from his social media groups? Who is the man under the hair that people love to hate?

Big Rob (yes – that is his legal name) had a chat with The Lismore App and revealed a bit more about himself.

You can call him ‘Big Rob’, ‘Big’ or ‘Mr Rob’. He changed his name in 2016 because, when he ran for Lismore Council that year, he was told he couldn’t put his nickname on the ballot paper. 

“I had a business called Big Rob’s and everyone knew me as that,” he said. “Few people knew my original name and they would have looked at the ballot paper and thought ‘who’s that?’

“I spent $700 on that campaign and wanted to test the waters. Everyone was scared of me and stole my campaign posters and I still finished up 13 out of 50 candidates with 666 votes - the devils’ number. I joke around I’m the devil, antichrist, and anti-left. 

“I’m running under the line this year, not on a ticket, but I will run again in 2024 and spend some money and get on council. 

“I’m not running on a ticket because I’m more powerful not being on council, where I would be restricted by the rules of council and have to comply with the code of conduct and legislation. 

“Council is feeling it right now - I’m hammering the general manger and other councillors because of what they are doing with the rates. I started lobbying because I was bombarded with requests to help with this Special Rates Variation. 

“Everyone here pays rates indirectly even if they don’t own a property. You pay it in the coffee shop because the rates are priced into the cost of your coffee.

“I’ve finished two law degrees, I’m about to finish my third and I’m going to do a fourth. I understand local government well. Council has made some bad decisions. We need to get back the basics - roads, rates and rubbish, then you can spend money on art galleries and sports. 

“Council spent too much building GSAC and now it runs at a loss of over a million dollars a year. 

“People misunderstand me and think I’m against art, but we need to think about being able to afford the ongoing costs. I had my own art gallery for a while – Crux gallery on Woodlark Street where I wanted to focus on Indigenous art.”

Beginnings

Big Rob was born and grew up in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. He has Lebanese and French heritage and he’s proud of it. 

“I hate racism and discrimination and my family were very welcoming – everyone could sit with us at the dinner table, it didn’t matter what colour your skin was.

“I was good at school, but I didn’t like the academic structure – I think I’ve got something undiagnosed. I don’t like being told what to do, micromanaged.

“It broke my parents’ heart when I didn’t go to uni and get a law degree straight away.

“When my mother was dying of cancer, I promised her I would go back and finish my law degree.”

Big Rob’s interest in going back to uni was sparked when in 2016, when he was arrested for a “beat up in the sushi place in Lismore Central” which he said was caused by one his “stalkers” who wanted to harass him.

“The police came looking for me saying someone said they were intimidated by me, and I live streamed the arrest, and I got arrested,” he said.

“I was in the cells and I was so angry that it motivated me to enrol in SCU the next day to get my law degree.”

His ongoing reporting and sharing of crime videos and police arrests got him in more trouble with the police and the law over time. He also had Apprehended Violence Order breaches out against him, which caused ongoing police problems for him.

Lismore and business

Big Rob had numerous businesses in Sydney before he came to Lismore in 2008. 

First, he worked in security and owned properties, before he opened Big Rob’s kebab shop on Keen Street in 2009 – which he lost it in the 2017 flood. 

The late nights running the kebab shop meant he saw a lot of violence and he was arrested “in the fourth week of operation” when he went to police to report a pepper spray incident in his shop. 

“I was arrested and charged with multiple offences,” he said. “They were trying to shut me up because the coppers had the shits with me for my media.”

After 12 years of being here, he said he has lots of “stalkers” who want to undermine him, but that he loves Lismore and is staying put because he’s “changing the status quo”.

“In 2017, I was studying law and when I lost the shop in the flood I didn't have enough money and I couldn't get any grant money to reopen it again - and thought I’d focus on law,” he said.

Now, in 2020, he has a Bachelor’s degree in law, as well as a Master of Legal Practice, he's almost finished a Master of Laws (Business Law) and he’s about to do a Graduate Certificate in Emerging Technologies and Law.

“I want to build an app to bring down the price for accessing justice and provide a service to people who can’t afford legal representation,” he said.

“If people need help, they can call me 24 hours a day. I’d also like go into the outback and give free advice to Aboriginal people who need representation on the travelling court circuit. 

“I’m more than the kebab guy – I’ve always had a desire to help people – I was a member of the SES member and a St John’s Ambulance member and I used to do security work.

“I’ve seen some pretty horrible things – I’ve caught criminals breaking into places and pulled a dead kid out of a car and tried to resus him.

“I’ve always tried to help, not hurt, but I’ll always defend myself and a lot of people in this town think that’s me being an arsehole, but they only see the defence - they don’t see what I’m defending against - and I don’t explain myself too."

Boarding houses

Despite his desire to provide legal services for people, he said he can’t pass the legal bar because he has so many people who will do anything they can to cause problems for him.

Now, to make money, he manages 58 boarding style rooms for people “in the lowest socio-economic groups”, including Montrose House and Dixon House. 

“I do that job because I can’t get a job anywhere else in Lismore,” he said.

“It’s the hardest job in the world and I’m always questioned about why I kick people out.

“I kicked three people out last week. People complain, but they don’t know that it’s because someone pulled a knife on me, or kicked the door off the hinges.

“If I have one bad apple in 33 on ice, they share their bad habits with the others.”

Radio and media

Perhaps a bit like the John Laws of Lismore, Big Rob loves a bit of controversy – and people want to hear it. He likes to stay up late and catches what’s going on.

“Everyone thinks I’m nosy, but I get most of my information because someone sends it to me,” he said. 

“No one can beat me because I write it when it happens.”

He used to do a ‘Big Rob’s Rant’ radio show on River FM until he was “kicked off by the lefties”. He said his controversial sharing of information made people discriminate against him.

He was then asked to do a crime show on Richmond Valley radio, which developed a massive audience and became the number one show, until again, he was kicked off when people complained about him for his news coverage. 

So why did people want to listen to what he had to say?

“Because my shit is interesting and it’s real,” he said. “You know I’m going to tell the truth and I don’t care. If there’s a brawl, I’ll tell you it’s a brawl, even if others won’t tell you that because the police will get angry. 

“The ones that hate me monitor closely everything I do to stuff me up - and the police and council watch me. People might say I’m unreasonable if they don’t like me, but if you listen to what I’m saying and doing, I’m not unreasonable. And when I get things fixed, people will say ‘Big Rob was right’.

“When the lock out laws in clubs were brought in, I said SCU would lose students and we would lose clubs because people would go elsewhere on a Saturday night – now we have one club in Lismore. The clubs were harassed by the licencing sergeant, but they never targetted Mary Gilhooley’s.”

Politics and social media

As a child, he saw his dad fight for the rights of workers as a union delegate. So, later, he joined the Labor party, but said he left when he realised the “unions controlled them”.

“The organisers at the top got all the money, while the workers didn’t get it,” he said.

He said he wasn’t inspired to be actively political until he came to Lismore and that it was the “lack of professionalism” he found here that activated him.

“I would go to council meetings as a business person and a home owner and I sat at the media table and wearing my different hats,” he said. “They took away the media table because I sat at it.

“I had four senior business people approach me and ask me to get the left media to the right a bit. 

“I believe social media is the quickest way to get information out there – a good video will go viral quickly.”

Facebook

Big Rob set up a number of Facebook group sites. Last week, his site North Coast Crime had 40,000 likes, 1,7 million video views and an engagement of 1.4 million. 

“And no sponsors have approached me to take advantage of the massive traffic because people don’t want to be associated with me because this town is so full of hatred and fear,” he said. “If I made money from it, I would give that money to cancer research.

“Police don’t want me knowing what the news is because I used to live stream things and The Northern Star didn’t like it because I did it first. I upset people and I’ve had no positive news coverage about me since. 

“People who hate me come up and insult me on the street and I brush them off. If you ask them why, they’ll say something like ‘he blocked me Facebook’.

“I block people on Facebook now because it’s fun. I’ve been told to make mugs saying ‘I’ve been banned on Facebook by Big Rob’ with a VIP edition for those who have been unblocked.

“Initially I started blocking people because of rudeness.”

Once, just for fun, because he was bored, he blocked everyone whose name began with the letter A. 

His blocked list is extremely long. 

I don’t hate Lismore

“I don’t hate Lismore, the people, the police or the council,” he said. “I hate seeing poorly used resources," he said.

“I see the worst of the worst every day in my work. But I also see how beautiful this area is. 

“I love Lismore and the river and I would love to activate the rivers and get people to the waterfalls.

“But the way they do it is weird, they put their arse to the river, the river tracks are closed off in places and you can’t go for a walk at night without fear of violence.

“I see myself as an agitator and I fight for the worker but I also believe businesses should be allowed to operate so they can be successful and hire workers.

“If you want to build something, but you have to knock down a tree, work around it and adjust. Maybe move the tree and plant ten more over there, there needs to be a balance.

“I’m not left, I’m not right, I just think what’s right is right and workers are important and getting an area successful, safe, clean and well managed is what I want to see.

“We’ve got enough money coming in – we just need to use it better.”