The Lismore App has looked at the most widely read SUNDAY PROFILE (SP) in the last 12 months. The Top 2 were both from Lismore City Council. Outgoing General Manager John Walker was the second most read SP while Mayor Steve Krieg was the most read in 2022. Mayor Krieg's life story is below.

Cafe owner and family man, Steve Krieg, was voted in as the new Mayor of Lismore in the local council election last month. He shared his journey in getting to the Mayor's chair with Sara Browne.

I’ve been in the area since 1998 when I started high school teaching in Casino and I’ve always lived in or around the Lismore area since then. I was born and raised in WA and then I moved to Newcastle when I was 19 to do my teaching degree. It was a big move, I enjoyed it immensely.

We used to drive, back in the early 90s, drive across twice a year. We’d do it non-stop, myself and a friend, it was 50 hours, in an old 1966 XP Falcon. We’d tackle the Nullarbor. Early 90s there was only two airlines, Ansett and Qantas, and they were pretty expensive and we were poor uni students so, back then it was actually cheaper to drive than to fly. We got a six week break in June/July – back when uni was good fun and in person face to face – so we’d go home for the break. My good friend that I drove with was a farmer so we’d go out on shearing teams for six weeks and earn a lot of money that would fund the next three month adventure at uni.

I chose that uni for a change more than anything. Western Australia is a different world to the rest of Australia and it was a chance to get out and broaden our horizons and explore different areas. It was pre mobile phones and all that so if you wanted to talk to Mum and Dad it was from a payphone. My older brother studied in Sydney before me. He was a bit of a trailblazer for me when he moved over.

I’ve got two brothers, both older, a primary school teacher and a nurse. Dad was a high school teacher. He led and still is leading a very interesting life. He was a diesel mechanic originally for Wigmores it was called back then, they serviced the mining industry. He got a job out of Perth in Geelong so my eldest brother was Victorian born. The family has always moved around a bit. My Mum was the school secretary in the schools my Dad worked at. She never really studied.

Steve aged 5, first day of school, with two older brothers and the family boat, Western Australia

I’ve always enjoyed travelling and I’ve seen a lot of Australia. I’ve taught in three different states. My first teaching post was 12 months in Brisbane, some fascinating places, Acacia Ridge, Nambour, Bribie Island, as a contract casual teacher and then got a full-time job back in WA at an agricultural school. I grew up with ag schools, it’s a big system in WA. I got a full-time job teaching delinquent boys.

The boys were the worst kids in the state, they were sent to us from all over the state because their schools couldn’t handle them. It was a boarding school so it was a live-in situation which meant part of my job as a teacher was to look after the kids after hours as well. You were part time teacher, part time carer. The kids were a challenge but that was the best thing about it as well. No two days were the same. It was seven days a week, 24 hours a day because they’d run away at 2 o’clock in the morning and you’d be up trying to chase them and find them.

I was newly married at the time. I met a girl at university, we got married and went to Brisbane to work. She was a primary school teacher. Then I got the job in WA and we thought, while we’re young we might as well seek out a bit of adventure and we went there and had my first and only boy Sam out of five. She was from the east and she wanted to move back to be closer to her parents so that job lasted two years. A mate that I was at uni with in Newcastle was teaching in Casino and he rang me when we were thinking about moving back. He said he had a job for me in Casino and I’ve been in the area ever since.

I had been to Lismore for that mate’s wedding about three years beforehand. That was the first time I’d been here. Being relatively young and free of responsibilities, I thought why not move around. My teaching career was 13 years altogether – one year in Brisbane, two years in WA and then 10 years in Casino. I sort of hit the age, 36 or 37, my life had changed drastically. My first marriage had fallen apart, two kids, I was very tempted to move back home to WA but I couldn’t leave my children. That’s when I decided I stay.

People call it a mid-life crisis but I don’t know. I got to the age of 37 and I thought, I’ve got two choices – I can explore something that I really want to do or I can stay being a school teacher. To be honest, I wasn’t really happy as a school teacher. I enjoyed the kids and teaching the kids immensely but early to mid 2000s was when a lot of things changed for school teachers. I thought I could stay in a job I’m not too happy about and become a really cranky old teacher – like a few I had – or I could get out and explore new opportunities.

My brother-in-law was a chef and he wanted to explore the avenue of having his own kitchen and his own menus and the opportunity came up to buy La Baracca in 2007 so we took it. Been here ever since. On the job training for me.

In a lot of ways, I can back my knowledge and skills. I don’t come across as overly intelligent. That’s a self-imposed thing but I thought if I try hard enough, I’ll learn the job and we’ll get on with it. I came in here never having owned a business or been involved in business, never been a boss before really. So, it was sink or swim. And that’s sort of how I like it. That’s how I’ve run my life, pretty much, for the last 50 years.

Steve (second from right), 1989, Denmark, Western Australia

The hardest thing is to let it go, the first five or six years especially. The good thing was, we went into it with a partnership agreement. If one of us was here, the other one could relax a bit. We were able to have a few breaks. Having a partnership, especially with family, also presents challenges. My brother-in-law left the business eight years in and now it’s Julianne my wife, and I, that have been here going on 14 years in March this year.

I found love again in the staffroom of a school, most unexpected, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me. She was a music teacher. She is the most talented human I know. She’s an amazing lady, has travelled the world with her music. She is a born and bred Casino girl. She went to Brisbane to do her teaching degree and ended up back in Casino at the same school that I was. It took me a little while to convince her. I got there in the end.

It was an interesting time in our lives. She’s an exceptional teacher. She’s really good at anything she does. She’s actually gone back to some teaching with the safer driver course so she keeps a little bit of teaching going with 16 to 17 year old kids getting their license. She actually worked her way through uni doing hospitality jobs in Brisbane so she was switched on when it came to all the front of house stuff.

We’ve got three daughters together. Four daughters, one son in total. When we were younger, we worked out a kind of shared care roster. Sam is 24 now, he’s just starting his first teaching job, he’s a high school teacher up on the Sunshine Coast. Jess is 23 and she’s a nurse at the Base Hospital. The other three are 14, 12 and 9. We’ve got a lot to do with the older kids so it’s good.

I’ve not really had aspirations for leadership. It’s accidental really. I don’t begrudge anyone that puts their hand up to be in the public eye. I’m not pointing fingers or blaming anyone, it’s demographics, it’s situational, but 14 years ago on a Friday afternoon there’d be people wandering around the CBD. At night time you could have no bookings in your restaurant and you’d still serve 60 people. People wanted to be out and about. With universities going online, a big source of our workers has dried up. There doesn’t seem to be people wanting to come into the CBD on weekends. This is well before the pandemic hit. We’ve been here 14 years and you notice trends over that time. The trend that I sensed was that Lismore was slowly decaying.

I can’t put my finger on it. There’s a lot of factors. A lot more people are working from home and doing university courses at home. I think the statistics are something like SCU had 7500 students on campus 10 years ago and it’s down to 2500. We’d have international students, we’d have kids coming from all over the regions to study here in Lismore. They’re just not coming here anymore because they can do everything online. I think that’s a big factor. As a humble little coffee shop owner, I feel the general decline of the care and the maintenance of the CBD, the road decline, other things that you notice.

I’ve met some amazing people through doing what I do here at the cafe and there was a group of us just started talking about how we could redress this and revitalize Lismore. They were other business owners and community leaders and different people around. It was discussed that we can’t criticize unless we’re prepared to put our hand up ourselves. I’m a big believer in that. Social media is the great example that people are very quick to criticise but they don’t want to do anything.

We got to the stage where we thought – we either put up or shut up. That’s when we decided to formulate our ticket to stand for council. With my background in teaching and running the businesses…I guess I’m a little bit more of a high-profile person but not a controversial person so it was decided that I would stand for Mayor. I decided that I couldn’t be one of those people that sit on the sidelines and not do anything. At least I can get in and say that I had a go. And that’s how I ended up here.

The beauty of Lismore is that we’re such a diverse community and there’s something for everyone. I don’t necessarily get across every demographic and every layer of Lismore but the people I was talking to – the grandparents, the farmers, the Mum and Dad nine to five day workers – everyone that I was talking said we just need a change. That’s what we based our election on, that we’re the change.

We’re open for 60 odd hours a week, and in the early years I was here for 60 odd hours a week. That’s not a sustainable model for anyone. Three of four years ago, we started employing people full-time. We put things in place. Our chefs have always been full-time permanent staff but it was pretty rare to employ front-of-house people full-time. They were always casual. So, we made the decision to start employing full-time front-of-house people.

In every other country, hospitality is a career. In Australia, for some reason, it hasn’t really become a career, it’s a stop-gap. We think that there is a career in hospitality. We’re also training them. We’ve employed three people now as managers which frees us up a lot. I’m still here 30 hours a week and my wife should be walking in the door now to do the night shift so we’re still in the business but the business doesn’t run us, so to speak.

Steve (second from left) with Casino mates

I have an office up at the council chambers in Goonellabah. The whole month of January is pretty much taken up with training, for myself and all the new councillors, there’s seven out of 11. A lawyer from Woolgoolga who is a local government specialist came up and did two nights with us about all the codes of practice for meetings and conduct. There’s documents that are 120 pages long of how you have to behave. I think it’s something that they’re really trying to clean up so that even though people disagree, there’s no abuse or making it personal. It’s all about behaving in a manner that’s acceptable to the public. That’s just one book. There’s six of them.

We had our first meeting last Tuesday night. Just the procedure and the protocol – even though you can watch a hundred meetings – until you’re sitting in the hot seat, it’s a different world. I’d watched a lot and I’m still watching them. I get on and search different council areas. I watched the Tamworth meeting the other night, just to see how different mayors run their meetings and they operate, to get ideas. I’d only been to our meetings in Lismore once or twice before. Obviously when we decided to do this, which was back in May, I’d watched every meeting that I could. All the chambers were shut to the public so they were all live stream.

My business and my staff, always for me, take precedence. This is my family, this is my livelihood, this is what I’m good at and what I’m known for. The Mayor’s role is something that is my primary job at the moment, while I’m learning it and I’m trying to set up structures so that I’m up in the council office three afternoons a week. So, anyone from the community can ring up the council and make an appointment and come and meet with me and I’ll welcome that, especially people that didn’t vote for me. They’re the ones that I want to speak to. I think they’re the ones that aren’t convinced that I’m the right person for the job. Obviously, there were a lot of people that aren’t convinced. But now that I’m in that role, I’m totally bipartisan and open to talking to anyone and everyone.

The thing that is the biggest shock for me is the organisational structure of council. People often think well, you’re the Mayor, you can fix the pothole. It doesn’t work like that. Things like that are going to take a bit of adjustment and certainly a lot of education on my part, which I’m trying my best to get around as quickly as I can. I’m not intimidated. That’s one thing that I don’t get very easily. My personality is pretty low key and calm sort, when things heat up is when I perform my best. I don’t get threatened easily and I’m a pretty placid guy and I think there is always a solution to any problem. I understand that there’s a lot of people that don’t support what we did during the election and don’t think I should be Mayor and I understand their view points. At the end of the day, it was a pretty overwhelming vote count so I think sometimes you’ve just got to let things play out and see how go.

Myself and the team of people that ran with me that made it onto council are going to work our best for the whole of Lismore. We’re taking a very broad approach to how we’re going to operate council. We’re not isolated or focused on one particular group or area. We want to see industry thrive, we want to see the farmers thriving, we want to see the CBD thriving. We want to see Goonellabah prosper. We want to see land developed and released so that people can afford to buy houses in town. But we also have a very strong environmental background as well so we’re not going to go and destroy rainforests or vandalise the environment. We’re all very level, balanced people who want to see this regional city – which we are and there’s only a few of us in NSW – we want to see it return to the glory that it should have.

My kids are pretty excited about it all at the moment. They’ll probably get a rotten apple thrown at them at school, that’ll dampen it! No, they love it. They think it's really good. I wouldn’t have done it without the support of the family and we agonized about it for a couple of weeks before we decided. I couldn’t think of doing it without family support. My father and mother over in WA watched the whole meeting on Tuesday night via live stream and they thought it was the best thing ever. The support is the number one thing for me.

with wife Julianne at Our Kids Ball

A lot of the things I really like doing are intertwined with my job as Mayor. I’m a bit of a social being, I like meeting people. My calendar is full in January. I’m going to Nimbin next Friday to meet with the local business leaders. I’m going to two church ministers ordinations – one at the Presbyterian and one at the Centre Church. I think there’s another Catholic priest getting ordained in the next couple of weeks as well. Must be the season for it.

I was raised in a very strict religious household which I have absolutely no regrets about. It gave me a very strong social grounding. I call myself a non denominational Christian now because I believe in Christianity but I think religions tend to taint views to suit themselves. However, my wife and my kids are Catholic. So, if I had to choose, I’d probably say I’m Catholic even though I was raised Protestant.

I love my sport which again fits in perfectly with my role as Mayor. I got to go the under 12s cricket carnival last week and present some trophies. We sponsor a number of sporting teams through the café. With Oakes Oval and Crozier getting redeveloped we’re hopefully going to get some major events into Lismore.

I’m an AFL boy, coming from Western Australia, so I support a WA team but I love all sport. If I’ve got a spare afternoon – it doesn’t matter whether it’s cricket, tennis, hockey, water polo - I’ll watch the lot. I turned 50 in September and my wife bought me a motorbike so if I’m really frazzled, I’ll put my helmet on and go for a cruise up the highway and clear my head. That’s probably my hobby if I had to pick one. And I go to the gym believe it or not. That’s another thing that I try to fit in every day if I can, an hour in the gym.

Krieg family 

We’ve entered a team for the Samson Fitness Challenge - myself, my wife and two of our friends, one of our staff and her husband. We’re called the Knightmayors. We’re terrible at it but it’s good fun and part of the community. I really want to see Lismore become that community again, supporting community events and coming to the CBD on a Friday afternoon to enjoy the local pubs and atmosphere.

Our mindset has to change around our river. It’s always been a thing of fear and I believe we need to embrace the river. I know that there’s a lot of work around cleaning up the waterways. I believe that if we, as a city, embrace our river and make it a feature of who we are and where we’re from, I think that’s a step in the right direction to where we want to head. I personally would love to see a river festival – fireworks, concerts, boats on the water, rubber duck races for charity. It would be great to embrace the river for the asset that it is.