Breaking up the band

If you’re old enough to remember how you felt when The Beatles went their separate ways, you will relate to this story of Paul O’Halloran leaving Docklands.

Paul was one of NewQuay’s “Fab Four” as the founding owners corporation chair of the Boyd, Palladio and Sant Elia apartment blocks.

His OC was the biggest and for the last nine years, Paul has been synonymous with NewQuay.  In fact, he probably was “Mr NewQuay”, representing the precinct on police and liquor licensing advisory boards and having a say in just about everything.

But the time has come, and Paul and Lea O’Halloran have sold up and moved to Mt Eliza.

Paul recalls the camaraderie of the early days in NewQuay fondly.  There was nothing there and the pioneering couples thrived on the isolation and challenges that it brought.

Together, they were building a new community and they would gather every Friday night for drinks and fellowship.  These were their salad days – the time when the “band” made their best music.

“When we came down here I thought we would never leave,” he said.

Paul said there were seven couples who were particularly bonded by their shared experience but all but one of these had now left Docklands.

Sometimes people just moved on and sometime friendships were ruined by highly charged local issues such as serviced apartments.

And while no longer the owners corporation chairman, Paul is very vocal about the rights of owners of serviced apartments to be represented and have their voices heard.

“With serviced apartments now making up 25 to 30 per cent of all owners, it stands to reason that they should be represented on owners corporations,” he said.

He said in his experience, owner occupiers were to blame for more disruptive behaviour than visitors staying in serviced apartments.

“There has been surprisingly few incidents involving serviced apartments,” he said.

He said he would miss Docklands as it had been a large part of this life.  

“But it’s just time to try a new chapter in our lives,” he said.  

“We have three grand-daughters and now we have a back yard for them to run around in.”