No one to be seen at Bunbury Shell after Wiggles put an end to Hot Potato torture

There was no music or crowd at the Graham Bricknell Music Shell in Bunbury after the City of Bunbury made the decision to stop playing the Wiggles’ Hot Potato on repeat to ward off antisocial behaviour.

Despite the song playing until about 3pm on Thursday, come evening, only the sounds of the CBD could be heard at the iconic Bunbury performing stage with speakers silent and barely a sole sleeping the night there.

The news of the song being played initially caught the attention of the Wiggles’ on Thursday who then told the City to stop playing their music.

The order to halt the music being played seemingly had a greater impact at stopping the Shell being overrun with rough sleepers than the iconic children’s songs employed to turf them out had.

In a statement, the beloved children’s music group told the West Australian they did not want to see their music being used in such a way.

“The Wiggles’ music is created to bring joy and happiness to children and families around the world, and we are deeply disappointed to hear that it is being used in any other way,” they said.

Bunbury Mayor Jaysen Miguel said the tactic was commonplace around the world and it had been deployed before.

“The City of Bunbury has been running music on and off there for the past six months, as happens across Australia and across the world where you can have music in certain areas to deter antisocial behaviours,” Mr Miguel said.

“But... there has been a known problem where people are getting in and turning the music up to full bore.”

Later that day Mr Miguel said he hadn’t seen the request sent to the City by the Wiggles directly but music would stop being playing at the venue.

“I haven’t seen anything from the Wiggles asking us to stop playing the music apart from on (The West’s) website.”

“The music will be going off ... It would be off now if I had it my way.”

Bunbury MLA Don Punch said he thought the tactic was inappropriate.

“I am very disappointed that the music is being played and very disappointed that the issue hasn’t come up earlier so that we can take the appropriate action to try and address it,” he said.

“But playing music 24 hours a day is not a solution to homelessness.”