Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Depictions Media Radio.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Policy and Writes.
Speaker 3: Show Policy and Human Joy.
Speaker 2: This is policy and Rights. I'm Kelly Rayburn here in
Speaker 2: the metro Adelaide of South Australia and in Shadow Park
Speaker 2: where it's thirty minutes south of Adelaide on the Motor Expressway.
Speaker 2: Today I'm going to be talking about the issues on
Speaker 2: the parklands in South Australia and especially the parklands rate
Speaker 2: in the heart of Adelaide. Adelaide deals with a lot
Speaker 2: of parklands surrounding the area near the city district in
Speaker 2: South Australia. Adelaide Parklands Association is a community based nonprofit
Speaker 2: organization founded in nineteen eighty seven to protect, restore and
Speaker 2: to promote exploration of the Adelaide Parklands, which are National
Speaker 2: Heritage Heritage listed urban park system. Its activators include guided walks,
Speaker 2: park art prizes and the use of social media to
Speaker 2: share photos and advocacy to protect the four of the
Speaker 2: parks from threats. The Adelaide Parklands Association gives out open
Speaker 2: publics and they give out twice monthly newsletter to people
Speaker 2: who are interested in green space public but the situation
Speaker 2: that is happening to the parklands in Adelaide is changing
Speaker 2: all of that. The City of Adelaide and north of
Speaker 2: Adelaide are taking part of the parkway and giving some
Speaker 2: space to many of the sports fans who do, I
Speaker 2: should say, dealing with golf courses. All that parkland is
Speaker 2: part of the parkland, including a little bit of the
Speaker 2: golf course. However, what South Australians are saying and what
Speaker 2: the South Australian government is saying, they're going to take
Speaker 2: all of that golf lands and really put it in
Speaker 2: use of a professional golf tournament over there anywhere in
Speaker 2: that area where the Torrents River is north of Adelaide
Speaker 2: and west of the Adelaide Oval where the AFL does
Speaker 2: their footing with the Adelaide Crows and the Port Adelaide
Speaker 2: Power on right beside where there's the parklands is beside
Speaker 2: where the stadium is. That area is going to be
Speaker 2: cut off two professional golfers and all of it's uh,
Speaker 2: all of its parklands. The premier Peter Maling's Malling alcass
Speaker 2: I'm going to pronounce it m A l I n
Speaker 2: a U K s k A S has a vision
Speaker 2: that your parklands must be profit centers and that therefore
Speaker 2: open green in public land as well as trees. Bivoua's
Speaker 2: bid buy or bionosity must be servant or sacrifice to monkey,
Speaker 2: not monkey to money making impersonative such as in brackets,
Speaker 2: but not only l ivy golf. Many people are frustrated,
Speaker 2: especially in the city of Adelaide, and especially my mother
Speaker 2: who is participated in all of this, is furious, is
Speaker 2: fumed about this situation of where all these cut trees,
Speaker 2: trees are gonna be cut and design a bigger golf
Speaker 2: course for professional golfers. If you want more information about
Speaker 2: the situation here on the parklands, you can go to
Speaker 2: the website Adelaide Parklands adlaid dash Parklands, dot asn dot
Speaker 2: AU forward slash golf. I'm going to play use some
Speaker 2: of the clips that is everywhere you see it in
Speaker 2: your valleys and you probably might have seen my picture
Speaker 2: with myself with the postage with my mother along with it.
Speaker 2: How frustrated on this Adelaide Park Parklands Association is demanding,
Speaker 2: especially in the local governments and the state government of
Speaker 2: South Australia to stop this petition on adding in luxurious
Speaker 2: high rises and of course, the golf course, the PHA
Speaker 2: golf course that is happening here in South Australia. So
Speaker 2: I'm going to give you lots of clips on it
Speaker 2: now wherever I can to give you some examples of
Speaker 2: the takeover to the parklands. Sadly, however, that I was
Speaker 2: trying to do the clip for Facebook on the last
Speaker 2: night's meeting, the sound quality isn't very well quality. Let's
Speaker 2: put it that way all right. Last night's are not
Speaker 2: yes last nights, but it was on recorded on September
Speaker 2: twenty one, of which I am now recording on September
Speaker 2: twenty seconds. So with me, I'm going to do my
Speaker 2: best to do my do the recordings and even if
Speaker 2: I have to do an interview that is like three
Speaker 2: years ago, I may as well have to do it anyway,
Speaker 2: So they go. Anyways, here's here's some of the clips
Speaker 2: that are give you an example of what is really
Speaker 2: happening with the Adete Parklands Association. I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2: If you want to know more about me, I do
Speaker 2: my show Comes and Maples, my email addresses comes and
Speaker 2: Maples at gmail dot com. And of course I uh
Speaker 2: this is depictions media where it shows about government policy
Speaker 2: and issue rights. You can contact him in Canada Michael
Speaker 2: at depictions media dot com. And now I'm going to
Speaker 2: give you the information on what's on YouTube and what's
Speaker 2: on the social media part of what's happening in and
Speaker 2: around Alaide park Lands Association. So now we're going to
Speaker 2: hear the City of Adelaide's Mayor, Jane while Mac Smith
Speaker 2: on the address of the issue to the Alaide Parklands.
Speaker 4: So I want to apologize to the Parklands Association because
Speaker 4: I am out of the state and actually out of
Speaker 4: the country this morning, but I wanted to have a
Speaker 4: chance to speak to you. In reality, I can't contribute
Speaker 4: much to the discussion about how liver Golf will operate
Speaker 4: or what will be occurring in the design phase of
Speaker 4: this development. But what I do know is the wording
Speaker 4: of the legislation that went through I have to say
Speaker 4: at warp speed through both houses of Parliament because I
Speaker 4: think it has implications for the future of the City
Speaker 4: of Adelaide Parklands and also the relationship that the state
Speaker 4: has with local government generally. So if I can just
Speaker 4: talk about that, because I know that most people or
Speaker 4: many of you would not have read the legislation. I
Speaker 4: just want to explain what it does and what the
Speaker 4: parameters for the future will be. The North Adelaide Public
Speaker 4: Golf Course Act twenty twenty five has some extraordinary features.
Speaker 4: It starts, of course, by involving ten percent of our parklands,
Speaker 4: but gives the state the right to take extra land
Speaker 4: if required. It does something unusual that changes the status
Speaker 4: from crownland or parklands into fee simple, which is the
Speaker 4: way my house and land is described, because it's the
Speaker 4: way that normally ownership of land occurs in the state.
Speaker 4: It also takes all care and control of the away
Speaker 4: from the council and takes all the infrastructure, plant and
Speaker 4: equipment that has been frankly invested in for one hundred
Speaker 4: years by the city Council and our ratepayers. It requires
Speaker 4: all leases to be canceled. Amazingly, it designates every development
Speaker 4: or any development as complying, and takes all legislative protections
Speaker 4: away from our park lands. These aren't council regulations. These
Speaker 4: are government introduced regulations and they are all removed except
Speaker 4: one act, fortunately, which is the Aboriginal Heritage Act. It
Speaker 4: specifically says the EPA will not apply during events, which
Speaker 4: is in itself pretty unusual because having been involved with
Speaker 4: major events for many decades. Over the years, we have
Speaker 4: increased the environmental management and quality of these events to
Speaker 4: make sure that our priceless environment is preserved. Of course,
Speaker 4: it precludes all fees and licenses being charged and doesn't
Speaker 4: have any space for compensation, which is interesting because, however
Speaker 4: you look at it, the people of Adelaide and the
Speaker 4: red players have invested in this land. But most extraordinarily
Speaker 4: for me, it states explicitly that if the Adelaide City
Speaker 4: Council fails to comply with the direction of the Minister
Speaker 4: under subsection two, the Minister may take any action required
Speaker 4: under the direction or necesscessary for the direction to be
Speaker 4: carried out, as if the Minister were the Adelaide City Council.
Speaker 4: So I am optimistic and the most important relationship the
Speaker 4: city council has is the one with the state government.
Speaker 4: But let us never forget that we only have the
Speaker 4: parklands in the state therein now because the City of
Speaker 4: Adelaide has fought to protect them, preserve them and invested
Speaker 4: in them. This is an episode. We have a long
Speaker 4: history behind us and we have a future. We have
Speaker 4: to ensure that our parklands are protected.
Speaker 1: There is only one city in the world that is
Speaker 1: built inside a park. This is the story of that park,
Speaker 1: the only park in the world with a city inside it.
Speaker 1: City life can take a toll. Many of us live
Speaker 1: and work in crowded artificial environments, but more and more
Speaker 1: evidence is emerging about the health benefits of spending time
Speaker 1: in open, green public spaces and retaining mature estate ablished trees.
Speaker 1: Nearly every city has one or more parks. Around the world,
Speaker 1: urban parks are prized like jewels. A city with lots
Speaker 1: of open green public space is a wealthy city. One
Speaker 1: city has not just a few green gems, but an
Speaker 1: entire garland of jewels. Adelaide is the only city in
Speaker 1: the world that is built inside a park. The park's
Speaker 1: not a circle, It's a figure eight wrapping around the
Speaker 1: CBD and North Adelaide. Your Adelaide parklands were designed. In
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty seven, European colonists took over the land from
Speaker 1: Ghana people who had lived here for tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of years. Despite losing their lands, many Ghana people remained
Speaker 1: in the vicinity of the colonist's settlement. It took only
Speaker 1: two decades for the colonists to strip the parklands of
Speaker 1: almost all native vegetation, but since then, slowly and gradually
Speaker 1: parts have been revegetated. Over generations, Your Adelaide Parklands have
Speaker 1: become like a vintage patchwork quilt, made and remade to
Speaker 1: serve a variety of purposes sports fields, playgrounds, formal gardens,
Speaker 1: open air event spaces and areas where native vegetation has
Speaker 1: been restored. The patchwork includes lots of separate parks, but
Speaker 1: they make up something larger, much more significant than any
Speaker 1: one park in isolation. In two thousand and eight, Your
Speaker 1: Adelaide Parklands were listed as part of Australia's National Heritage.
Speaker 1: They are described on the National Heritage Register as a
Speaker 1: master work of urban design, a major influence on the
Speaker 1: garden city planning movement, one of the most important Western
Speaker 1: urban planning initiatives in history.
Speaker 5: A lot of cities around the world have a park land,
Speaker 5: but to have this incredible north south east west area
Speaker 5: of parklands that envelops the whole city is really special
Speaker 5: and quite twadlight.
Speaker 6: I think that's a great idea because it ensures that
Speaker 6: everyone in a city is going to be able to
Speaker 6: have the benefits of being in a park.
Speaker 3: Adelaide is a truly unique place, the only city entirely
Speaker 3: embedded within a park, and that's such a special thing
Speaker 3: to have that really strong connection with nature.
Speaker 4: There is no city that has this kind of inner
Speaker 4: city landscape.
Speaker 7: There are so many cities around the world that don't
Speaker 7: enjoy quite the same parkland that we do have. But
Speaker 7: by treasure those parklands.
Speaker 8: A visitor falls in love with that LFE because of
Speaker 8: the parklands.
Speaker 6: In a perfect and ideal world, all of these cities
Speaker 6: could as fire to be.
Speaker 1: This despite their world's significance, your parklands are shrinking. Year
Speaker 1: after year, new buildings are constructed on your parklands, gradually
Speaker 1: whittling them away.
Speaker 5: Think about the challenges the world's facing now around climate change.
Speaker 5: It's really important to have green spaces, cooling spaces in
Speaker 5: your CBD, in around your city centers.
Speaker 7: We can't have a situation where the parklands are slowly
Speaker 7: eaten up by pet projects for politicians.
Speaker 4: If we use it and it means more buildings will
Speaker 4: eventually lose the asset that is world class.
Speaker 1: Community actions in support of your parklands are sometimes effective.
Speaker 2: From the wide of rphy of that to take that
Speaker 2: away from mush.
Speaker 1: But there is no more that protects your Adelaide parklands
Speaker 1: from these constant attacks. Ad hoc decision making leaves them vulnerable.
Speaker 9: Of all places, they've got to choose our parkland.
Speaker 1: Valuable land next to the city center. Is it a
Speaker 1: green treasure or is it merely a future development site?
Speaker 8: They can't be considered as a land bank. It is
Speaker 8: just horrifying to think that anyone would consider this as
Speaker 8: a land bank.
Speaker 1: But your Adelaid parklands will be protected only when a
Speaker 1: sufficient number of people demand that they're protected. They are
Speaker 1: worlds only, but they need you to help protect them.
Speaker 10: All right.
Speaker 11: Welcome to the third episode of Meet Adelaide, and my
Speaker 11: guest this evening is Shane Sodi. Now, Shane is an
Speaker 11: avid cyclist. You hold a couple of world records. I
Speaker 11: believe only one world record.
Speaker 3: We'll go into that.
Speaker 11: He wrote one hundred and fifty one kilometers today. But
Speaker 11: he's also the president of the Adelaide Parklands Association, and
Speaker 11: he's one of the most determined people that I've ever
Speaker 11: think I've met who's in the political sphere. You're a
Speaker 11: strong advocate for the parklands and quite inspiration to me.
Speaker 11: The way that you pursue this vision and your your
Speaker 11: commitment and passion for something, and I found that absolutely
Speaker 11: inspired me from when I first met you as well.
Speaker 11: So welcome, Shane, thanks for being on my show.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much for having me. That's very kind words.
Speaker 10: No, so well, Shane, let's start off.
Speaker 11: I mean, so I want to hear a little bit
Speaker 11: about your background, where you came from and growing up
Speaker 11: and your early life.
Speaker 10: So where'd you where'd you grow up to grow up
Speaker 10: in Adelaide.
Speaker 3: Or No, Well, I'm sixty six years old, so I've
Speaker 3: got a lot of backstory, born in nineteen fifty six.
Speaker 3: And Judith Durham died yesterday and she was like the
Speaker 3: soundtrack of my childhood, totally apropell of nothing. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I just know who that is. The Seekers nineen sixty
Speaker 3: years Hey there, Georgie Girl, the Carnival is over all
Speaker 3: those songs.
Speaker 10: The only Seekers I know play quidditch.
Speaker 3: Okay, well it's sort of you know, nostalgia is in
Speaker 3: what it used to be, they say, But that just
Speaker 3: took me back to my childhood and all those songs
Speaker 3: that was bigger in the nineteen sixties. Or I'm really
Speaker 3: showing my age. Okay, I grew up in Melbourne and
Speaker 3: I only came to Adelaide when I was sixteen years
Speaker 3: old with my family. We lived at Ony right opposite
Speaker 3: the only football ground. My father used to get on
Speaker 3: the roof of our house to watch Stirt play across
Speaker 3: the road and only over.
Speaker 10: So we'd have to pay for a teat Yeah, from
Speaker 10: the roof as well, I think.
Speaker 3: So I wasn't game enough to get off on the
Speaker 3: roof with him. But yeah, that was our introduction to
Speaker 3: Adelaide in the nineteen That would have been when I
Speaker 3: was nineteen seventy.
Speaker 10: Two, okay, yeah, and so why they.
Speaker 3: Move, oh, from Victoria. I don't know. God, that's going
Speaker 3: so far back I can't remember. But yeah, anyway, the
Speaker 3: family came over here then, and yeah, we loved Adelaide,
Speaker 3: fell in love with it, and I left home when
Speaker 3: I was eighteen and I traveled around Australia working in
Speaker 3: radio stations and then eventually came back to Adelaide to
Speaker 3: settle in nineteen eighty five and I've been here ever since.
Speaker 10: Right, So.
Speaker 11: You would have moved from you would have had a
Speaker 11: whole friendship group and everything when you were sixteen coming Adelaide.
Speaker 11: What was it like moving here and then going to
Speaker 11: I'm only high I'm guessing.
Speaker 3: No, when I came to Adelaide, i'd already left high school.
Speaker 3: I left high school pretty early. I was a dropout.
Speaker 3: Oh great, Yeah, I later went back to you. I
Speaker 3: did university when I was thirty five?
Speaker 10: Right, what did you study?
Speaker 3: I have an arts degree and a law degree? Me too,
Speaker 3: first class honors, you get first class? Well, one thing
Speaker 3: you know about me? When I'm determined to do something, yeah,
Speaker 3: I do it all the way. There's no sort of
Speaker 3: half measures. So I thought, if I'm going to go
Speaker 3: to university, I want a law degree, and I don't
Speaker 3: just want any law degree. I want first class and honors.
Speaker 3: So I did what I had to do to get that.
Speaker 11: See, I am an outcomes focused person, so for me,
Speaker 11: peace get degrees.
Speaker 10: But yeah I did. So what did you do in
Speaker 10: your arts? I guess you would have done media or no.
Speaker 3: Well, having had a long experience in media in commercial
Speaker 3: radio and a tiny little bit in TV.
Speaker 10: But exclusively at thirty five, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, commercial radio from my early twenties. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 3: need to study that. At Uni. I studied art subjects
Speaker 3: that just appealed to me. Great, I wanted a law degree,
Speaker 3: and you at that stage. I don't know whether it's
Speaker 3: still a case, but you can't get a law degree
Speaker 3: unless you had another degree at the university. So I thought, well,
Speaker 3: I'll just do what appeals to me. So I studied
Speaker 3: philosophy and psychology and Japanese language and Asian history.
Speaker 10: Great.
Speaker 11: Yeah, so I added philosophy and economics, and economics would
Speaker 11: have killed me if I did as a major. So
Speaker 11: my philosophy actually massively sub like softened my economics degree.
Speaker 11: So I didn't have to do any of the mass subjects,
Speaker 11: even though I'm a tax law I didn't do it.
Speaker 11: So I did words instead. But why did you do
Speaker 11: the law degree at such at thirty five? Did you
Speaker 11: want to transition to become a lawyer?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah I was. I was news director at five
Speaker 3: a D and five DN, and I was getting I
Speaker 3: had no qualifications as a journalist. I was very experienced
Speaker 3: as a journalist, but no formal qualifications. Back then, you
Speaker 3: could do that. You could just come up through the ranks.
Speaker 3: And I was getting to the stage where I was
Speaker 3: hiring and firing journalists and the ones who are coming
Speaker 3: to me for a job all had degrees in journalism,
Speaker 3: and I thought, this is a bit weird. Here I
Speaker 3: am with no qualifications, and I'm assessing people with qualifications.
Speaker 3: And it just occurred to me that sooner or later,
Speaker 3: with no qualifications, they're going to turf me out and
Speaker 3: bring in somebody younger with a qualification, and then I'll
Speaker 3: have no I'll have no skill to fall back on.
Speaker 3: There was no sort of career advancement beyond news director.
Speaker 3: So I said, I need a qualification. What would I
Speaker 3: be good at a veterinarian?
Speaker 10: Veterinarian the next progression.
Speaker 3: When you're a kid, you want to be a fireman
Speaker 3: or a sign writer or whatever. But no, I decided
Speaker 3: that my skills were best suited to studying law.
Speaker 11: Fantastic, Yeah, so I did, Yeah, right, and so and
Speaker 11: did you use the degree after that or you just
Speaker 11: used it as that.
Speaker 3: I have this arc of you know, because I'm sixty
Speaker 3: six and I've been around for a while, I have
Speaker 3: this arc of experience in my career, and the starting
Speaker 3: point and the ending point look really weird. But each
Speaker 3: of the transitions over my life makes sense in its
Speaker 3: own terms. So I started off as a rock and
Speaker 3: roll disc jockey.
Speaker 10: Knowing your brother, I've seen your brother play. I can
Speaker 10: understand that.
Speaker 3: My brothers are Yeah, he's in my brother Brett Sodi
Speaker 3: has Sody Pop Studios. He's a recording engineer and he's
Speaker 3: in the South Australian Music Hall of Fame. He really,
Speaker 3: he's a legendary music.
Speaker 10: That's the one that played at the Parkland and.
Speaker 3: He played at the Yeah, unpaving Paradise. Yeah, he was
Speaker 3: aw sundraiser. Yeah, well that's his side.
Speaker 10: I couldn't believe it. I was looking at you were
Speaker 10: a spitting image of him. I can't believe you're twins.
Speaker 10: He's just got long hair and I'm like, it's cool Shane.
Speaker 3: Yeah, cool shine. And he's also two years younger than me. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But but playing in a band is his side hustle.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 3: His main hustle is being the go to guy if
Speaker 3: you want something recorded.
Speaker 11: Yeah great, Well I'm in a band actually with my
Speaker 11: producer Handol Kim, So we're we're working on that. We
Speaker 11: only play it law society gigs or step conferences. So
Speaker 11: after you know, Wills and Estates practitioners get together, then
Speaker 11: we play a couple of tunes, but we're still working
Speaker 11: on that. First. Yeah, the force measures, Yeah, which is
Speaker 11: you know, that's.
Speaker 3: Like that's force legal legal jargon, but it.
Speaker 11: Also means like basically a dog ate my homework. So
Speaker 11: that's the legal turn. Something went bad, it's not my.
Speaker 3: Fault, that's your excuse for not doing it. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 3: force measure Act of God.
Speaker 10: Well, so I'm intrigued.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I find that interesting that you when did the
Speaker 11: degree after you after all that time, because it's interesting. Most,
Speaker 11: like they're really successful people in life do start their
Speaker 11: degrees and they drop out and then they don't ever
Speaker 11: finish it. So they just go, this is what I
Speaker 11: want to do, and then they start pursuing that.
Speaker 3: So I dropped out of high school at age fifteen
Speaker 3: and went to university at age parents say about that,
Speaker 3: that's a long story and we don't get and because
Speaker 3: it's so long ago, we don't need to go into that.
Speaker 3: You know, there's a lot of water under the bridge
Speaker 3: since then. But I went to university at age thirty five,
Speaker 3: so there was a twenty year gap in formal education,
Speaker 3: and it took me ten years to get the law degree.
Speaker 3: From age thirty five to age forty five.
Speaker 6: Yea.
Speaker 3: And I was working and this is where the park
Speaker 3: Lands come in, right, because I was working at the
Speaker 3: time as personal advisor consultant PA media advisor to the
Speaker 3: Honorable Ian Gilfillan, MLC, who was with the Australian Democrats,
Speaker 3: who was a member of the upper House of State Parliament.
Speaker 3: And Ian was the best boss I've ever had. He
Speaker 3: was really really gracious in that I was studying law
Speaker 3: part time, and the requirements of your law degree change
Speaker 3: every semester, you know, like on Tuesdays you've got to
Speaker 3: be in association's lecture and on Thursdays you might be
Speaker 3: in a trustsitute. And so I would go to Ian
Speaker 3: and say, look, this semester, I have to change my workdays.
Speaker 3: Do you mind? And he was always accommodating, which was brilliant.
Speaker 3: So right through the law degree, I was changing my
Speaker 3: workdays with the end to suit the studies in my
Speaker 3: law degree. But it was a two way thing because
Speaker 3: what I was studying in law was valuable for him
Speaker 3: in some of the political things he was doing, and
Speaker 3: the two fed each other. And around about the time
Speaker 3: I was doing my honors dissertation, there was a huge
Speaker 3: court case going on between the Conservation Council of South
Speaker 3: Australia and the tuna boat operators.
Speaker 10: Those tuna but tuna boat yeah those people.
Speaker 3: Yes, well and may have a big thing. Oh yeah, Well,
Speaker 3: I mean it's a massive industry. At Port Lincoln. They
Speaker 3: harvest not fully grown tuna in the Southern Ocean and
Speaker 3: toe well, I'm telling you what used to happen around
Speaker 3: the year two thousand. I don't know if it's changed
Speaker 3: since then, but they would toe the tuna back and
Speaker 3: fatten them up in feed lots of Port Lincoln.
Speaker 10: I think they still do that as well.
Speaker 3: And these fully grown tuna were selling back in the
Speaker 3: year two thousand or ninety ninety nine for over one
Speaker 3: thousand dollars per fish in the Japanese sashimi market. So
Speaker 3: it was a license to print money. And that was
Speaker 3: my honest dissertation still happening. My honest dissertation was about
Speaker 3: the legal framework that allowed that to happen amazing, and
Speaker 3: what if anything, should be done to regulate both the
Speaker 3: environmental effects on the seafloor and Port Lincoln and also
Speaker 3: the fact that people who had inherited the right to
Speaker 3: take what was not an endangered species, but a species
Speaker 3: that is subject to dwindling stock. What was the legal recognition,
Speaker 3: you know, the legal framework around that. So that was
Speaker 3: my honor's dissertation, and that fed into a parliamentary inquiry
Speaker 3: that was going on with the Environment, Resources and Development
Speaker 3: Committee of State Parliament, on which Ian Gilfillan, my boss,
Speaker 3: was serving as one of the members.
Speaker 10: Of other committee.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was helped. My research was helping that
Speaker 3: inquiry and that inquiry was helping my honest dissertation.
Speaker 11: Wow, that's called the two going simultaneously. Yeah, so it
Speaker 11: was the outcome the concert. I can't remember.
Speaker 3: Well, not long after my honors dissertation was finished, in
Speaker 3: the year two thousand, there was a new Aquaculture Act,
Speaker 3: so that basically made my honest dissertation irrelevant very soon
Speaker 3: after I had finished it out of date.
Speaker 11: Yeah, oh yeah, I mean, isn't it funny how people
Speaker 11: do PhDs and.
Speaker 10: The most obscure things.
Speaker 11: Yeah, and they're all contributing to human knowledge, I suppose
Speaker 11: at the time.
Speaker 3: Well we were, and for all I know, it might
Speaker 3: have been what my research might have informed some of
Speaker 3: the subsequent legislative changes.
Speaker 10: Sure.
Speaker 11: Well, fascinating is that so that was at your first
Speaker 11: foray into well, I guess being a disc jockey and
Speaker 11: being in volume radio and the news, you were always
Speaker 11: involved in politics.
Speaker 3: To a greater or lesser extent. And I was interviewing politicians.
Speaker 3: You know, I've got you don't list all the people
Speaker 3: you interviewed, but you know, I remember one of the
Speaker 3: very first days on my job, in my very first
Speaker 3: spot as a journalist, I was interviewing Joe Biolki Peterson,
Speaker 3: who at the time was the Premier of Queensland. H
Speaker 3: I just rang him up at home, as you did
Speaker 3: back then.
Speaker 10: Right, and that was the yeah, is probably on the
Speaker 10: internet pages.
Speaker 3: Well, well we didn't ever did it pages back then.
Speaker 10: But I was pre internet.
Speaker 3: Wow, well well before I'm talking nineteen seventy nine. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I interviewed lots and lots of politicians, so I was
Speaker 3: familiar with the environment. And then I went to work
Speaker 3: for a politician later on, or several politicians. I worked for,
Speaker 3: not only Ian Gilfillan, but I was for a time
Speaker 3: the media advisor to a liberal environment minister, really David
Speaker 3: Watton in nineteen ninety seven. And then after I got
Speaker 3: my law degree, I was a legal advisor to the
Speaker 3: Labor Attorney General at the time. Michael Atkinson. Wow, that
Speaker 3: wasn't a political appointment, that was a public service appointment.
Speaker 3: So I was one of.
Speaker 10: A team of you in the Department.
Speaker 3: Policy and Legislation section in the Attorney General's Department.
Speaker 11: And have you always had that focus on the environment,
Speaker 11: and like what kind of developed that passion for it?
Speaker 3: Well, when you, I'm I don't know whether I can
Speaker 3: say that I've always had that focus, but it's become
Speaker 3: grown up. It's grown on me as the most important
Speaker 3: thing because you know, we've only got one world. There
Speaker 3: is no planet B. We're doing a very good job
Speaker 3: of messing up the planet and it desperately needs protection
Speaker 3: because so many people have a short term monetary interest
Speaker 3: in despoiling the planet or a part thereof whether it's
Speaker 3: the atmosphere with carbon emissions, or whether it's wanting to
Speaker 3: build something on what is open green public parkland. Somebody's
Speaker 3: got some and where there's a pot of money to
Speaker 3: be made. What's the saying you don't stand in between
Speaker 3: a developer and a pot of money, or maybe it's
Speaker 3: a politician and a pot.
Speaker 10: Of money greenfield.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, so when there's that financial interest. It's very
Speaker 3: one sided, you know, the people who are trying to
Speaker 3: protect something for the public. If you're saying something for
Speaker 3: the public interest, by definition, you don't have huge corporate
Speaker 3: interests behind you. You've got to raise money through small donations.
Speaker 3: You've got to continuously hustle, continuously try to get your
Speaker 3: point of view or the public interest into people's consciousness.
Speaker 3: And if you're not spending thousands of dollars or millions
Speaker 3: of dollars on an advertising campaign.
Speaker 10: That's so difficult.
Speaker 11: I think, Yeah, I really admire everything you've put together
Speaker 11: with the Adelaide Parklands Association because it's without that kind
Speaker 11: of continuous and dogged determination it you just wouldn't get there.
Speaker 11: And because you don't have that large resources that you
Speaker 11: do if you're a developer. You know you've done one
Speaker 11: hundred projects before and so now you can do something
Speaker 11: else and you've got all the resources there and all
Speaker 11: the staff, all the systems everything, and as a small
Speaker 11: community group, you don't have any of that.
Speaker 3: Well, let's talk about the Adelaid Parklands. I've been the
Speaker 3: president since twenty seventeen.
Speaker 10: Had come into five years.
Speaker 3: Ah, Well, that goes back to.
Speaker 10: Ian Gilfillan, right, okay.
Speaker 3: MLC Democrats. He was when I knew him, No, back
Speaker 3: in the twenty years ago or less than that. Actually,
Speaker 3: he was the president of what was then called the
Speaker 3: Adelaide Parklands Preservation Association, and he was on the committee.
Speaker 3: And he said, look, i've since I did you such.
Speaker 3: He didn't say this, but when he asked me to
Speaker 3: join the committee, I felt a sense of obligation. You
Speaker 3: was this, Oh, that would have been twenty.
Speaker 10: Fourteen, twenty fourteen, so it was.
Speaker 3: A long time after I'd stopped working for him, because
Speaker 3: I still working for him about two thousand and one.
Speaker 10: And he still reckon you owed him?
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, no, no, He didn't say I owed him.
Speaker 10: Oh okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I felt a sense of obligation since he had really
Speaker 3: really helped me so wonderfully in helping me to get
Speaker 3: my law degree.
Speaker 10: Oh okay.
Speaker 3: So when he said, look, would you like to join
Speaker 3: the parklands committee? I said, okay. I felt I owed
Speaker 3: him that, and I just joined the committee. And I
Speaker 3: looked as you do. You know, I was doing the minimum.
Speaker 3: I was turning up to a committee meeting once a month,
Speaker 3: and you know, putting my two cents worth in that
Speaker 3: the committee meeting and that was it. And then it
Speaker 3: dawned on me in twenty fourteen that this little group
Speaker 3: of people were trying to influence the outcome for the
Speaker 3: Adelaide Parklands and we're not having much success because they
Speaker 3: were basically talking amongst themselves. They a great expense printed
Speaker 3: a glossy quarterly magazine which got posted to their members only,
Speaker 3: so it was only the people who were already committed parklands,
Speaker 3: and it was totally an echo chamber, and a very
Speaker 3: small echo chamber that and I realized that if anything
Speaker 3: was going to you know, there's no point doing that.
Speaker 3: You've got to reach out to a broader audience and
Speaker 3: help the broader audience see why the Adelaide parklans well.
Speaker 3: And this comes back to eventually dawned on me, not
Speaker 3: the first week or the first month, or even the
Speaker 3: first year. It got through to me that the Adelaide
Speaker 3: Parklands are world unique, where we are the only city
Speaker 3: in the world built inside a park. And later on
Speaker 3: I discovered, and this is actually a contentious point, that
Speaker 3: the Adelaide Parklands were the first park created for the
Speaker 3: purposes of being for the public. Sure as opposed to
Speaker 3: being for the royalty.
Speaker 10: It wasn't a military thing.
Speaker 3: Ah, the military can we can we come back to that,
Speaker 3: because that's one of the furfees, common furfees. But there's
Speaker 3: parks all over the world, of course, but most of
Speaker 3: the old ones we're talking hundreds of years ago were
Speaker 3: created for royalty, nobility, lords of the manor you know.
Speaker 3: The phrase crown land implies that the crown can enter
Speaker 3: and common people can come in only if the crown
Speaker 3: says yes, you can come in. Today, the Adelaide parklands,
Speaker 3: and this coincides with the creation of municipal authorities the
Speaker 3: city of Adelaide, so they created for the public. So
Speaker 3: there's an argument, and it's it's it's really splitting hairs
Speaker 3: whether this is the case or not. But I'd like
Speaker 3: to use this argument that were the first parks created
Speaker 3: for the public preceded the creation of Central Park, New
Speaker 3: York by eighteen fascinating by eighteen years yeah and then.
Speaker 10: Sorry, say that again, So it preceded the question.
Speaker 3: Of eighteen thirty seven. And of course we're totally glossing
Speaker 3: over the dispossession of the Garner people. And I don't
Speaker 3: want to do that because of course it was a
Speaker 3: public park for the Garner people four thousands and thousands
Speaker 3: of years. But if we just focus on from eighteen
Speaker 3: thirty seven European settlement and that was when the past,
Speaker 3: so that.
Speaker 11: Was straight away, that was when the city was designed.
Speaker 11: Those parklands were part of immediate Yep.
Speaker 3: Colonel Light did the famous survey to you know, and
Speaker 3: there's a lovely illustration of his that he drew up
Speaker 3: in eighteen thirty seven. I think this is the town
Speaker 3: square and we've got North Terrace, South Terrace, East Terrace,
Speaker 3: West Terrace. Outside the terraces there's parklands and that was
Speaker 3: the first place in the world where that had.
Speaker 10: Actually been the floor in the middle as well.
Speaker 6: That.
Speaker 3: Oh and the squares of course.
Speaker 10: Yeah, and then the ones around the middle, which was.
Speaker 3: Five squares in the CBD and one square in North Adelaide.
Speaker 11: So we've got you might not answer, sorry if there
Speaker 11: is one, but it just occurred to me, is there
Speaker 11: a you know, symbolism between the kind of looks like
Speaker 11: a dice really the.
Speaker 3: Five dots on a dice.
Speaker 1: Yea.
Speaker 3: There there are other cities in the world where that
Speaker 3: sort of thing, the layout with the with the squares
Speaker 3: inside the grid that's been done. There's a there's a
Speaker 3: book that I've got at home, of course, you know,
Speaker 3: Donald Johnson is the author, and it is I can't
Speaker 3: remember the actual title of the book, Predicting Municipal Parks
Speaker 3: or something, and he goes through the history of what
Speaker 3: cities looked a little bit like Adelaide in the past,
Speaker 3: were laid out in a similar way to Adelaide, but
Speaker 3: none of them had the the parks all around them.
Speaker 3: There's a few other cities in the world that have
Speaker 3: some aspects of that. Christ Church in New Zealand has
Speaker 3: got parks on three sides and the ocean on the
Speaker 3: fourth side.
Speaker 11: Yeah. I grew up in Canberra and a Canberra is
Speaker 11: basically parks with houses in it. And they were just
Speaker 11: they were everywhere, and I just beautiful sit Yeah, it
Speaker 11: is beautiful and you could you could drive, like you
Speaker 11: could get on the bike path from my house, get
Speaker 11: all the way to Parliament House on a private.
Speaker 10: Bike path. And I used to be a roller, so
Speaker 10: I'd rode through and then we'd have like.
Speaker 3: The private bike path.
Speaker 11: Well sorry, public public park, not next to the road
Speaker 11: for out, That's what I came mean. So it's completely
Speaker 11: separated off and it was really thought through at that
Speaker 11: next level of you know, watching an ideal city look like,
Speaker 11: and that of course was designed by Burley Griffin, and
Speaker 11: that I think when you have that kind of plan,
Speaker 11: that vision, that's so amazing. And since the camera bushfires,
Speaker 11: that has also now been encroached on that vision, So
Speaker 11: that public thoroughfare through the bike paths and the bike
Speaker 11: lanes is now being encroached on with suburban suburbs that
Speaker 11: are just coming out of nowhere. So they're now building
Speaker 11: on all of these these parks.
Speaker 10: And losing all sounds a bit familiar because.
Speaker 3: In Adelaide we've been encroaching on the park lands ever
Speaker 3: since they were created in eineteen thirty seven.
Speaker 10: What do you think that is?
Speaker 8: What?
Speaker 10: Because it baffles me, you know, I don't get it.
Speaker 3: Oh well, it upsets me, but it doesn't baffle me
Speaker 3: because every single state government from eighteen thirty seven on,
Speaker 3: well before they were called states, provincial government sees the
Speaker 3: parklands as vacant land waiting to be developed, not all
Speaker 3: the content time, of course, and not at every spot,
Speaker 3: but chipping away, chipping away, chipping away, and every time
Speaker 3: something's put on the park lands. It's for very good reasons,
Speaker 3: of course.
Speaker 10: I love you're reminded me of that the YouTube sort.
Speaker 3: There's a video that we produced, an animated video called
Speaker 3: Egypt is Selling the Pyramids brick by brick that and
Speaker 3: you know, why would you get rid of something that
Speaker 3: makes a place unique. But we're doing that. We've got
Speaker 3: the only city in the world built inside of park
Speaker 3: and we're getting rid of that park bit by bit
Speaker 3: by bit.
Speaker 11: I think it's always there's always a pressure politicians. I
Speaker 11: believe in our system, I believe need to generate political
Speaker 11: doing things, and I think very rarely, probably more and
Speaker 11: more so now given the last federal and state elections
Speaker 11: that by I suppose not doing something and actually keeping
Speaker 11: something as it was, you're actually going to get credit
Speaker 11: for that. Like of a state government, you know that
Speaker 11: was their policy. We've done nothing, yes, to develop the
Speaker 11: parklands like that would be actually quite a statement that
Speaker 11: I think would resonate.
Speaker 3: In fact, well, there are lots of being missed, but
Speaker 3: you can do lots of things within the parklands without
Speaker 3: robbing future generations. And look, a great example is the
Speaker 3: new Wetlands has been constructed just in the last twelve months.
Speaker 10: It's amazing.
Speaker 3: In Victoria Park Pakaba Kanti in the Ghana language. Now,
Speaker 3: that was a thirteen million dollar project. They had to
Speaker 3: remove a stand of white poplar trees invasive species. No
Speaker 3: big deal there. But what they've created is something beautiful
Speaker 3: and it's open, green, public and it cost only a
Speaker 3: fraction of what a huge infrastry ructure project would have gone.
Speaker 3: The former Liberal state government was wanting to build in
Speaker 3: Helen Mayo Park what they call the River Bank Arena,
Speaker 3: a massive stadium, fifteen thousand seed stadium. It was going
Speaker 3: to cost in the order of six hundred million dollars
Speaker 3: six hundred million dollars to destroy a park versus thirteen
Speaker 3: million to create a beautiful wetland.
Speaker 10: And I went there the other day.
Speaker 11: I went for a walk around at and then it's
Speaker 11: not even developed yet. It's still just a rudimentary state.
Speaker 11: But it looks amazing and.
Speaker 3: There's going to be some Garner Garner inspired artwork installed
Speaker 3: there to increase the experience. But there's also infrastructure that
Speaker 3: can be done which does not let me come back
Speaker 3: to One of the things that the Adelaid Parkland's Association
Speaker 3: insists upon is that the standard for what should be
Speaker 3: in a park. And this may be blindingly obvious, but
Speaker 3: until you say it, people have funny ideas of what
Speaker 3: should be in parks open, green, public. Now we like
Speaker 3: to portray that as three circles in a ven diagram.
Speaker 3: You can have open, you can have green, you can
Speaker 3: have public when the three interlock. That's the essence of
Speaker 3: what a park is. Sure, you can have things that
Speaker 3: are open and green but not public. You can have
Speaker 3: things that are open and public but not green, and
Speaker 3: so on. So open, green, public, and that's what we've
Speaker 3: got with the new wetlands in Victoria Park. The other
Speaker 3: thing that I think that we keep pushing really hard
Speaker 3: is something to help people appreciate the fact that it's
Speaker 3: not just one park here, one park there, and that
Speaker 3: it's a whole. The whole is much greater than the
Speaker 3: sum of its parts.
Speaker 11: I think that's totally true, because when I'm going through
Speaker 11: the parklands, it does feel disconnected, and that's obviously because
Speaker 11: it is, yes, and you don't think you generally think
Speaker 11: about the botanical gardens and maybe where the pedal pre
Speaker 11: is and I run through the parklands, but that whole
Speaker 11: western side is completely devoid of attention from me.
Speaker 10: Anyways, as an individual, you haven't been to.
Speaker 3: The we're in in the Wetlands in park twenty three,
Speaker 3: No haven't, no won? You should come along to our
Speaker 3: guided walk on twenty eight in the in the Wetlands
Speaker 3: because it's absolutely spectacular and how.
Speaker 10: Many guarded walks. So that's another thing we do.
Speaker 11: So let's talk about how the campaign for the parklands
Speaker 11: and how you achieve that, because I think this would
Speaker 11: be very helpful for this is I think what you're
Speaker 11: doing with the with APPA is amazing as almost like
Speaker 11: a template for other community groups that might advocate for something.
Speaker 10: So what are the some of the things.
Speaker 3: So you have the we have four streams of activity,
Speaker 3: and we've got a strategic plan which prioritizes each one
Speaker 3: of these four streams. They're quite distinct, but they're complementary.
Speaker 3: People will want to protect the parklands only if they
Speaker 3: know what's in them. Our four streams of activity are
Speaker 3: pay attention, explore, inspirect, restore, and they're in that order
Speaker 3: because first you have to explore before you will be inspired.
Speaker 3: If you're inspired, you will want to protect. Once you
Speaker 3: know that how important it is to protect, you'll want
Speaker 3: to restore, so it works in that order. Explore, inspire, protect, restore.
Speaker 3: So the first thing that gets people interested in the parklands.
Speaker 3: Maybe it doesn't always have to be this way, of course,
Speaker 3: but explore. So we offer guided walks roughly one every
Speaker 3: two weeks in the good months. It could be in
Speaker 3: the good weather, we might be doing them every week.
Speaker 3: We've just been planning next year's calendar and we've got
Speaker 3: thirty two events over the course of twenty twenty three
Speaker 3: already being planned in the pipeline. But every couple of
Speaker 3: weeks at the latest we'll be having a different guided
Speaker 3: walk in a different part of the parklands, and hopeful
Speaker 3: and people will come. If you're an Apple member, you
Speaker 3: get a ticket for free. If you're not a member,
Speaker 3: it's a fairly low cost day out, afternoon out, and
Speaker 3: you'll get the history, the explanation why this bits of
Speaker 3: parkland is treated this way, what it used to be
Speaker 3: like in the past, what's going to be happening in
Speaker 3: the spot in the future, and if it's very well,
Speaker 3: all very well telling people about it. But until you're
Speaker 3: standing in let's say, for example, a stand of one
Speaker 3: hundred year old blue gums and looking up into the canopy.
Speaker 10: I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Hopefully seeing you know a rosella or you know a
Speaker 3: rainbow lorocket or something above your head. You know, you
Speaker 3: don't really appreciate the significance, yeah, of where you are standing, absolutely,
Speaker 3: and the fact that these trees were planted by you know,
Speaker 3: the city gardener in nineteen oh seven or whatever, and
Speaker 3: they're still there and they're still being looked after, and
Speaker 3: then you will think, well, wouldn't this be worth protecting?
Speaker 10: Right?
Speaker 11: So you do the guided walks as that's explore as explored,
Speaker 11: and then and.
Speaker 3: The trail guides so that you can do the guide
Speaker 3: to walk at any time when you we want to.
Speaker 3: We're all on our website, so we've got that. That's resource.
Speaker 10: That's handy.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, I would love to
Speaker 11: do them all. Do you get something when you complete them?
Speaker 11: Do you get like a sticker.
Speaker 3: Or we'll give you a leaflet when you come along
Speaker 3: on the guided wall, yeah, which and that will have
Speaker 3: a QR code to link back to the full trail guide.
Speaker 3: So the leaflet's a bit of a souvenir if you
Speaker 3: come on the gold.
Speaker 10: I feel like we had a T shirt.
Speaker 11: Yeah, you know like I've done every guide of Walk
Speaker 11: or I've been everywhere man.
Speaker 10: Or something that's a good idea. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 10: have to buy the T shirt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so let's explore Inspire.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The main thing that we're doing with Inspire is the
Speaker 3: Adelaide park Lands Art Prize. Yes, every two years, and
Speaker 3: that's getting bigger and bigger. We ran it in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, twenty eighteen, COVID hit the twenty twenty version,
Speaker 3: so it wasn't finished till twenty twenty one. But we're
Speaker 3: doing it again in twenty twenty three with a fifty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars prize pool.
Speaker 11: And I believe that makes it Adelaide's or South Australia's
Speaker 11: third largest art prize, equal second, equal second with who,
Speaker 11: now don't quote who's this.
Speaker 3: There's the wars that the Waterhouse, the water Prize. First,
Speaker 3: there's one prize it's way out the front with one
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars, and then there's the Adelaide Parklands Our
Speaker 3: Prize and one other that are on fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Forget whether the Waterhouse is one hundred or fifty anyway.
Speaker 10: Yep, well, I think it's one hundred. Yeah, I think
Speaker 10: the White House is a hundred so.
Speaker 11: And that was done by trust and so I think
Speaker 11: this is so. How many entries would you get for
Speaker 11: the art prize.
Speaker 3: Well, we haven't got any yet, but last time around
Speaker 3: we had I think it was about three hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty three hundred and sixty entries and finalists get whittled
Speaker 3: down to a round about seventy odd because that's how
Speaker 3: many will fit in the display the display space at
Speaker 3: the Festival Center. So something similar will be happening in
Speaker 3: early twenty twenty three. Entries will be closed. Entries are
Speaker 3: open on the fifteenth of August and closed on the
Speaker 3: end of January, worry. So we're hoping we'll get hundreds
Speaker 3: of entries whittle down to seventy odd that will be
Speaker 3: on display in the Festival Center from I think it's
Speaker 3: the near the end of March, March eighteen nineteen about
Speaker 3: that time.
Speaker 11: So what I'll do is I'll do a little bit
Speaker 11: of a I'll get a Natalia on who's the yes
Speaker 11: convener of it, and I think we'll do a little
Speaker 11: bit of a fifteen minute chat about what the our
Speaker 11: praise is and what the different options are. But coming
Speaker 11: back to it, so the outcome of the like so
Speaker 11: it's to inspire. So the idea is that artists will
Speaker 11: submit works internationally from around the world and then showcasing
Speaker 11: the parklands and its beauty and the idea is to
Speaker 11: inspire people to love the parklands.
Speaker 3: Well, the word inspire is deliberately ambiguous because the artists
Speaker 3: will be inspired by the party.
Speaker 10: I think your inspire.
Speaker 3: The artists will I will be inspired by the parklands,
Speaker 3: but their artworks will inspire others to love the parkland.
Speaker 3: So the inspire word.
Speaker 10: There does it comes both both both ends.
Speaker 3: And then the other thing that is part of our
Speaker 3: strategic plan is protect.
Speaker 11: Right and so there's income that comes from the so
Speaker 11: you generate and that helps to fund some of the protecting.
Speaker 3: As the income for the Adelaide Parklands Association, where we're
Speaker 3: a small community group, we don't have a huge income
Speaker 3: by any means, it comes partly from membership fees. We've
Speaker 3: got fairly low cost membership.
Speaker 10: How many members would you have.
Speaker 3: As of today, it's around about four hundred and twelve.
Speaker 3: But you know, then you know you renew for a
Speaker 3: year and you know people, more people join, others drop off,
Speaker 3: so well over four hundred so membership fees. We get
Speaker 3: a dividend from a Parkland's Art Prize. We raise a
Speaker 3: little bit of money from the tickets to the guided walks, sure,
Speaker 3: and some donations and of course.
Speaker 10: The unpaving Paradise concept. That's what that we did for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did a gig Diverse City in early June
Speaker 3: which raised That was a great night. I love that.
Speaker 3: We hopefully do that again next year. That raised a
Speaker 3: little bit of money for Restore, which is the fourth
Speaker 3: part of our strategic plan Explore, Explore, Inspire, Protect Restore.
Speaker 3: Restore is something we're only new at. We haven't done
Speaker 3: this a lot before in the past. We have got
Speaker 3: approval from the city Council to restore a little bit
Speaker 3: of Bitchmen in benythen park off Port Road near the
Speaker 3: Thurberton tram stop, and that will. Yeah, if we do
Speaker 3: a good job with that, they might let us restore
Speaker 3: a little bit more bitchmen somewhere else in the parklands. Sure,
Speaker 3: it's a pilot project.
Speaker 10: The government chips away, you can chip away the bitchmen.
Speaker 3: Well exactly. We don't always have to be on the defensive.
Speaker 11: Can I can I tell you a little bit of
Speaker 11: a story when I was younger as well, Right, I
Speaker 11: used to go to Tolopia, which are school and we
Speaker 11: just have bitchmin warts. So we would dig up the
Speaker 11: bitchamen and use it as currency.
Speaker 9: We would dig up.
Speaker 10: The netball courts or whatever it was.
Speaker 11: So you know, I'm going to claim that as my
Speaker 11: young environmentalist, digging up bitchamen and restoring it to open space,
Speaker 11: much of the annoyance of the teachers.
Speaker 3: Well that that particular bit of bitchmen that I referenced
Speaker 3: in Beneathen Park used to be netball courts right back
Speaker 3: in the nineteen nineties, but they haven't been used in
Speaker 3: network courts for decades. Sure, So that's our well, and
Speaker 3: that's the only part of what we do for restore.
Speaker 3: We also want to be in Quadic Center clean up
Speaker 3: days ah, the Aquatic Center.
Speaker 10: So that's a good opportunity to restore some parklands.
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's too it's both protect and restore, yes,
Speaker 3: because the state government, and we talked earlier about the
Speaker 3: fact that governments for years and years and years have
Speaker 3: been chipping away, chipping away, chipping away at parklands. And
Speaker 3: you've got to remember that at the moment there are
Speaker 3: at least four sites on the parklands that are under
Speaker 3: threat from state government projects. You've got a proposal for
Speaker 3: a new eight story addition to the Botannic High School,
Speaker 3: which will take away from park in Park eleven off
Speaker 3: Frome Road. You've got the proposal for a new women's
Speaker 3: and children's hospital which will destroy a garden in Park
Speaker 3: twenty seven next to the Royal Atheltte Hospital. You've got
Speaker 3: a proposal from a multi story car park across the
Speaker 3: railway line in Kate Cox Park, part of Park twenty seven.
Speaker 3: And you also have a proposal to build a new
Speaker 3: aquatic center on Denise Norton Park Party part in Nilla
Speaker 3: Park two. So coming back to that one, the fourth
Speaker 3: the aquatic center, and this is both protect and restore.
Speaker 3: A lot of people have said to me, why don't
Speaker 3: we just renovate the current aquatic center, because you know
Speaker 3: it needs renovation. Now, I'm hardly an engineering expert. The
Speaker 3: last thing I would claim to build times.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 3: Indeed, and the city council a couple of years ago
Speaker 3: got a report from an engineer saying it isn't really
Speaker 3: worth it has reached the end of its useful life
Speaker 3: and needs to be replaced.
Speaker 11: And of course that's very different from normal. So like
Speaker 11: it was privately owned, it's a publicly owned facility. Well,
Speaker 11: it just saw life is actually a lot shorter because
Speaker 11: they have to comply with all the standards and have
Speaker 11: a much high rating.
Speaker 3: So the council has been postponing a decision on this
Speaker 3: because it's a very difficult decision. But during the election campaign,
Speaker 3: the then Labor opposition promise they if elected, they would
Speaker 3: build a new aquatic center and the state government would
Speaker 3: run it, not the city council. Really, that was the
Speaker 3: promise made by Peter Malinowskis during the election campaign, and
Speaker 3: he said he would build the Labor government would build
Speaker 3: it either on the existing site or and this is
Speaker 3: the words used at the time, or an adjacent site.
Speaker 3: Adjacent was not defined. So they've been elected and their
Speaker 3: proposal since well just in the last couple of months
Speaker 3: July twenty twenty two, is that they are only going
Speaker 3: to be looking at sites within the same park. Well,
Speaker 3: we're very very happy that the current side of the
Speaker 3: aquatic center is going to be returned to parklands. If
Speaker 3: you think of the park on which the aquatic center
Speaker 3: is located on Robe Terrace, Jeffcott Road, Barton Terrace West
Speaker 3: and Prospect Road. That's basically a rectangular area and the
Speaker 3: aquatic center takes up the northwestern corner. That's going to
Speaker 3: be returned to Parklands. That's fantastic, that's restore and that's
Speaker 3: one of the things we are really really happy about
Speaker 3: restoring that area of Parklands. But then the other sites
Speaker 3: of the state government is considering all on the same park.
Speaker 3: We're saying, why not put it somewhere else, why not
Speaker 3: put it on a brownfield site, closer to public transport,
Speaker 3: somewhere that's convenient for people, not just in the city
Speaker 3: of Adelaide, but for any of the suburbs around about.
Speaker 3: We've got the State Swim Center down at Marion, so
Speaker 3: something that would be more convenient for people in the
Speaker 3: northern suburbs. So we conducted our own research asking people
Speaker 3: where would you prefer to see it? And we got
Speaker 3: six or seven hundred responses to our survey, and by
Speaker 3: far the most popular area was around heind Marsh, Theberton Bowden, Brompton.
Speaker 10: There are plenty of so much space in Boden Fredrico plenty.
Speaker 3: Of brown field sites that could be acquired by the
Speaker 3: state government for an aquatic center.
Speaker 10: I think sech government seem very reluctant to acquire property.
Speaker 3: So you do it all the time. For road widening, yeah.
Speaker 10: They do it very south road.
Speaker 11: Yeah, that's that freeway has been that they're doing massive
Speaker 11: acquisitions there which are actually unnecessary. Speaking to an engineer
Speaker 11: about it, and a lot of it's actually unnecessary and
Speaker 11: they're spanning way beyond what they need to because actually
Speaker 11: don't know where the tunnel's going to go. But see,
Speaker 11: something I do like about Camber is you don't own
Speaker 11: the land. You only have a ninety nine year lease.
Speaker 3: Yes, Canberra's unusual in that respect.
Speaker 11: And so it's implied that at some stage the government
Speaker 11: might take that back and provide infrastructure. But something that
Speaker 11: I see that Adelaide doesn't necessarily had an Actually Rex
Speaker 11: Patrick made this point recently is we don't have a
Speaker 11: ten or twenty year plan for the infrastructure that we
Speaker 11: need for the city. So how many people are going
Speaker 11: to have living there and what do they need? And
Speaker 11: to me it seems like, oh, well, populations increasing, they
Speaker 11: need a new stadium.
Speaker 10: So let's just check it here.
Speaker 11: But the converse point is, well, they actually need more
Speaker 11: open space and they need more parklands at the same
Speaker 11: time as population goes up. So there doesn't seem to
Speaker 11: me from what I can see, a long term vision
Speaker 11: on that, and I think that would really help, and
Speaker 11: a master plan for the parklands would be something I think.
Speaker 3: Well, the irony is that there is a master plan
Speaker 3: for the park Well, it's part of the statute law.
Speaker 3: The Adelaide Parklands Act requires the City Council and the
Speaker 3: State Government to agree on Adelaide Parklands management strategy, and
Speaker 3: they've done that. It's just that the State government pays
Speaker 3: no attention to it. Sure, no part of.
Speaker 10: The Adelaide Park Act do what's the point of the act?
Speaker 3: The Adelaide Park Act is pretty useless when it comes
Speaker 3: to protecting the parklands. It sets up an Adelaide Parklands Authority, which,
Speaker 3: despite its name, is an authority that has no authority.
Speaker 3: It is a body that merely advises. It advises the
Speaker 3: City Council, it advises the State government, but neither the
Speaker 3: State government nor the City Council is obliged to do
Speaker 3: what the Parklands Authority recommends.
Speaker 11: So how would you change that, what would be your
Speaker 11: how could you ameliorate that situation to give them a
Speaker 11: bit more teeth.
Speaker 3: Well, I'd love to see a really wide ranging discussion
Speaker 3: with the community about how best to ensure that the
Speaker 3: parklands that remain don't get further chipped away in the future.
Speaker 3: There is a whole range of possible governance models, and
Speaker 3: I'm not necessarily recommending this, but there is because I
Speaker 3: really don't know enough about it. But in Central Park,
Speaker 3: New York, there is a Central Park Conservancy and I
Speaker 3: don't know how that is managed, but they've managed to
Speaker 3: make sure that Central Parks stays park absolutely. You know,
Speaker 3: there's there's there's no multi story schools put in there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's no getting expanded, Yes, no hospitals put in there,
Speaker 3: there's no car parks put in there. It stays as
Speaker 3: a park. So I would suggest that whatever they've got
Speaker 3: there to manage Central Park is something that would you know,
Speaker 3: we might be able to just take that model and
Speaker 3: use it here, or there may be some reason why
Speaker 3: we can't take that model. I don't know, but there's
Speaker 3: got to be better models for making sure that the
Speaker 3: Adelaide park lands that remain emphasize remain because we keep
Speaker 3: losing them day by day by day, well, year by
Speaker 3: year by year. Are still there in ten years, twenty years,
Speaker 3: thirty years, and are not chipped away, chipped away, chipped
Speaker 3: away as we are still in the process of doing.
Speaker 11: Yeah, and I think there's so much there's a lot
Speaker 11: of because we don't we don't have that long term
Speaker 11: vision that I've seen anyway about and that work done
Speaker 11: to say, well, you know what, we could create the
Speaker 11: most incredible parklands or gardens in the world. So with
Speaker 11: Central Park, I've never been to New York, but my
Speaker 11: impression of it is it's the best park in the world.
Speaker 11: And there's so many movies and things shot there as well. Right,
Speaker 11: it's an absolute showcase.
Speaker 3: For New Yorkers would be outraged if their park got
Speaker 3: treated the way the Adelaide park lands get treated chipped.
Speaker 11: Away all the time, And I think we should, yeah,
Speaker 11: if we actually had that vision, you know, and it's
Speaker 11: things like putting in the wetlands, or expanding the botanical gardens,
Speaker 11: or creating what could be the most incredible piece of
Speaker 11: open space there is in the world, and that becomes
Speaker 11: an attraction. You have to invest in that over time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're not valued in and of themselves by people
Speaker 3: in power. I'd liked to come back to something that
Speaker 3: I mentioned earlier, which is infrastructure, a particular type of
Speaker 3: infrastructure that we've been promoting. But it isn't our idea.
Speaker 3: And strangely this has the support of Business Essay, Australian
Speaker 3: Hotels Association, the Committee for Adelaide, It's got a support
Speaker 3: across the board. So let me just explain. It's called
Speaker 3: the Adelaide Recreation Circuit and this is the idea of
Speaker 3: one man who's been pushing this for the last few years,
Speaker 3: beating his head against a wall. It's really very simple.
Speaker 3: It's just the idea of linking each park with either
Speaker 3: a tunnel or a bridge under or over every road
Speaker 3: that separates parks. You know, like if you want to
Speaker 3: go from Rhymal Park to King Rodney Park just to
Speaker 3: its south into Victoria Park just to its south, you've
Speaker 3: got to go across Bartell's Road and Wakefield Road. If
Speaker 3: there was a bridge or a tunnel that could take
Speaker 3: you through, then you would. We could. We should have
Speaker 3: a circuit right around the city and or the North
Speaker 3: Adelaide parks as well. And Jason Redman's idea is that
Speaker 3: this should be illuminated so that it's safe and open
Speaker 3: twenty four hours a day for Yeah, and it would be.
Speaker 3: And this idea has got support from walking essay from
Speaker 3: the road Runners Club, from athletics, from bicycle essay from
Speaker 3: the Bicycle from Bike Adelaide. People would come from all
Speaker 3: over the world to participate in events in the only
Speaker 3: city in the world encircled by parklands where you can
Speaker 3: where you can ride or run or walk around the entirety,
Speaker 3: never leaving parklands.
Speaker 11: It's so necessary because I run in the mornings and
Speaker 11: run through through the South Parklands and crossing the roads
Speaker 11: is really disturbing and it's dangerous because you're crossing like six,
Speaker 11: you know, six or five different lanes of traffic and
Speaker 11: there's lights going and everything.
Speaker 3: Just to get from one park to the other, let
Speaker 3: alone around the whole circuit.
Speaker 11: And the ability for you to cross is very difficult.
Speaker 11: So there's very few crossing spaces as well, so that
Speaker 11: connectivity in the way that people move through it is
Speaker 11: also really really difficult.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it would. Jason Redmond, who's done some research on this,
Speaker 3: is trying to get funding for a feasibility study. Yeah, right,
Speaker 3: just to develop a business case. A couple of years
Speaker 3: ago he was quoting the figure of seventy five thousand
Speaker 3: dollars and I don't know why he can't get commitment
Speaker 3: from either side of politics and or the city council.
Speaker 10: One thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: It's not much in the terms of a state government budget. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the former Treasurer Rob Lucas ruled it out, and we're
Speaker 3: hoping that the state labor government might come to the
Speaker 3: party with at least a feasibility study. Jason might be
Speaker 3: a great person to have on your blog to talk
Speaker 3: about this in greater depth because he's done a lot
Speaker 3: of work on it. He seems to think that a
Speaker 3: tunnel is cheaper than a bridge cut and cover because
Speaker 3: you don't have very far to do it. You could
Speaker 3: close the road and open it again within a couple
Speaker 3: of days, and you would need some way to make
Speaker 3: sure that the lighting was good so that nobody felt
Speaker 3: in danger going under a road.
Speaker 10: You could run a whole bunch of different events.
Speaker 3: Circle roughly around the well.
Speaker 11: It depends, will be like an Adelaide marathon, you know, yes,
Speaker 11: and then have a have a run around the.
Speaker 3: Park without having to close any roads.
Speaker 11: That's right and really open that up, involve Adelaide.
Speaker 3: And he's wanting to involve the Garner community and having
Speaker 3: spots on the circuit where the Garner were acknowledged, referenced
Speaker 3: in some way participated. So that's and the idea, you know,
Speaker 3: in terms of helping the parklands, when people can appreciate
Speaker 3: them as one whole, not just as we've got Park
Speaker 3: fifteen here, we've got Part twelve over there, we've got
Speaker 3: Park six over in the north, and you know, they're
Speaker 3: separate parks that get picked off one by one or
Speaker 3: bits in them get picked off one by one. But
Speaker 3: when they're acknowledged as a whole.
Speaker 10: That's a major threat.
Speaker 11: Still unique because for me as a user, I definitely
Speaker 11: see as a southeast and part of the north of
Speaker 11: the parklands. But yeah, having that whole ring route would
Speaker 11: absolutely open up the western side for me.
Speaker 3: Anyway, it's a figure eight wrapping around the North Adelaide
Speaker 3: in a city. Well, I mean you can do a
Speaker 3: loop of the CBD of course it's a circle, or
Speaker 3: you can do a loop of North Adelaide is a circle,
Speaker 3: or you can take the whole figure eight yeah.
Speaker 11: But one an amazing thing if you came to Adelaide
Speaker 11: as a tourist even and you want to experience it,
Speaker 11: you hire one of the bikes, the e bikes even,
Speaker 11: and go for a tour around Adelaide and you'd see
Speaker 11: all of that and you can even have then a trail.
Speaker 10: We've got so much amazing stuff happening.
Speaker 11: You could go and do a trail and stop in
Speaker 11: at the zoo or the Wine Center and that could
Speaker 11: then become a part of that and then have the
Speaker 11: Adelaide Marathon or a matathon.
Speaker 3: A marathon is forty two point two.
Speaker 11: K there you go, so half marathon, yeah, you can
Speaker 11: make it twenty one two loops.
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: There is a Parkland's trail, but it's not very well
Speaker 3: signposted and it requires you to cross.
Speaker 10: A lot of roads for sure, that's right.
Speaker 3: And a couple of train lines too, I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: at least once.
Speaker 11: So just coming back to the restore point as well.
Speaker 11: So what else my view would be that the Aquatic
Speaker 11: Center should go into into Bowden.
Speaker 10: What else? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Sure, Oh well, we we also do a clean uper
Speaker 3: Park Day twice a year, so we do it on
Speaker 3: clean Up Australia day and another day. Well, how long
Speaker 3: have we got to talk Kenry, because you know we've got.
Speaker 10: Dozen we've two minutes.
Speaker 3: Well, there are a lot of buildings that have been
Speaker 3: put on park lands and suggesting that a building should
Speaker 3: be demolished is very controversial.
Speaker 10: But the most got the skate park right on.
Speaker 3: The skate park is almost finished completion in there's a
Speaker 3: skate park on that's been constructed now in Park twenty five,
Speaker 3: but that was We've got a once in a generation
Speaker 3: opportunity with the aquatic center because that is going to
Speaker 3: be demolished. It can't stay and so that's the greatest
Speaker 3: opportunity for restoration at the moment because both the state
Speaker 3: government and the City Council agree that that spot is
Speaker 3: going to be restored to parklands. There are a lot
Speaker 3: of bitchumen places and it's a lot easier to propose
Speaker 3: reinstalling something green in what was bitchumen than it is
Speaker 3: to knock down.
Speaker 10: The street because that's been closed for twelve weeks now.
Speaker 10: No it sins.
Speaker 3: Don't tell Rundel Street traders, but no, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of bitchumen car parks that don't need to be there.
Speaker 3: And I was really really happy to see that cattle tilla.
Speaker 3: The Parklands Authority only a few weeks ago decided that
Speaker 3: when a new sports building is put in Golden Wattle
Speaker 3: Park off Goodwood Road, that there will be no car
Speaker 3: parks associated with that new building in that park. That
Speaker 3: there's plenty of car parking on Goodwood Road or on
Speaker 3: South Terrace for people. But yeah, I can. There's a
Speaker 3: lovely little video that we've got on apps YouTube channel
Speaker 3: Unpaving Paradise that is the name of the video, and
Speaker 3: it goes through and shows you all of the spots
Speaker 3: in the parklands where there are car parks.
Speaker 11: So the last point I'd also like to make, which
Speaker 11: is something that in burnsideom and City councilor there, there's
Speaker 11: been a real pressure to put in and pave a
Speaker 11: large area. And often people who are advocates for open
Speaker 11: green space they're seen as negative or saying no to
Speaker 11: everything and saying no to development. And something you inspired
Speaker 11: me was well, no, you're you're saying yes to keeping,
Speaker 11: you're saying yes to retaining what we have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes the Adelaide Parklands Association is characterized as being
Speaker 3: negative and that's not true because we have said that well, yeah, which.
Speaker 10: Is so not true.
Speaker 11: It's you know, in his environment Minister, and you're there
Speaker 11: saying we love our parklands, let's keep them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're not negative because we value. We have different values.
Speaker 3: We are very very positive about what we value, and
Speaker 3: it's we could easily just turn that around the other
Speaker 3: way and say, if you want to put a big
Speaker 3: building on parklands, then you're being negative about the parklands.
Speaker 11: Exactly right, last point, you have a record, what's it in?
Speaker 11: Because this is incredible.
Speaker 3: We're going for totally changing. We're not talking about parklands.
Speaker 3: We're talking about Shane's Because I am such a determined
Speaker 3: person and I love cycling, and I'm not really fast.
Speaker 3: I have tried racing, and you should veteran cyclist. Master's
Speaker 3: cycling racing is horrific. You know, those people are really
Speaker 3: really fast. So I've got endurance. So I am the
Speaker 3: current world record holder in a rather obscure event called
Speaker 3: everesting ten k, which involves riding your bike up a
Speaker 3: hill repeated times until you've reached more than the height
Speaker 3: of everest, in fact ten thousand meters, hence the ten k.
Speaker 3: That's that's not ten k of distance. That's ten k
Speaker 3: of altitude. So in December last year, I wrote up
Speaker 3: and down Old Wolunga Hill forty one times over twenty
Speaker 3: six hours and exceeded ten thousand meters in altitude. And
Speaker 3: my record is not that I did it or that
Speaker 3: I was the fastest. It's that I'm the oldest person
Speaker 3: in the world to have been stupid enough to do that.
Speaker 3: So the record is sixty five years ten months, which
Speaker 3: was my age when I did it.
Speaker 10: Amazing. Well there you go.
Speaker 11: So thank you so much Shane for coming on my podcasts.
Speaker 11: You're you are an inspiration to me and someone who's
Speaker 11: you know, still fighting for that. You have this absolute determination.
Speaker 11: I think that's showcased at your world record. I'm sure
Speaker 11: you'll do it again someday, maybe in a couple of
Speaker 11: years because you want to.
Speaker 3: Oh there's another world record that I'm after, which is
Speaker 3: held by somebody in Canada, but that's another story.
Speaker 10: Yeah right, well I'll have you back on.
Speaker 11: But like, thank you, thank you so much for your
Speaker 11: passion around about the parklands. That's absolutely inspired me and
Speaker 11: I think so many people, whether they.
Speaker 10: Know it or not, I really do appreciate all the.
Speaker 3: Work that you do, and so many people either do
Speaker 3: love the Parklands or.
Speaker 10: Would if they knew what we had exactly.
Speaker 3: And we would love to welcome them as.
Speaker 10: Members absolutely well.
Speaker 9: Thank you, Seane, Thanks Henry.
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