by Shane Sody

The Labor and Liberal parties have combined in the Upper House of State Parliament to torpedo a law that would have given protection to your Open Green Public Adelaide Park Lands.

On Wednesday 17 November, State Parliament's Legislative Council (upper house) debated a Park Lands amendment Bill, introduced by Robert Simms of the Greens.

The Bill, if it had been passed into law, would have prevented any re-zoning of Park Lands without the approval of both Houses of Parliament. If passed, this would have put a brake, not only on the current re-zoning plans, but also on any similar re-zoning moves by any State Government in future.

Labor frontbencher Claire Scriven told parliament that the law could prevent or delay moves by any Government to take more Park Lands for "public assets" such as schools, hospitals or biomedical buildings. "It could derail investments in good public policy" Ms Scriven said.

Treasurer Rob Lucas described the Greens proposal as "evilness" and that it was "likely to impact detrimentally on the ability for planning policy in South Australia to remain contemporary."

Both Labor and Liberal were concerned not to put an obstacle (i.e. a future Parliamentary debate) in the way of development on Park Lands, including the proposed new Women's and Children's Hospital, planned for Park 27.

Mr Lucas also wanted to avoid putting a Parliamentary debate in the way of City Council ambitions for a new Aquatic Centre on Denise Norton Park / Pardinparidnyilla (Park 2) or a new golf course function centre in Possum Park / Pirltawardli (Park 1).

In short, neither of the major parties appreciated the need to protect your world-unique Adelaide Park Lands from continual erosion. Both Liberal and Labor resisted this rare attempt to put a Parliamentary check on future Park Lands losses.

Neither the Liberal nor Labor parties offered to move any amendments to the Bill and so it was defeated: 17 votes to four.

The only voices in support were the Greens (Rob Simms and Tammy Franks) and SA Best (Frank Pangallo and Connie Bonaros)

After the vote Mr Simms said:

“Giving the Liberals the right to rezone the Park Lands is like giving Count Dracula the keys to the blood bank. Our Park Lands shouldn’t be something developers can sink their teeth into.

“Labor should be defending our public space not enabling its commercialisation. Labor must now explain why they opposed this bill and what they have in mind for the Park Lands should they be elected to Government.”

Where does SA Labor stand?

Labor has promised to oppose development of a new stadium on Helen Mayo Park. Its policy is that "a Malinauskas Labor Government will not build permanent structures on Pinky Flat, Helen Mayo Park, Elder Park, or on the River itself.“

However, Labor has not ruled out developments on these sites by other, private developers nor by the City Council. Labor has NOT offered to rescind or reverse any re-zoning of Park Lands by the Liberal State Government.

Further reading

See author John Bridgland’s November 2021 analysis (PDF, 17Mb, 8 pages) of how the political parties and the City Council’s dominant faction are obscuring the real issue, of the loss of Park Lands