Demand brownfield building sites instead
If you love your Adelaide Park Lands then please take a moment to protect them from the State Labor Government’s unprecedented series of attacks.
Everyone would like to see the Government construct a new High School, a new Aquatic Centre, and a new Women’s and Children’s Hospital. The SA Police Commissioner is welcoming the chance to construct new barracks for the SAPOL Mounted Unit and we hope that he finds a suitable site for new stables, offices and storerooms.
But the State Government’s threats to put all of these massive new buildings onto your Open Green Public Park Lands must be the subject of a full inquiry.
Can you imagine the outcry in New York City if authorities there decided to locate a high school, an aquatic centre, a hospital, a car park and police barracks within Central Park? It wouldn’t ever be contemplated.
The State Government has powers of compulsory acquisition to purchase any sites it wants for its developments. Why is the Government refusing to choose brownfield sites?
The answer is simple: it’s because the State Government plainly does not love your world-unique Adelaide Park Lands, and sees them as merely vacant land.
It’s time to demand better protection for your Parks. It’s time to demand BROWNFIELD sites for each of these proposed Park attacks. Please urge the State Government to start LOVING your Open Green Public Park Lands.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
UPDATE - 2 November 2022. The Government’s legislation allowing confiscation of your Park Lands for a new Women’s and Children’s Hospital, multi-storey car park AND new Police barracks on your Park Lands was rushed through the Legislative Council on the very first possible day, 1 November, with a minimum of debate and the support of both Labor and SA Best Members.
However the actions below are still important. You can still make a difference. Please take one or more of these actions, urgently, to get the message across.
Write immediately to Members of the Legislative Council (where the Government does not have a majority). Here is a draft of a suggested email to SA Best’s Connie Bonaros, proposing a Select Parliamentary Committee into the Government’s multiple Park Lands attacks. And here is a list of the 22 MLCs with their contact addresses, to whom you could send similar emails.
Write to the Federal Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, who can veto anything that threatens a National Heritage asset. Your Adelaide Park Lands are listed as National Heritage, so Minister Plibersek has a role. Here’s her email address and a suggested email.
Write to the National Park City Foundation in London. When the Foundation named Adelaide a National Park City in 2021, they said that the status would create “higher expectations” for Park Lands Protection. Clearly those expectations have been dashed in 2022, so Adelaide’s status should be at least reviewed, if not revoked. Here’s a suggested email to the National Park City Foundation.
[If the suggested email links above do not work for you, then click here to download a plain text file that you can copy and paste instead.]
If you need any inspiration in drafting your own email, then heed these words from the Member for Adelaide, Lucy Hood:
“If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it's that open, green, space is literally green gold.
“Now is the time for us to stand up for the people whose voices are not necessarily the loudest. That is, our next generation; our children, our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren. Because they will inherit the consequences of the decisions that we make, today.
“Our natural and built heritage is so important. It tells the story of who we were.
“But how we value and protect that heritage speaks volumes about who we want to be.”
- Lucy Hood, 17 October 2021
Lucy Hood, Member for Adelaide, now supporting all of the State Government’s current attacks on your Park Lands.