by Shane Sody

Despite being confronted by a sceptical crowd before Easter, it appears that Premier, Peter Malinauskas has not yet learned to Love Your Park Lands.

The Premier attended a public meeting on 1 April at the Piccadilly cinema in North Adelaide, where he was confronted with dozens of questions about his Government's multiple attacks on your Park Lands.

When asked why his Government had authorised six attacks on your Park Lands in the past 12 months, (see the list below) the Premier's responses centred on defending himself, rather than defending your Park Lands.

The State Government is purchasing 524 properties to upgrade South Road, but so far it has refused to purchase even a single brownfield property for any of the infrastructure that it wants to build, without your consent, on your Park Lands.

When asked why the Government would not put new Government infrastructure on brownfield sites such as at Wayville or the Keswick army barracks, the Premier's response was that these sites were being considered for "more affordable housing".

Most politicians probably spend more time listening to developers than to people who Love Your Park Lands. Mr Malinauskas would certainly have been lobbied by developers who would be keen to snap up any near-city brownfield sites for new, multi-million dollar housing developments.

And the Premier confirmed on Saturday 1 April that his Government wanted to oblige these developers with near-city brownfield building sites.

Television news coverage on Saturday 1 April (by ABC-TV, Channel 9 and Channel 7) focussed on both the Premier’s appearance at North Adelaide, and the later “Rally to Save Mirnu Wirra”

Despite a huge show of support for your Park Lands at Golden Wattle Park / Mirnu Wirra (Park 21 West) on Saturday 1 April, there is no sign, yet, that Mr Malinauskas or his Government are backing away from any of their Park attacks.

Indeed, at the North Adelaide meeting on Saturday 1 April the Premier explicitly threatened yet another Park Lands attack, forecasting a future expansion of the Royal Adelaide Hospital onto an adjacent two-hectare garden in your Park 27.

Clearly, he needs more encouragement to Love Your Park Lands. Will you help to persuade him?

What Can You Do?

• Write directly to the Premier. Here is a draft of a suggested email.

• Write to Members of the Legislative Council (where the Government does not have a majority). Here is a draft of a suggested email to Nicola Centofanti, the Opposition leader in the Legislative Council, suggesting a 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 place. Your Adelaide Park Lands are listed as National Heritage, so Minister Plibersek has a role. Here’s her email address and a suggested email.

  A letter, that was sent to Minister Plibersek on 5 April 2023, was jointly authorised by Trees for Life, the Adelaide Park Lands Association, the Nature Conservation Society, the Conservation Council of SA and the Butterfly Conservation Society. Read the letter here. (PDF, 2 pages, 239 kb).

• 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, 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.]

In relation to the single proposed attack on Golden Wattle Park / Mirnu Wirra (Park 21W) from the proposed Police Barracks and Stables there are some site-specific actions you can take:

• Sign the petition to the House of Assembly being organised by Unley City Councillor Chris Crabbe

• Write to the Police Minister Joe Szakacs: MinisterSzakacs@sa.gov.au

• Write to the Police Commissioner, Grant Stevens. He does not publicise his email address, so to contact him, you will need to use snail mail: Mr Grant Stevens, Commissioner of Police, GPO Box 1539, Adelaide SA 5001

• If you want to be involved in “direct action” then contact Charlotte Nitschke at Conservation SA: charlotte.nitschke@conservationsa.org.au

Encouraging the Premier

The Premier is getting “encouragement” to Love Your Park Lands from former Labor Attorney-General in the Bannon and Arnold Labor Government, Chris Sumner. Mr Sumner has told InDaily:

“…the Malinauskas Government is in flagrant breach of promises it made over Park Lands and heritage.  The campaign to win Adelaide and promises made were all about garnering votes around these issues and ensure Lucy Hood won the seat. Since the Dunstan Government in the 1970s Labor has had a policy of trying to reduce encroachments on open space Park Lands. The destruction of Mirnu Wirra, Golden Wattle Park 21W will be the most egregious attack on Park Lands used for open space recreation and nature conservation in decades.  The Police barracks and horses should be located off the Park Lands.”

Indigenous encouragement, too

The State Labor Government is proud of establishing an Indigenous Voice to the South Australian Parliament.

Yet one of Adelaide’s most prominent Kaurna elders, Jeffrey Newchurch is among the many calling for a re-think on the Government’s Park Lands attacks:

“I’ve always thought that Park Lands are unique. Park Lands are where we as a community, you know, Aboriginal. non-Aboriginal can enjoy those places. …. just the nature, the biodiversity, to take that away from us: stunned, dismayed.”

Six Attacks in a Year

This is the Park Lands record of the Malinauskas Labor Government in its first year of office:

Smokescreens

The Premier and his Ministers try to deflect criticism with spurious claims that they will “restore” other sites to your Park Lands. These promises are smokescreens, designed to obscure the very obvious fact that new buildings, infrastructure, and high fences all effectively reduce the area of your Open Green Public Park Lands.

Neither the Premier nor his Ministers will respond to calls to purchase alternative brownfield sites.

Any Government promise to “restore” any part of your Park Lands would be, at best, an offer to release Park Land that is held hostage. Yes, there are sites within your Park Lands that could be made more accessible, if fences were to be torn down, or were better landscaped. But there is no excuse for holding any site to ransom, pending permanent Park Lands destruction by new Government infrastructure.

Read more about each of the Government’s Park Lands attacks:

• Botanic High School extension

• New Aquatic Centre

• Women’s and Children’s Hospital

• WCH car park

• Police Mounted Unit operations