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