ROSEMARY MCKENZIE-FERGUSON: I am once more left to wonder just when the interest in the farce that WorkCover has become will turn to the impact that this is having on the injured workers of South Australia (How to fix ‘buggered’ WorkCover?, InDaily, 23 October 2013).
It is all well and good having Angus Redford tell us that he predicted almost a decade back that the WorkCover system would implode, and with the greatest respect to John Walsh we all know that the WorkCover system is top heavy, self-indulgent and unwilling to listen to anyone who doesn’t sing the same praise as WorkCover has heaped upon itself.
My phone is running hot with injured workers terrified of what is being reported, terrified that they will be turfed out with nowhere to go and no one to tell them what is going on. Employers are wanting to know what black hole their levy money is going into. And still the only voices being heard have nothing to offer in the way of hope for what has to be done.
What is needed apart from anything else is for Minister Rau to send an urgent letter to every injured worker in South Australia assuring them that they will be protected regardless of what needs to happen to resolve all the issues facing WorkCover, then Minister Rau needs to direct the current CEO of WorkCover South Australia to re-commence the Stakeholder meetings as a matter of utmost urgency, because the intelligence that is required to rebuild/rescue the WorkCover system is within the Stakeholders of the workers compensation system not within the hollow halls of senior management.
Enough is enough. I do not want to stand by another graveside of an injured worker who has taken his/her life due to the debacle of the South Australian WorkCover system.
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MICHAEL ZERMAN: As the state election approaches, all manner of aspirants are trotting out their “special case pleadings” in the hope of garnering some electoral attention before March 2014.
The latest pair of applicants offering up their “solutions” to the RAH East site are the Art Gallery of SA and the University of Adelaide. (Bringing culture to the old RAH site, InDaily, 22 October 2013).
A bit of background. The luvvies in the arts and culture community are always in the financial thrall of their political masters, while the parliamentarians they are supplicant to just “lurv” hanging around artistes and getting their totally adoring attention at openings and events. But this time around the RAH is a problem, I suggest, for both the “loved” parliamentarians and their adoring luvvies.
The two major party candidates for the state seat of Adelaide (Liberal and Labor) have expressed a shared position to seek the site for a redeveloped Adelaide High School. And if these two, and their respective parties, maintain their support for the Adelaide High solution on North Terrace, it’ll be hard for any other special interest group to get a look in. So let’s just say straight up, the RAH East site should not be “delivered on a platter” for a high school.
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Next, the Art Gallery and its special pleadings – I place these under the banner of “more is never enough”. As a supporter and member of the AGSA, I simply say if you want to show your whole collection, which no gallery in the world ever expects to do, go to your benefactors, raise the finance and build a special venue somewhere else in the city. As the Guggenheim did in Bilbao.
Ahh, the University of Adelaide. It’s talking arts and culture here, when the topics of innovation, entrepreneurialism and internationalism would much better serve the university’s long-term interest.
While the author Mateo has concerns about “demonstrating economic viability”, if his focus wasn’t solely on “the arts and culture”, economic development in the service of the state might get a look in.
The gig to be explored, if I may make my pitch, is for an innovation centre, a science park and an incubator to be developed on the old RAH site, with enterprise support (IBM, Microsoft, HP or an international telecomms major), private sector investment in the development and venture capital sensibilities. That is, a project designed to look outwardly to the international world of science, business, innovation and technology, obviously with a creative edge, rather than an inwardly-focussed obsession with “culture and order on North Terrace”.
The universities may well be partners in this innovation precinct on the RAH East site, but public sector involvement in the redevelopment should be kept to a minimum.
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