Commenting on the opinion piece: Richardson: Marshall’s medium distorts the message

He is the democratically elected leader of the state. He should be at the table and should be at its head. If you don’t like it, vote him out. – Tony Britten-Jones

For several weeks I have watched Steve Marshall’s daily Covid updates for SA. It is notable that Nicola Spurrier rarely makes an appearance and that the Premier constantly spruiks the achievements of his government amongst the essential information about Covid stats etc that I want to hear about.

I’m tired of his political campaigning during these updates. He has lost my support as a long term Liberal supporter. The Premier should allow Professor Spurier to facilitate the daily updates so we can hear the truth and the important information we need to hear without the other “how wonderful we are” discourse. Is he so far removed from reality that he believes we can’t see what he is really doing? – Mike Williams

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Commenting on the story: Half of Rundle Mall management budget spent on office, salaries

As a former chair of the RMMA and an initial board member for eight years, I find it difficult to understand the point of this article.

It may be to give aggrieved traders (or landlords) who don’t want to pay the levy, a forum to complain. Of course they would rather not pay if they could get the promotion and management of the precinct for free but that hardly seems practical.

The article may be to point out increases in security and cleaning costs which, in these days of COVID, should be obvious to anyone. It may be to suggest that spending half the money raised through the levy on salaries and an office is somehow inefficient or offensive. I’m not sure how anyone would expect the office to perform the role without appropriate funding. The funds used to (and I assume still does) include salaries of precinct security, day to day management of casual Mall traders, promotions and advertising, cleaning staff, events management and overall precinct development.

Expecting it to perform its role without appropriate staffing defies logic. It is the role of the RMMA also to communicate with the landlords and traders and perhaps their lack of knowledge is because they haven’t attended functions designed to inform of what is occurring. At the start in 2008 (from memory) our remit was to be an advocate for the traders and landlords with council and state government, clean the place up, keep it secure, reinvigorate it with a total makeover and attract new traders and more people back to the Mall. Also get city workers to spend more time in the Mall.

Look at the outcomes:

• Visitations were turned around from a steady yearly decline for the first time in over 25 years.
• Council funded a major overhaul of the precinct under the astute leadership of Theo Maras, costing in excess of $30m.
• Council was convinced to not increase the levy rate in the dollar so that the levy stabilised rather than increased every year.
• The state government at the time was successfully lobbied to allow the Rundle Mall precinct to trade on public holidays as an advantage to traders in the precinct.
• The Mall has maintained it’s position as the highest visitation tourist precinct in SA.
• Security ensured that night time and weekend trading was safe for all.
• Major events such as the Vogue fashion parade attracted new visitors to the Mall.
• H&M, Apple and other international retailers were attracted to the precinct by the RMMA, adding to the diversity and attractiveness

It would be fair to say that the RMMA’s greatest failing was being unable to convince the Council to reduce parking fees in the precinct. This is the albatross for the precinct and will require considerable courage to address but should not be left out of the debate.

All in all, the article could have been more balanced and less structured around controversy. Hopefully, the above details might add the balance needed. – Eric Granger