Your Views: Letters to the editor
This week, InDaily readers chime in on the Lord Mayor’s strongly worded response to Bruce Djite’s opinion piece on the Adelaide City Council.
Responding to Get real, Bruce: City of Adelaide fable is ‘pure hubris’
Well said, Lord Mayor. – Dr Jan-Claire Wisdom, Mayor of Adelaide Hills Council
It is time for a serious review of the Property Council and its undue influence on our City.
For decades, this unelected, unaccountable body (and its predecessor, BOMA) has worked tirelessly to deliver benefits to private owners and corporations by privatising public assets. Their campaign to turn Adelaide’s park lands over to private interests has been a disgrace. Without the opposition of democratically elected councillors and parliamentarians, they would have turned hectares of groves and gardens into a privately operated wasteland.
Can anyone name a single benefit the Property Council has ever conferred on South Australia? I can’t. Yet their push to destroy a once-great planning system rolls on. – Norman Etherington
For years, one observes the Adelaide City Council receiving a bucketing. Too long, those frequently visiting the city fail to appreciate the Council checks and balances that have led to our progressive urban environment.. The political control grab for the North Adelaide golf course will be played out at the next election. Unfortunately, those South Australians who frequently visit and shop in the urban area do not get a say. However, their disappointment in a popular State Government does not have to be reflected only in that Council’s area. – Jonathan Harry
Well said, Jane Lomax-Smith. Adelaide is a beautiful city – something that visitors note consistently. If we crowd out beauty with short-term, quick-buck thinking, we will lose long-term alternative opportunities that can provide for Adelaideans of the future.
And we create unbeautiful, unhappy places that sap our souls. Money can buy beautiful coffins, but really, isn’t that a foolish waste of living? – Janette Young
Bravo. It is time commonsense prevailed. A reasoned and intelligent insight that is focused on building a better and engaged community. – John Richardson
When I read this self-serving piece from the Property Council, I thought it was 1980. It’s back that far that the self-interested so-called Property Council has been winging and whining about the Adelaide City Council’s management and protection of the Adelaide park lands.
If the Adelaide City Council had not been doing a good job of protecting this public asset, the Property Council would have had the park lands developed already, and there would be little open space park lands left.
The Property Council should come clean and admit that they see the parklands as a land bank. – Peter Duncan
This opinion piece, by Bruce Djite, functions less as a dispassionate policy critique and more as a rhetorical battering ram aimed at delegitimising the Adelaide City Council and removing local democratic obstacles to private development. A reasoned review of the argument readily exposes its underlying assumptions, ideological leanings, selective evidence, and political implications. – Stewart Sweeney
Responding to Long awaited e-scooter street date confirmed
This is the most stupid decision. The riders are just hoons and lazy people who should be walking.
I am elderly and have already had an accident with an e-bike rider who knocked me over did not stop. I have no idea who he was or is.
This happened on the Esplanade at Grange. Who is going to pay the medical costs? Who is going to cook for me? Who is going to clean for me? Who is going to take me out? Dress my wounds? And then give me the courage to go out again?
Ride them on the road, or forget it. – Virginia Magerl
Dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. These e-scooters are dangerous, so who do I claim if they hit the side of my car while cutting through?! It’s bad enough with cyclists riding 2-3 abreast. Yes, there are bike lanes, but they are mostly used by parked cars. – Margaret Galbraith
I’m agnostic with regards to e-scooters, and I doubt the new rules will make much difference. People who are breaking the law now with overpowered devices and unregistered electric motorbikes will continue to do so after the new rules come in.
But this is a great opportunity for the government to get serious about separate infrastructure where bikes and scooters are separated from pedestrians and cars. – Jon Holbrook, Henley Beach South
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I believe these new rules about e-scooters are simply the worst piece of legislation this SA Government has passed.
It is going to further congest our roads and footpaths, putting users and the public in danger of injury and litigation when an accident occurs. Particularly for those users of footpaths, where speeding e-scooters have already accounted for elderly pedestrians being hit and injured.
Where is the training for these e-scooter users? You cannot ride a motorbike or drive a vehicle without going through the appropriate levels of learning/training to receive a state licence to use our roads.
This is a very concerning move just to possibly appease the minority and to believe it is part of a modern society move. – Neil Bird
Responding to Santos opens its books to suitor
Yet another foreign energy company is buying a share in Australia’s golden gas goose. Take whatever you want, and we won’t even make you pay for it. – Andrew, Prospect
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Responding to Why has it taken so long for authorities to take Housing Trust concerns seriously?
My life and I also live next door to a Housing SA block of units in Dover Gardens, and we can attest to the continual deterioration of the neighbours’ sense of living in a community.
I have lost tenants from this property (a young family with small children) primarily due to the anti-social behaviour of drunken/drugged/ignorant /loud/angry Housing SA tenants.
Fences bashed and smashed, graffiti sprayed (on my property as well), rubbish and general disregard for the neighbouring properties and their fellow tenants.
A few years ago, I took this continual anti-social behaviour issue to Housing SA, and one of their arguments was that I needed to understand where some of their tenants came from!
I was flabbergasted, and let them know that I don’t care where they come from. I just want them to be quieter, have respect for the existing members of the neighbourhood, and be normal type neighbours, so I or my tenants don’t have to have the police number on speed dial.
The bottom line is Housing SA needs to apply a more rigorous review of each tenant before they are selected for a neighbouring property to a private residential property, and apply a zero tolerance to anti-social behaviour, with eviction.
This block of units has now had a fire episode in a middle block. I am just thankful it was not in a direct neighbouring block, but how long before this occurs?
The place is starting to become a ghetto.
Do something, Housing SA. – Bruce Holland, Dover Gardens
Responding to Tourist tax on the cards for golf course
Since 1837, Colonel William Light’s vision has been clear: the Adelaide Parklands are for the enduring enjoyment of Adelaide’s people, not for short-term commercial gain. Today, that vision is under threat from plans to alter the Adelaide Golf Course for the benefit of LIV Golf, a fleeting event that sacrifices our park lands for the privileged few.
We must heed the lesson of the Franklin River in the 1980s: it was only through strong yet peaceful public outcry and the decisive intervention of Bob Hawke, who secured World Heritage status for the area, that the Franklin River was protected from destruction. This ensured that a precious natural treasure would never be lost.
We must now do the same for our park lands. Let’s raise our voices, demand transparency, and push for World Heritage Listing to ensure that these parklands remain a legacy for Adelaide’s people forever. -Elizabeth Evatt, North Adelaide
