Champion channels Haussmann

At a lavish lunch hosted by Pitcher Partners at SkyCity on Wednesday, the Minister for Housing Nick Champion dished out quite a spray.

It’s the second time he’s let it rip only to say afterwards: “I hope there’s no journalists in the room”.

Oh Champs… When will you learn that InSider is always listening? After all, we love a bougie lunch.

After a panel discussion on South Australia’s development growth featuring State Planning Commission chair Craig Holden, Infrastructure SA chief executive Jeremy Conway and InSider favourite Lord Mayor of Adelaide Dr Jane Lomax-Smith, moderator Jess Adamson opened to questions from the floor.

Champion was hit with a spinner from Junction CEO Maria Palumbo, who said she just got back from a European vacay and noted how beautiful the cities were – nothing above seven floors, she noted.

“It made me think that towers are soulless,” she said.

“When you go too high, you can’t get the kind of community that you can get at seven.”

Finding an opportunity to flex his historical nous, Champion didn’t hold back on Palumbo.

“Everyone comes back and says ‘why can’t we be like Paris? Let’s have a maximum of seven stories’. And I respond always with this: ‘Fine, as long as I can be Haussmann to Napoleon’,” he said.

For the uneducated, Georges-Eugène Haussmann carried out the major urban renewal program in Paris for Napoleon III – basically razing what was there to make way for the gorgeous, low-rise city you see today.

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“The reason why it’s all seven stories is they destroyed everything. They flattened the place. And the reason why you’ve got big, long boulevards is so that they can shoot protestors!” he said.

“So that’s what you’re asking me to do.

“And the other thing, go to Paris, get on the train and go out to Antony; don’t just stick around in the little inner-city bit, get on a train, go to some of the working class and get a real taste of Paris.”

Ouch.

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Dealing for Deputy

This week, the Adelaide City Council was supposed to take a vote to fill the Deputy Lord Mayor (DLM) position. But is anything ever that simple for this council?

North ward councillor Phillip Martin currently holds the coveted DLM role, but was only meant to be a seat filler until the recent supplementary election filled the four empty chairs at Town Hall.

The gruelling debate on how to best replace Martin took about 50 minutes – we’d link you to the YouTube stream, but no one should have to sit through that. But lucky for you, InSider did.

Basically, Martin’s going to keep the job until September 23, when they’ll try and take the vote again. At that meeting, the Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith will be lobbying for COP31 in New York, so the DLM should be on deck in her absence.

But to get that decision, there was a string of alterations, caveats and amendments, and a speech from Lomax-Smith.

Earlier in the week, rumours started swirling, councillors started courting each other, and unexpected allies formed to back one another for the DLM job.

Councillor Keiran Snape threw his hat in the ring for a second shot at DLM, having held the position back in 2023.

But this stirred the pot, given Snape is running as an independent in the seat of Adelaide in the next election, which Lord Mayor Dr Jane Lomax-Smith said is “unwise”.

“City council positions such as the DLM role must be politically impartial, especially during the run-up to a state election,” she told the meeting on Tuesday.

She was interrupted by Councillor Henry Davis – also running in the state election, but with Sarah Game’s Fair Go party – who said it was “wholly inappropriate” for Lomax-Smith to “lecture” the chamber on who to vote for.

Not to be confused for mates, Davis made it clear Snape “holds no special place in my heart” but it seems the age-old adage of the enemy of my enemy is my friend is one that continues to unite councillors.

Snape said he’s capable of the job, and “all across the state, candidates are able to successfully fulfil their roles while campaigning”.

So we’ll have to wait and see if Snape gets his chance again later this month, or if consensus is with the Lord Mayor.

Newly reelected councillor Carmel Noon asked for the vote to be deferred so as many of the new councillors as possible could take part in the vote rather than being thrown into it in their first official meeting.

Of the four newly elected councillors, only Noon and Patrick Maher were present on Tuesday, with Eleanor Freeman having a prior commitment and Alfredo Cabada currently on leave. Cabada has also not yet been sworn in as a councillor.

But Noon’s extension date would have been when Cabada is still on leave, something Mary Couros said wasn’t fair, and debate ensued. Couros later left the meeting early, essentially saying she was sick of the “factional alliances”.

Despite the outcome, we must wonder, given the attendance records across councillors this term, and the worst flu season on record, is there ever any guarantee that all members will make it to Town Hall on a Tuesday?

Even as strong a soldier as InSider is losing the will to show up.

IG moments state-wide: ruined

Spring has arrived with a strawberry in its mouth. InSider couldn’t be happier!

We were just about to break into the InDaily company car to drive to a nearby canola field to get some gorgeous photos for our Instagram, then WHOMP: A threatening media release lands in our inbox!

DO NOT ENTER, it read, FLOWERING CANOLA CROPS OUT OF BOUNDS!

There goes our weekend plans! InSider was going to do a face reveal, but now that’s ruined…

­Grain Producers SA is warning tourists and sightseers to avoid entering canola crops to get the perfect IG dump this spring.

They said there have been reports of people jumping fences into flourishing crops in the Barossa and near Gawler over the weekend.

“While drought has reduced the area planted to canola across South Australia this year, many crops that were sown are flowering or starting to, with the familiar bright yellow bloom expected to spread across the landscape further in the coming weeks,” GPSA said.

“These fields have become a popular backdrop for social media photos in recent years, but Grain Producers SA (GPSA) is reminding the public that they are working farms, not tourist attractions, and that biosecurity risks are real and can have widespread impacts on grain producer properties.”

Photos in front of the fence are fine though, GPSA CEO Brad Perry said.

“Jumping the fence for a photo might seem harmless, but it can cause crop damage and create biosecurity risks by spreading pests, diseases or weed seeds between paddocks. It can also put people in harm’s way around heavy machinery or on uneven ground,” he said.