Spot The Strokes | Turbine Tom | Gouger Street’s panda problem | Adelaide’s great skyscraper debate
This week, InSider hears about Gouger Street’s panda problem, spots a Harvest Rock Headliner and updates the playbook of a state pollie’s nickname.
Spot The Strokes
InSider can reveal The Strokes (may) have been seen wandering around the CBD Last Nite and this morning, with nearby residents and restaurant owners catching a glimpse of the high-profile rock band.
In The Modern Age, there is an abundance of eateries on Pirie Street, and it seemed the New York rock legends were indecisive in their choice of lunch, perusing several menus ahead of their headline gig at Harvest Rock tomorrow night.
Tomorrow’s Harvest Rock will be Under Cover of Darkness, with heavy rain and thunderstorms expected to drench the more than 28,000 festival goers.
This year’s stacked festival lineup is expected to attract the largest audience to date and to add to the combined $34.5 million generated for the state economy in the first two years of Harvest Rock.
It remains unclear where The Strokes settled on for lunch and hopefully Someday a decision will be made…
Pandamonium: Gouger Street’s ‘dangerous’ panda problem
This week, the town hall lineup included not one but two city street upgrades and a speed limit change, so InSider knew we’d have plenty of column fodder.
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As we braced ourselves for an influx of letters from cyclists who can’t decide if they love or hate InDaily, the Lord Mayor brought attention to a lesser-acknowledged city problem.
Anyone who’s walked down Gouger Street on a Saturday night would be familiar with the menacing whizz of an e-bike food deliverer bypassing pedestrians, leaving nothing but a blur of yellow in its wake.
“There’s an absolute plethora of hungry pandas who are ill-disciplined, disrespectful and extremely dangerous, and they are whizzing up and down every footpath and every Street,” Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith said.
The total tally of Hungry Panda mentions in the evening was three (with zero clarification that they were in fact referring to the delivery service and not literal pandas plaguing the street).
Turbo or Turbine, the nicknames just keep rolling in
Pollies love to invent nicknames for their political foes but one of the latest Liberal creations may be testing the knowledge of our younger media brethren.
Opposition MPs dubbed Treasurer and former Mines and Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis “Turbine Tom” in a recent press release as they criticised the cost to taxpayers of the shelved hydrogen plan.
“Turbine Tom is trying to use tricky language to create an illusion that this money will be recovered but so far there are no iron-clad guarantees,” the Opposition trumpeted over claims money will be clawed back through the sale of associated turbines.
It was way back in 2009 when Koutsantonis’s political enemies dubbed him “Turbo Tom” after he fessed up to a string of lead-footed traffic offences.
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The then Road Safety Minister resigned from his portfolio and moved on – but it seems there is no escaping the annoying nickname, and its latest iteration is likely to rankle.
The battle of Adelaide’s first two skyscrapers
On a sunny morning last Thursday, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas attended a sod-turning ceremony for what he said was Adelaide’s “first skyscraper” on North Terrace.
“This is a visionary endeavour. Our first skyscraper, a huge building that will stand out because the architectural design is spectacular, and I can really begin to imagine what it’s going to look like when it’s completed, particularly when we see 300 keys added to Adelaide’s hotel stock at the premium end,” Malinauskas said.
Officially dubbed Keystone Tower, the 37-storey, 183-metre building is scheduled for completion at the rear of the city’s Freemason’s Grand Lodge in 2027 and will feature a luxury hotel, office space, a function area and an observatory with “unrivalled 260 degree views of Adelaide and beyond”.
So, you can understand InSider’s bemusement when we heard the Premier, just a few months ago, refer to the controversial Festival Plaza Tower 2 as … “Adelaide’s first ever skyscraper”.
Announcing the approval of the project on social media, Malinauskas said, the tower will “transform Adelaide for the better”.
“And will be demonstrative of Adelaide’s rise as a truly global city,” he said.
InSider, being the renowned investigative reporter it is, had to clear up the confusion.
When InSider reached out for comment from Walker Corporation – the developer behind the Festival Tower – a spokesperson politely declined to comment.
Senior Freemason and Keystone developer, Adelaide City Councillor Henry Davis was adamant that Keystone Tower would be Adelaide’s first skyscraper.
“We built the tallest building in 1927, and we will do it again,” he said.
“Keystone was approved more than a year ago. We have already turned the sod, the premier is ecstatic, we have closed our early works #2 tender process, so we are now lining up the basement construction. Festival Tower was approved only a few months ago, and as far as we know, they are still getting out of the starting blocks.
Davis said the race is now on to the top of the Adelaide skyline.
“We welcome the competition. A growing skyline means a growing city with more opportunities for all. Festival Tower will reach about 160 metres, and it will be a great addition to Adelaide. So, who will reach 150m first? Challenge accepted. If they beat us to completion, the first round of champagne is on us.”
