Your Views: Letters to the Editor on Hollywood cutting SA from film schedules
And this week, InDaily readers also have their say on calls to extend the hours of a free city bus service.
Responding to SA cleans up at national film awards, so why is Hollywood giving our state the flick?
Your article on South Australia’s limited share of national film production struck a nerve, because I foresaw this problem more than two decades ago.
At a film premiere in 2002, I confronted then Premier Mike Rann, and we had a passionate exchange about the proposed size and ambition of the studio facilities.
At the time, I was invited by the Economic Development Board to help prescribe what kind of facility would be the most conducive to filmmaking.
That advice was not taken.
The result: we’ve ended up with a white elephant when it comes to international-scale productions that can seriously drive our state economy.
In a conversation with the Lord Mayor, some time ago, it was indicated that we were “lucky to get what we got”.
I also refer to Labor’s campaign against the so-called “Basketball Court” proposed by Steven Marshall at the last election. The vision was a 15,000-seat, multipurpose arena for sport, entertainment and large international conventions.
How could we have facilitated COP31?
Local film production has a value-add multiplier of 1.87, international film-making in the UK has a multiplier of 2.5, and our local conferences are at just over 1.5.
Twice, Labor has pursued what is politically achievable rather than what is commercially necessary.
South Australia needs to stop treating world-class infrastructure that pays for itself many times over as optional, but rather as an essential economic policy.
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Opportunity is right in front of us: invest in scale, and the multiplier does the rest.
If we build it, they will come. – Philip Hopkins
Responding to ‘A disgrace’: No action on key mental health report more than two years on
The Malinauskas government, and Health Minister Chris Picton, have dodged the issue of unmet needs since Peter Malinauskas was the Health Minister in the dying days of the Weatherill government in 2018, and the report prepared while Picton was minister was only reluctantly released in July 2023. Since then, I met with Picton on several occasions, as the then President of the Mental Health Coalition of SA, and was consistently underwhelmed with his response to the critical issue.
It is not honest to point to other things that are being funded, which may be worthy, but do not address the clear unmet needs, as if that solves the problem.
The unmet needs in this report are for the services that keep people well in their community; they are provided by a range of non-government organisations that employ highly skilled people to support people in their community. Done well, this support reduces hospital and emergency department visits and reduces ramping and bed blocking – and it is a damned sight cheaper than waiting until people become critically unwell and providing emergency support.
It makes good financial sense, it goes a long way toward meeting our human rights responsibilities, and it is a relatively easy fix. SA could lead the way and solve this critical issue now – but the minister needs to stop kicking the can down the road, hoping someone else takes a lead. – former Mental Health Coalition SA president Paul Creedon
Responding to Fresh calls for ‘unreliable’ free city bus service hours to be extended
While it’s great to see such enthusiasm among the community and local government to improve the free City Connector service, I can’t help but think we also need to improve the level of public transport budget spend in outer metropolitan areas.
Having lived a lot of my life in outer suburban and peri-urban areas, I’ve seen firsthand that families living in these areas are financially stretched through the necessity of multiple car ownership, given the absence of adequate public transport in these areas.
This dependence on cars then ingrains the norm into future generations of using a car for any and every journey, which continues to perpetuate the problem.
Investment is needed for improved public transport in the outer metropolitan areas; however, weekend bus services urgently need to be established in areas where they simply don’t exist at present, such as Riverlea Park, Angle Vale, McLaren Flat, Uraidla, the Onkaparinga Valley, Meadows and Strathalbyn. This would be a game-changer for residents in these areas and would no doubt lead to some mode shift from private to public transport. – Joel Taggart
Responding to ‘Eyes on the Aussie Open’: SA premier wants more golf
The people of Adelaide are experiencing another heatwave. While you might be sitting in an air-conditioned office, this weather affects many people, wildlife and vegetation. Cutting down 585 trees for the LIV Golf tournament increases these deadly heat waves. Trees that have taken centuries to grow cannot be replaced by three seedlings.
Please leave the LIV Golf tournament at West Beach. If you want a new one, build it on an area that has no trees and start from scratch. The trees in North Adelaide are priceless; they are essential to us surviving climate change. Please don’t take them away – our lives depend on it. – Angela Swan
There is a reason why all the good courses are built near the coast (sand belt).
The North Adelaide soil profile will not hold up to the increased traffic nor allow for the conditioning required for the Australian Open. – Thomas Twelftree
Responding to Opinion: Don’t let rising nationalism stifle SA population growth
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The Committee for Adelaide is an industry group that correctly expresses its members’ views. Members’ profitability is helped by population growth as the market expands. However, a focus on a higher population does not benefit the wider South Australian community.
Australia’s population growth rates are the highest in the OECD. Since 2000, Australia has added 5.4 million by direct immigration (net overseas migration = NOM) and 3.4 million via births less deaths. Surplus of births over deaths can be firmly recognised as babies born to mothers who were born overseas, since 40.7 per cent of women aged 20 to 44 were born overseas.
In the last three years, Australia averaged over 400,000 NOM per year. The long-term average during 1950-2002 was only 80,000. We should move to this lower number, with a focus on migrants skilled in professions in short supply. We should also meet our international obligations to refugees. Slowly, we will see housing become more affordable as builders catch up with years of excess demand. State spending on infrastructure will return to sensible levels.
Unlike other countries in the developed world, our economic growth is fuelled by migration. However, 25 years of mass migration have delivered everyday Australians a sharp deterioration in living standards and housing affordability.
These comments show a concern for the average South Australian. A concern for our numbers, not nationalism. – Stephen Morris
Responding to Labor pledges new mental health units alongside SA emergency depts
Not before time! Remember when we had a large mental health facility in Parkside, which should have remained open, not torn down and resold as land for houses, but kept as the state’s primary mental health facility. – Richard Bentley
Responding to Relentless pursuit of votes: the Ashton Hurn campaign story
We’re far past the tipping point of trying to address climate change, and Ashton Hurn’s policy is to scrap net zero and “plant more trees”?
The Liberal Party well and truly deserve the electoral wipe-out they’re projected to face in March. – Matt Kilgariff
Responding to Health fears for kids at KI school battling thousands of birds
This is just horrible. What the school needs is a couple of hawks. Surely somebody can supply a pair? – Roger Knight
Responding to New regional SA housing announcements to tackle growing demand
Houses are very hard to find to rent. There’s a shortage here in Renmark. – Beverley Curtis
Responding to ‘Freight train’ controversy won’t derail: The Peter Malinauskas campaign story
The ramping rhetoric rolls on regardless of its evolving irrelevance in political debate.
This is how the story has unfolded and why it is now history:
Ramping developed and experienced its most pronounced acceleration during the 2018-2022 term of the State Liberal government.
It became a national phenomenon.
There was never a promise or expectation that the incoming Labor government would eliminate ramping in one term.
SA now has the best ambulance response times in the country, and in the past five months, ramping has decreased and stabilised.
It is safer for a seriously ill patient to be treated in an ambulance in a hospital environment than to languish at home without care.
Ramping will probably be here to stay despite a substantial injection of beds, staff and resources into our hospital system.
State funding will help, but it remains for the federal government to fulfil its primary responsibility for aged care and general practice. – Warren Jones
