Claims former pollie is ‘rewriting history’ over Vic Park grandstand
One of the state’s longest serving Attorney-Generals is fired up about another former Labor pollie’s claims standing firmly behind the city’s Lord Mayor.
Response to comments by Kevin Foley (former Deputy Premier) on the Victoria Park Grandstand. (Mike Smithson, “Exclusive: Colourful ex-pollie’s tell all on parklands grandstand”, In Daily, 6 July 2026)
Kevin Foley needs to stop rewriting history over the 2006 proposal for a large grandstand in the middle of Victoria Park.
He omits essential background about the election of Jane Lomax-Smith to parliament. Prior to the 2002 election she was specifically approached by Mike Rann then Leader of the Opposition as a “Captains pick” for the seat of Adelaide because he rightly thought that she had the best chance of winning. Foley and the Labor Right faction were of the same view.
Lomax-Smith was picked because of her commitment over many years to former Premier Don Dunstan’s ideals including his support for Park Lands protection. As Lord Mayor she was on the record and active in support of this cause which made her such an attractive candidate.
As a resident of North Adelaide, I was aware of the vigorous campaign she ran. Specific promises were made that Labor would not support the Victoria Park Grandstand that had been floated by the Liberal Government under John Olsen and Rob Kerin. Former Deputy Premier and Labor stalwart Frank Blevins was her campaign director, and they waged a full-on campaign with Parklands protection the centre piece of it.
Lomax-Smith was successful in defeating sitting member Michael Armitage and delivering government for Rann and Labor (with Foley as Deputy Premier). Labor only won because independent Liberal Peter Lewis reneged on his natural side of politics and supported Rann on the basis he became Speaker.
Had Lomax Smith not won in 2002 the Liberal’s would have won government in their own right with Rob Kerin as Premier. No win for Lomax Smith, no win for Labor, no Premier Rann, no Deputy Premier Foley and no sixteen years of continuous Labor Government.
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Not surprisingly at that time Foley was delighted that the Lomax-Smith gambit had paid off. The Grandstand proposal was not pursued until Labor convincingly won the March 2006 election. At that election Lomax-Smith increased her majority based on the same policies she had espoused in 2002.
The Liberal Party also opposed the construction of additional buildings and associated facilities of a permanent nature in the middle of Victoria Park. Given the size of the Labor victory, Lomax-Smith was now no longer necessary to keep Labor in power and Foley was free to advance the grandstand proposal despite the previous promises.
Foley is wrong to assert that “Labor’s concept drawings were on the cabinet table but disappeared almost as quickly as they arrived”. There was a long, drawn-out battle by Lomax-Smith and others (including me) which lasted for over eighteen months in 2006 and 2007.
Extraordinarily within a month of the 2006 election, the Motorsport Board at Foley’s instigation commenced discussions with the Lord Mayor Michael Harbison and the CEO of the Adelaide City Council despite the opposition of both Labor and Liberal parties in the run up to the election. These discussions continued during 2006 but the proposal for formal consideration did not come before the council until March 2007.
The council gave in principle support to the proposal, but the decision was called into question on the basis that two council members who had been appointed by the government to the Motorsport Board for which they received remuneration should not have voted even though they had made full disclosure of the situation.
The court proceedings to challenge the decision were initiated by the Adelaide Park Lands Preservation Society with broad community support and were partially successful with the court eventually agreeing that these councillors should not have voted. It is disgrace and blight on the democratic process that citizens were required to fight for their rights to ensure that Foley stuck to the promise that Labor had made not to build the permanent stadium.
During 2007, there was widespread community opposition to Foley’s proposal from across the political spectrum.
It included former Labor Ministers Don Hopgood and Anne Levy and Liberal Ministers Michael Armitage and Diana Laidlaw and Liberal MP and former Lord Mayor Steve Condous; Federal Labor MP for Adelaide Kate Ellis and her Liberal opponent; former Australian Democrats Leader Senator Natsha Stott Despoja; prominent conservationist and scientist Warren Bonython and scientist Barbara Hardy; Lieutenant Governor Bruno Krumins and one of his predecessors Prof Basil Hetzel groundbreaking medical scientist; JM Coetzee, novelist and winner of the Noble Prize for Literature.
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None of these people can attract the usual abusive epithets that they are nimbies, self-interested North Adelaide or city residents or even ragtag extremists.
The October 2007 city council elections resulted in the election of more members opposed to the proposal and even though Harbison won the mayoralty the council voted against granting a lease for it to the Motorsport Board.
Foley is not accurate when he says he then pulled the pin on the proposal because they didn’t have the numbers in the Upper House. The reality is that Rann blocked his proposal unless Lomax-Smith was prepared to support it.
Foley should have known from the outset that Lomax-Smith could not with any credibility support a proposal that she had vehemently opposed when running for the seat in 2002 and 2006 that was crucial to her win and the installation of a Labor Government.
Foley also says he was pi**ed off, but it was not a huge issue. That is hardly consistent with his action when in a fit of pique, he told the Motor Sport Board to take as long as it liked in putting up and pulling down the temporary stand. (ABC interview, November 3, 2022).
Foley correctly says that Lomax-Smith was given a dispensation from supporting the Cabinet decision on the issue and this was not normally tolerated. However, he was also aware and supported similar consideration being given to Independent Liberal Rory McEwin and the National Party’s Karleen Maywald on matters relating to their electorates when they joined the Rann Cabinet. The appropriateness of this dispensation was reinforced by the fact that it was the Labor Cabinet and Caucus that was proposing to overturn Labor policy.
Foley’s preparedness to undermine the clear promises Labor and Lomax-Smith had made in order to get elected impacted on her personal vote and was part of the reason she lost her seat in the 2010 election.
References:
Chris Sumner, “Public asset now a free land bank for government”, In Daily, Fri Nov 4, 2022.
Interview with David Bevan, ABC 891, 3 November 2022
Chris Sumner AM was a Member of the Legislative Council 1975-94 and Minister in the Corcoran, Bannon, and Arnold Labor Governments.
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