North Adelaide Golf Club president ‘holding the fort’
The golf club’s president is standing firm on one park lands project but the state government has a rocky road ahead for the MotoGP, Mike Smithson says.
Passionate protesters are still taking a swing at the North Adelaide golf course redevelopment in the wake of ominous comments from the state Treasurer and a Federal Court ruling.
A concerted effort to stop the construction work on legal, heritage and environmental grounds was turfed out of court when Justice Natalie Charlesworth ruled a line through the contentious issue.
She dismissed the complaints raised, saying they did not stack up – so it’s now full steam ahead.
Whether an appeal is launched largely depends on a desire to spend more money on a legal argument which could end in further tears.
But casting our minds back to the first seeds being planted on the $45 million makeover of the course, the LIV golf phenomenon was flying faster than a Jon Rahm one wood off the first tee.
North Adelaide was all about the future of LIV golf, the party crowds, the music, the fun and festivities in the city rather than at a suburban golf course.
The Premier, Lord Mayor, former Independent MLC Connie Bonaros, whose vote was to be crucial, LIV boss Scott O’Neil and Greg Norman were acting like rock stars as the champagne corks popped at the Grange Club party hole.
But that glowing image is now stuck in a nasty sand trap with both the Premier and Treasurer casting a pall with uncertainty over LIV’s investment future here.
“If the tournament doesn’t go ahead, we won’t be paying anything,” Tom Koutsantonis stated on ABC radio last week, as if he was delighted to cut any losses and perhaps some embarrassment.
When asked if he thought the state would see the world class tournament at Kooyonga Golf Club next March, as promised, his answer was also uninspiring.
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“I hope so but it’s looking unlikely,” he concluded.
The Premier later attempted to raise the odds by just a whisker, which he has done before.
“I think it’s a 50-50 proposition,” he said.
Turning back the clock, it seems unlikely he would have been enthusiastically selling his high-profile plan at Grange almost two years ago, if knew those uncertain odds would unfold.
At least the Australian Open golf tournaments are a handy fall-back for the new course.
The Premier can count himself lucky that he has such a seasoned media pro onside, who also happens to be president of the North Adelaide Golf Club.
I picked the issue apart with Kevin Naughton on the airwaves last Friday.
For those who can remember, Naughton is an experienced journalist, with InDaily writing included in his extensive portfolio of work, as well as being a former top spin doctor in government and opposition.
He is always happy to talk about the benefits of the redevelopment, downplay the tree loss and deal with any Stop the Chop protester complaints by easily slipping back into his former mode.
“I’m trying to understand what their case is,” he explained.
“It’s fine to have a slogan and a yellow ribbon and a placard. They need more than that, because when you stop the chop, what is it that you actually want? What do you want it to be?”
Naughton says that Park 27A, which is now within the redevelopment zone, is currently a dumping ground for dredged silt from the River Torrens and he questions whether that is the best use of this precious green space.
He also pointed to a previous plan in 1997 to consolidate the two golf courses into an 18 and a nine-hole facility, but it failed through insufficient Adelaide City Council funding.
Naughton says concerns within council even stretched to passers-by being hit by stray golf balls.
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“At no stage in that process did the parklands preservation people ever say they were opposed to any of those council masterplans.
“Their approach appeared out of nowhere when the state government announced the plan, they’re currently now constructing.”
He finds that strange because the current protest was based around the alleged proposition that 5,400 trees would be removed, which he says is wrong by a factor of 90 per cent.
“Since then, the protesters haven’t come out and said we’re sorry we’re wrong, they just continue saying we want to stop the chopping.”
The club president, almost sounding like a politician himself, says social media has become a very convenient avenue for a core group who have always been part of the park lands’ activist movement.
“The level of misinformation on social media is quite extraordinary as to what the claims are,” he claimed.
Still with the momentum of a political advisor, he happily explained the reasons behind another potentially volatile situation.
Soon after the judge’s verdict, new fencing was erected around an extended declared area, with homeless people initially being denied access to their meagre worldly belongings left where they had been sleeping rough.
“The fencing which goes up is safety fencing for a construction site,’ he said.
“It’s not hide-from-view fencing.
“It was scheduled to start work sometime in September, so of course the contractor would have been ready and once the injunction order was lifted why would they wait?”
With Kevin Naughton holding the fort at North Adelaide, the government still has a hard road ahead with the MotoGP track unrest in Victoria Park.
There’s more Federal Court action in play there as well, and those chainsaws haven’t yet fired up.
The Premier can only hope the Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme isn’t destined to go off track between now and November next year, as appears to be the case with LIV.
I doubt he can sell the same case of other major events filling the void on this $96 million dollar track upgrade.
Peter Malinauskas might lead a charmed political life, but that would be a bridge too far.
Mike Smithson is also weekend newsreader and political analyst for 7NEWS.
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