[COM] Adelaide Oval Redevelopment

[stumpjumper]

Here are a couple of elephants: cost versus benefit, spending priority.

[King]

I have an elephant. His name is Ollie the Magic Elephant.

[rhino]

Spending priority is a term that people use when they are against a development.

Health, Education, and Policing can always be held up as areas that require more funding, and for any other project you point at it can be claimed that the money could be better spent in one of those three areas. But does this mean that nothing else requires funding? That's why we have budgets.

[stumpjumper]

'Priority' is almost by definition a subjective term. One person's priority is another person's last resort.

The term 'spending priority' isn't always used in arguing against something, it can be used just as easily arguing for something.

Re budgets - I believe that the AO development wasn't budgeted for (which doesn't make it bad or illegal). The proposal appeared in response to the Liberals' plan for a stadium on the railyard site.

I'd be interested to know exactly where the AO eastern grandstand proposal came from - whether from SACA, AFL/SANFL or the government.

[silverscreen]

For all I know SA's budget could be in trouble & the spending priorities out of whack, but that's not what I'm interested in. I want to know why Andrew Demetriou is being so coy about putting up some cash if this is such a great leap forward for footy. Doesn't anybody ( ANYBODY?) care about the inequity here? I dont mind putting money in for the common good, but I dont like the feeling I'm being ripped off while others are making a profit. There's no transparency in these dealings and it makes fools of us all.

[Waewick]

I agree re the cost v benefit issue and would love to know as well what the AFL is actually bringing to the table.

on the otherside- imagine if they did a cost v benefit analysis at the time Sydney built the Opera House it would have been an horrific view. But what it did to the state and the area around it has blown any costs out of the water.

I would suggest an AO upgrade by itself wouldn't look that fantastic unless the forward projections were basedon 20-30 years and a rahter positive position (i.e oil in the australia bight in SA territory, Olympic Dam improving battleships being built munnitions factory in whyalla etc etc)

however I do believe as a greater vision of the upgraded riverfron precinct the cost v benefit would look fantastic - I cannot even start to put a value of the general attitude South Australians would have if this project got knocked over v once it is completed. the project as a whole will bring more people to the area and it will create something that Adelaide has never had.

but I guess all these facts are missing and will be looking forward to seeing some details in the stuff coming out? and we can't rely on hopes and dreams alone.

[Prince George]

I think that comparing AO to the Sydney Opera House is drawing a very long bow. When Utzon designed the opera house back in 1955, it was almost unique in the world; there was, quite literally, nothing like it anywhere. Like Bilbao 40 years later, that combination gives a real opportunity to change the game. 2011 is a different time, and AO is a very different building.

[Alyx]

The Farmers Federation is backing a campaign urging South Australian Cricket Association (SACA) members to consider the wider financial ramifications of the Adelaide Oval redevelopment.

The campaign is being run by the Provincial Cities Association.

It questions whether spending more than $500 million for the Oval project is warranted when money is being taken from areas including health, agriculture and the arts.

Farmers Federation president Peter White thinks the money is needed for hospitals and roads.

He says it's a statewide issue, not just one for the city.

"It won't be a city issue if the Government borrows the money to do this then everybody in the state will be responsible to pay that money back one way or another so it will impact on everybody," he said.

"It's a matter of priorities; is that the best use for $500 million spending it on the Adelaide Oval?"

Mr White says country hospitals and roads should be the priorities.

"The roads are in a disgusting state at the moment and desperately need money spent on them," he said.

"I can't see that too many country people are going to be very happy with $500 million going on the Adelaide Oval when they've got to drive on the garbage roads that they have to."

A former president of the Spencer Gulf Football League, Ken Jeffrey, worries country sport funding will be cut to help pay for the redevelopment of the oval.

"Perhaps some money does need to be spent but $535 million when we've [already] got a very good venue, I just can't see the value in that," he said.

"I believe in the long run country sport and other organisations will suffer because, you know, there's only so much money that this Government has got to go around. Somebody has to miss out."

SACA members will vote on the redevelopment plan next month.

Family First MP Robert Brokenshire also questions whether the South Australian Government should have other priorities.

"We've got run-down roads, we've got country hospitals being closed, we've got disability services being cut; we honestly can't afford it," he said.

"Why should the AFL come over here and demand and get at the expense of taxpayers and I would rather see a moderate upgrade of the Adelaide Oval and AAMI Stadium completed."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011 ... 182340.htm

[Will]

From the Advertiser:

And dedicated to all those voting no. I hope you enjoy having a whinge when you pay higher taxes as a result of your condemnation of this city and state to a backwater that will haemorrhage even more young taxpayers as a result of your negativity.

Kelton: State of whingers Greg Kelton

From: The Advertiser April 05, 2011 12:00AM


SOUTH Australians are increasingly being seen interstate as a mob of whingers.

It is not a perception that sits well with most people in this state. But there is no getting away from it - we are a mob of whingers. We will whinge about anything, we will knock anything that seems out of the ordinary or might just shake up our cosy little lifestyle.

It's been this way in this state for years and every time somebody tries to take on the plethora of minority groups that make up this mob of whingers, they get howled down as being wreckers of a rich lifestyle that sets South Australia apart from other states.

Of course we are different from other states - just look how long it takes to get anything done here.

Want to put up a new manufacturing plant, mine a certain section of land, build a new road and the mob of whingers will come out of the woodwork, forest, or hills or whatever. They (let's call them the MOW for short) will find some excuse why something should not be done - often it means the habitat of some obscure animal like the twin-hooded dung beetle is threatened. Or more often, it is the cosy lifestyle of the whingers that is threatened. Look at all the projects over the years held up by the MOW.

Take the Dunstan era. Imagine how our lifestyle would be now if the whingers had got their way. We would still have 6pm closing and homosexuals would still be being thrown in the river and persecuted.

If the whingers had had their way, we would never have got lights at Football Park. It took a royal commission to get them and it took one hell of a fight to get them at Adelaide Oval.

Remember the fiasco over the retractable lights?

Then there was Victoria Park where the government had a perfectly responsible plan to enable both motor sport and horse racing, as well as the public to enjoy the east parklands. No, the MOW managed to stymie that development as well, helped no doubt by the efforts of then MP for Adelaide Jane Lomax-Smith who talked Premier Mike Rann out of proceeding.

No wonder then treasurer Kevin Foley was angry. He left a nasty legacy too for the whingers. Now, they have to put up with weeks of construction and traffic restrictions for the preparation of Clipsal which could have been avoided simply by allowing the development proposed by the Government.

Also on the sporting front, look what is happening with the proposed Adelaide Oval redevelopment. Here we have a Government prepared to put $535 million on the table to enable AFL to be played in the city and what do we get?

The MOW are out in force either complaining it is going to spoil the ambience of Adelaide Oval and their view of the Hills while they are at the cricket (aren't they there to watch bat on ball, not crows and magpies circling over Mt Lofty)?

What other state would be offered a brand-spanking-new $1.7 billion hospital and still complain about it, saying they would rather have the old rabbit-warren hospital rebuilt on site? Adelaide's MOW would.

We have just gone through one of the worst droughts in the state's history and for years the MOW have been complaining about water restrictions. The Government takes up an Opposition idea and builds a desalination plant to ensure Adelaide's water supply for decades to come and ends water restrictions.

What do we get? The MOW don't like the size of the plant, they don't like where it's situated and they don't like the idea of having to pay more for water to help pay for the plant.

All this despite the fact they have never paid what they should have done for water for years.

Do they really think water should be supplied free? It's almost as bad as farmers who build huge dams and hold back water which should be flowing into reservoirs and then complain when the Government tries to get them to pay for it.

The state is supposed to be moving ahead, we are supposed to be attracting new industries to supplant the state's reliance on manufacturing.

One of these is the mining industry and we are sitting on one of the world's greatest ore bodies at Olympic Dam.

But the MOW would have that put on hold too. They don't like the idea of a desalination plant at the top of Spencer Gulf to provide the necessary water for the mine to expand. Nor do they like the idea of a new ammonium nitrate plant at the top of the Gulf to provide explosives for the dam - and it is going to need a hell of a lot of explosives.

Why? Cuttlefish. Naturally there had to be some obscure species of fish at the top of the Gulf which the MOW could seize on to try to prevent two major developments from going ahead.

The MOW wonders why governments in this state have been cautious over the years. Well they are the reason.

No government wants to continually have to face up to howls of protests from a vocal minority every time they make a decision aimed at bettering the state.

If the MOW keeps this up, South Australia will not be known as the Whingeing State - we will be the Stagnant State

[rhino]

It's not often that I agree with Greg Kelton, but a lot of that stuff needed to be said, AND LOUD!

[AtD]

"Adelaide MOW." Made me laugh.

[silverscreen]

Yes, its hard to take such drivel seriously. Perhaps we need to be lobbying for a decent daily paper and articulate investigative journos prepared to tackle the hard questions, but that, as they say
Is another story.

[rev]

The proposal appeared in response to the Liberals' plan for a stadium on the railyard site.

And this is an issue why?.....

Isn't this what political parties do?
Make policies?
The Liberals policy was a stadium on the railyards site. The counter policy from Labor was a redevelopment of Adelaide Oval.
Labor plans for a new hospital on the railyards site, the Liberals counter with a redevelopment of RAH.

[Waewick]

I think that comparing AO to the Sydney Opera House is drawing a very long bow. When Utzon designed the opera house back in 1955, it was almost unique in the world; there was, quite literally, nothing like it anywhere. Like Bilbao 40 years later, that combination gives a real opportunity to change the game. 2011 is a different time, and AO is a very different building.

a long bow I was happy to draw

[Pants]

Yes, its hard to take such drivel seriously.

You don't agree that by and large, the people in this city are a pack of whingers?