|
|
|
Time for a Change
As many of you know I will not be re-nominating for the position of President/Convenor of Save Albert Park when we have our elections in August. This is mainly for personal reasons, though two years may be a good length of time to be Convenor. Time to give somebody else a go. I want to thank everyone for their kindness and support over the past two years. It has been a privilege for me to work with so many people with similar values and ideals.
I want to take the opportunity in my last contribution to the newsletter as Convenor to reflect on where I see the campaign. I think overall the campaign is in very good shape and there is much to be optimistic about despite current State Government policy to retain the race in the park.
Save Albert Park continues to be such a strong collective voice. The monthly newsletter, the weekly 3CR program, our monthly members' meetings, regular information stalls, vigorous letter writing and public submissions, all help to get our message out there.
We still have people willing to serve on the Executive and the Council and to come to regular evening meetings. We have been able to maintain a large membership base. Our Lobby, Information and Parkwatch groups continue to be strong and there is the evergreen Vigil group. We are making the broader linkages with the environment movement through our outreach activities and we undertake actions to bring public attention to our issues. When we need additional funds our fundraisers always seem to be able to come up with the right recipe to raise it.
So what is the campaign achieving at present?
We are beginning to have some success with reducing the setting up and dismantling times for the Grand Prix, and bringing attention to safety issues and the cumulative degradation of the park.
I believe we can expect some significant improvements here in the next 12 months with round-table meetings involving Save Albert Park, Parks Victoria and the City of Port Phillip.
We have put 'our toe in the water' in supporting an improvement project within the park and I have no doubt there will be more to come in the future.
Reducing the impact of the race will presumably make the whole exercise even more expensive, and with the attendant publicity will contribute to our goal of getting rid of the race. Improving sections of the park will highlight how much better the park could be without motor racing and will also strengthen our case. It will show we are 'doers' as well as critics.
Several things have become clear in eight months of the new ALP Government in relation to our campaign. The Government continues to be mesmerised by the big events and to support motor racing in Albert Park. It has also become clear that they can only continue to support this race in a climate of secrecy and misinformation.
The recent excellent article in The Economist on the Ecclestone empire (see article in this issue) explains the unhealthy nature of this section of the motor racing industry and shows why no reputable government should be putting public money into it.
We are a thorn in the side of an ALP Government that continues to ride high in public popularity. We continue to point out that they are putting the interests of a multi-national business before the interests of ordinary citizens.
I believe we have been successful in delaying the signing of a new contract beyond 2006.
We can get rid of this race out of our park.
Keep up the fight!
Tim Gilley, Convenor
Top of this page
Save Albert Park Elections 2000
An election for the seven elected positions (President/Convenor and six Vice-Presidents) is to be held at the SAP General Meeting on Tuesday, 1st August.
If there are more nominations than vacancies, a secret ballot will be held at the meeting. People eligible to vote will be those on the membership list at the close of nominations on Friday, 28th July, including members whose subscriptions are not more than three months overdue.
Top of this page
The Accurate Ones
In a recent discussion on 3LO between Jon Faine and Tim Lane on the woes of Colonial Stadium and the rumours of doubtful crowd numbers, it was suggested that perhaps Save Albert Park could do an accurate count of the patrons entering the stadium!
Top of this page
The Secret Finances of Formula One
Members interested in the details of F1 finances and operations of Bernie Ecclestone should obtain a copy of the 15th July issue of The Economist magazine, which features a cover story entitled 'The secret finances of Formula One'.
It contains the extraordinary revelation that on 28 June 2000 the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) granted Mr Ecclestone a 100-year extension (no, not a typo) of its commercial rights to F1 for about US$360 million (payment of most of which is deferred for many years).
Under this agreement Ecclestone's SLEC Holdings Ltd (Jersey), 50% of which is now owned by the German television company EM.TV Merchandising AG, has, through a network of companies, sole authority to sell television rights worldwide and sole rights to negotiate with and collect fees from local race promoters. In the words of The Economist "the larger the fees, the more money for him."
The article confirms that most local promoters, like the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, give up rights to trackside advertising and that the most expensive corporate hospitality facility, the Paddock Club, is owned by the 'F1 circus'. It also provides further evidence on the scale of licence fees. Formula One Management, one of Ecclestone's companies, "makes most of its profits from promoters' fees".
The article cites the case of a South Korean company which was to have been charged a fee of US$12 million (A$20 million) in 1998 and "that fee would have risen by 10% a year". The article states that local promoters "must cede to Mr Ecclestone any media rights they have and agree to restrictions on promoting other types of races".
Was Section 43 of the AGP Act, which prohibits any agreement to hold a motor race in Albert Park outside the race period, put there for the benefit of Mr Ecclestone rather than for the protection of Albert Park?
The Economist has investigated two mysterious companies (both named Allsopp, Parker and Marsh Ltd) which are thought to have rights to trackside advertising and the Paddock Club through the Swiss company Allsport Management. The first two directors of APM (and also the directors of Allsport) are business associates of Mr Ecclestone, but the beneficial ownership and commercial rights of these companies remain less than transparent.
After noting "several disturbing features" concerning the relationship between Mr Ecclestone's companies and the FIA, The Economist goes on to comment:
"If the murkiness around this were limited to the internal workings of this particular sport, that would be bad enough. But everybody touched by F1 has accepted a way of doing business they would not tolerate elsewhere."
Mr Ron Walker does not get a mention in the article, but Melburnians will remember reports of his role in 'setting-up' the sale of Hellman & Friedman's 37.5 per cent stake in SLEC Holdings to EM.TV (The Age, 22 March 2000; Weekend Australian, 13-14 May 2000).
The Economist's leader and article conclude:
"More openness, greater competition and better governance: all three would go a long way to subject the likes of Mr Ecclestone's empire to proper public scrutiny. Nobody can object to legitimate entrepreneurship in promoting a sport. But when the odour that surrounds a sport becomes too overpowering the worst danger of all looms: that it will switch off the interest of the general public. And that is the biggest reason why Formula One needs greater transparency and accountability."
"Nearly all of F1's affairs are shrouded in extraordinary secrecy; not only are the terms of all agreements 'commercially confidential', but even the existence of some agreements is a secret." This is not news to members of Save Albert Park, but confirmation from any new quarter is always welcome.
Top of this page
Benefits & Costs of Major Events
The 2000 500cc Motorcycle Grand Prix was launched on 18 July. The Herald Sun report included the claim that the event 'attracts crowds of 150,000 annually'. One has to wonder where some journalists get their facts. The attendance over the three days has been around 100,000 each year.
Whatever the attendance, on a benefit:cost ratio the Motorcycle Grand Prix provides a better return on our money, particularly for regional Victoria. The claimed economic benefits for this event ($45 million with staging costs of $10 million) sound good when compared to the $47 million staging expenses of the Formula One Grand Prix.
Evaluation of major events in Victoria has been taken over by the use of excessively complex and obscure models, with a variety of methodologies and multipliers and conclusions which look suspiciously tailored to produce the desired outcomes. As a result there is no benchmark which can be used to compare the relative values of any of these events.
A transparent and accountable model should be a simple one that uses the basic premise that economic benefits are largely derived from the expenditures of visitors who are attracted by the event, and that staging expenses are incurred by the local economy in order to hold the event.
There are two well-tried approaches to estimating the costs of an event:
Depending on which approach is used, the benefit:cost ratio for the Motorcycle Grand Prix is roughly two or three times the ratio for the Formula One Grand Prix.
The benefits reflect two basic advantages held by the Motorcycle Grand Prix:
However, hidden in these overall figures is its principal comparative advantage. It generates proven economic benefits for the Shire of Bass whose Council was enthusiastic to retain the race. It is a genuine regional major event.
By contrast, regional Victoria is a net loser from the F1 GP. Melbourne gains more from intra-state visitor expenditure than any compensating visitor nights throughout the rest of Victoria. As noted in the 1996 NIEIR report, F1 GP visitors did not spend much time outside Melbourne.
Top of this page
Blackspots on Park Roads
Commencing in 1994 the public roads in Albert Park Reserve were transformed to conform to the requirements of the Federation Internationale de 'Automobile (FIA), the international governing body for motor sport (of which Ecclestone is a vice-president), for the purpose of holding a Formula One Grand Prix in the Park.
The Grand Prix would use the roads - now converted into a race-track - for four days a year and the roads/track would serve as a public road system for almost the whole of the rest of the year.
After reconstruction, Lakeside Drive was reopened in May 1995 and Aughtie Drive in November 1995. From that period until August 1999, using police data and Save Albert Park evidence, close to 240 accidents, of various types and degrees of severity, have been recorded on the new park roads.
Some of these accidents appear in police reports, but most were not officially reported, as they did not involve death or injury. Police reports over the period show other accidents not recorded by SAP.
Spot checks on the more prominent accident sites (north and south chicanes, and GP circuit turns 1,3,15) show that the rate of traffic accidents in the Park continues unabated.
New report details the problems
Graeme Bannerman, a civil engineer, has just produced an accident analysis using only official Victoria Police accident reports for the Park roads. His report, which includes detailed tables and accident rate graphs, is entitled "Racetrack In The Park - Success or Failure?" and demonstrates that there is a blackspot (blacklength) situation on the Park roads.
From his analysis Bannerman finds that Lakeside Drive, with 29 casualty accidents over four years, exceeds the minimum VicRoads' blackspot road requirement for this type of road - approximately five casualty accidents in five years. Aughtie Drive, on which there have been 10 casualty accidents in 3.3 years, exceeds VicRoads' minimum blackspot requirements for local roads (the relevant category for Aughtie Drive) of approximately three casualty accidents over three years.
However, since both these roads were not included after 1995 in VicRoads' Declared Roads Network - which is a requirement for eligibility for blackspot funding - they are not officially recognised as blackspot roads. The report says that Parks Victoria is thus saved the embarrassment of having roads under its management officially recognised as blackspot roads.
By using the most appropriate traffic engineering accident rate measure, the report finds that Lakeside Drive has had 2.5 times more casualty accidents after the realignment than before, while Aughtie Drive has had an equivalent of 6.4 times more casualty accidents after realignment.
In addition, using the appropriate casualty accident rating procedures, both Lakeside and Aughtie Drives were found to be more dangerous than other urban roads of comparable types for 'mid-block' (non-intersection) accidents, which is the relevant accident type for Lakeside and Aughtie Drives. They therefore require road safety improvements.
The costs
The Bannerman report estimates that up to $800,000 of public money would be required just to implement the recommendations of the traffic management consultant commissioned by Parks Victoria. These recommendations were designed only to mitigate the road safety problems caused by the realignments for construction of the race-track, and merely proposed discretionary signage for Lakeside Drive.
The total direct and indirect cost of an extra 24 casualty accidents on these public roads is estimated to be $1.6 million, (based on VicRoads' current average cost used to rank projects for blackspot funding). Additional costs to the community which need to be considered are those due to loss of earnings, traffic delays, 'pain and suffering', long-term psychological trauma and legal costs, which could include expensive compensation payments from the relevant public authority for serious injuries resulting in permanent disability.
One argument put forward to explain the increase in accident rates after these roads were re-opened for public use was that this could be due to the 'novelty of the first Grand Prix'.
However, this report shows that the casualty accident rates have risen considerably with time rather than diminished, thus countering the above proposition.
Call for public inquiry
The report calls for 'a full and urgent public inquiry to establish how public planning processes were allowed to be over-ridden' in the interests of international and local motor racing bodies.
It says that the inquiry 'should critically examine the role of the Australian Grands Prix Act 1994' because it precluded application of environmental and planning laws. Such an inquiry 'should establish whether government authorities, Melbourne Parks and Waterways and VicRoads ever objected to the proposed curves and straights or the removal from the new realignments of road safety treatments and the re-introduction of roadside parking' and 'should include a full, independent financial evaluation of this projec'.
The very features of road design and construction which tend to reduce road safety were adopted when the park roads were realigned for the construction of the Grand Prix race-track:
Bannerman's report provides further evidence of the absurdity and inappropriateness of the construction of a race-track in a public park by the realigning of roads which are used by normal traffic.
The only realistic and satisfactory solution to this problem is for the roads in Albert Park to be returned to a design and configuration appropriate for normal traffic, and for a permanent purpose-built circuit to be built in an environmentally appropriate location, with private financial backing.
The report also raises the issue of who could be culpable for the consequences of accidents, including fatalities, which are proven to be due to features of the road design, construction, maintenance or supervision.
Would it be the responsible Government Minister? Would it be the public authorities with responsibility for design and oversight of the Park roads? Would it be the public authority responsible for control and supervision of parks?
We await answers to these questions with interest.
Top of this page
From the Vigil
Vigil-keepers can be bird observers too. In winter, a Mudlark will be so bold as to come into the tent and ask loudly for crumbs. He usually succeeds, his meal being crusts from lunchtime sandwiches. Pigeons turn up to share the feast, even sparrows taking their pick. Indian Mynas are noisy guests too.
Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, usually in pairs, are not so friendly, but come screeching into pine trees where they gain nuts from pine cones. In spring we look forward to see the Willie Wagtail who lives up to his name in his behaviour.
Out on the lake you can glimpse a variety of water birds. These birds are welcome, but the small birds such as Superb Blue Wrens, are scarce because the ground cover and low growing shrubs have gone.
It is said the park has been improved, but it has lost the diversity of habitat necessary for its former varied birdlife.
Top of this page
GP Ticket Prices
A recent article in The Age entitled 'Sport fans to feel the pinch as new tax kicks in' (29 June 2000), examined the impact of the GST on ticket prices to eight sports (football, horse racing, golf, basketball, rugby league, rugby union, tennis and V8 touring car championships), but omitted any mention of the Formula One Grand Prix.
This would have come as a relief to the AGPC and the Bracks Government whose promise of 'more affordable general admission and grandstand tickets' has been dealt a severe blow.
The increased price of an adult reserved seat for the AFL ($20 to $21.90) pales beside the increase of the cheapest F1 GP grandstand ticket ($299 to $329 plus booking fee) or the raceday general admission tickets ($80 to $88 plus booking fee).
It is not surprising that the AGPC was keen to increase ticket prices this year and not in 2001!
Top of this page
Olympic Torch Relay
The Olympic Torch Relay is scheduled to enter Albert Road from St Kilda Road at 3.03pm on Monday 31st July, and will travel down Albert Road (past the SAP Vigil site) to Clarendon Street. This is a great opportunity for us to show the flag. Come and join the regular Vigil team at this time.
Top of this page
Bird Calls
In the early days Save Albert Park vigilers were mystified by the mobile phone ringing and no-one being on the line until they realised they were answering a 'bird call'. All was revealed when a bird was caught in the act; the culprit was a Greenfinch, Carduelis chloris.
'Bird calls' are no longer a problem on two counts: SAP has a new mobile phone and Greenfinch no longer nest in the park. The Greenfinch used to arrive in August, raise a family, and depart in March for their winter feeding grounds. Greenfinch can be aged and sexed by their plumage pattern and the last pairs with young were seen in the park at the end of the 1995 breeding season. Since 1996 the adults have arrived in August, remained for a few weeks and departed by the end of September.
Cypress are often used by Greenfinch as nest trees. Where cypress are still found in the park, many have been drastically pruned, with all their lower branches removed to allow large trucks delivering equipment needed to stage the Grand Prix to pass under them.
In addition, there have been extensive environmental changes in the park. It may well be that altered habitat no longer attracts the Greenfinch to remain and breed and so they move on.
Top of this page
Inquiry into Environmental Accounting & Reporting
The Public Accounts and Estimates Committee of the Parliament of Victoria is doing a follow-up to its 1999 Inquiry into Environmental Accounting and Reporting.
That Inquiry recommended, amongst other matters:
Matters being canvassed in the issues paper released for the present Inquiry include whether all government departments and agencies should be required to report their environmental performance, and what core and specific indicators should be used for reporting and performance measures. The 'Human Settlements' theme includes the indicator 'Public Urban Green Space Per Capita'.
Save Albert Park is developing a submission to this inquiry. The Issues Paper can be obtained from the Committee's secretariat - phone 9651 3551, fax 9651 3552, email paec@parliament.vic.gov.au.
Closing date for submissions is 31 July 2000.
Top of this page
Newsletter Contributions
Copy deadline for the September Newsletter is Tuesday 22 August. The editorial group welcomes articles from members, news of community group events and other campaigns.
Top of this page
Back to our Newsletters
