Dinosaurs and Politicians
An August editorial in the Herald-Sun labelled Save Albert Park "dinosaurs". I found the editorial comforting, because it means that over six and a half years after SAP's formation on 20th February 1994 we are still relevant, and we still bother the Herald-Sun enough for them to write a derogatory leader about us.
Well, the news I have for the Herald-Sun is that SAP's extinction is not imminent. Far from it. Premier Bracks' announcement of a secret new contract for the Grand Prix from 2007 has hardened our resolve to have the race removed from Albert Park. 
Actually he has helped our cause, because a contract until 2010 renders the building and operation of a purpose-built permanent track economically more feasible than a contract until only 2006, and thus may be attractive to the private sector.
Compared with the Albert Park option, a permanent track in a regional area would arguably satisfy many more of the main Grand Prix stakeholders - the Government itself, regional Victoria, Bernie Ecclestone, the drivers, the patrons, the motor industry, the motor-racing community, the users of Albert Park and its roads, the citizens of Port Phillip, and local traders.
A major indicator of the health of SAP's campaign, and what distinguishes SAP from dinosaurs, is our ability to adapt our strategies and tactics to changing circumstances - via continuous monitoring and periodic assessments. Though an assessment, which began in July, is continuing, it is already apparent that an alternative track strategy will be a key focus of SAP's future activities.
The Government needs to broaden its field of vision to encompass the wondrous possibilities of a new permanent venue for the Grand Prix, and hopefully also for other motor- racing events. 
There seems no reason why such a venue could not be the site for a new motor-racing centre of research and development as a prelude to the emergence of an Australian Formula One team. The Government needs a dream, not a secret contract starting seven years hence and without true accountability. If the Government cannot dream and adapt, then arguably it is the dinosaur.
I expect John Thwaites, MLA for Albert Park and Deputy Premier, to be a prime mover in relation to a permanent venue, because in 1996 he said: "I have always believed that Albert Park was not the appropriate venue for the race and ..... I will continue to vigorously represent the interests of the people of Albert Park in relation to the Grand Prix and use of the park".
To ascertain Mr Thwaites' current attitude to the Grand Prix and its location, my predecessor Tim Gilley wrote an open letter to him in July and invited his reply. The open letter and the reply should be published in the November Newsletter.
My intuition tells me that just as the Herald-Sun's editorial belied its headline that SAP is a dinosaur, so Mr Bracks and Mr Thwaites do not underestimate the force of our campaign, and they do not expect SAP to fade into extinction. 
The Herald-Sun's self interest as a Grand Prix sponsor is clear. The challenge for Mr Bracks and Mr Thwaites is to show by their actions in relation to a permanent motor-racing venue, that they are leaders with vision, and not dinosaurs.

Ross Ulman, Convenor

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The 'Holy Grail' of Mega Events
In its inimical style The New Yorker (7/8/00) has reflected on the inefficiencies and inequities of the public purse subsidising events and sporting stadiums.
The article is a reminder that the Kennett Government built a track for the private sector, and saved money by pinching a piece of free real estate, a public park. 
The business interests who have been associated with the AGPC over the years should have footed the bill, bought private land and built the track.
The Bracks Government is continuing the tradition. How would you spend $40 million a year?
The New Yorker observed:
"Cities spend the money because they expect mega-events to generate millions in revenues, create thousands of good jobs, and revitalise their hollowed-out cores. The same expectations have led cities to spend millions subsidising new hotels, convention centers, and sports stadiums."
"These subsidies are economically inefficient, and surely there are better uses for tax dollars - education comes to mind - than building luxury hotels for private developers. Yet, in the new world of what the sociologist David Ley calls "convivial cities", tourism and entertainment have become central economic pursuits, hotel socialism is the order of the day, and the mega-event is a holy grail. If you still harbor doubts, boosters typically commission economic-impact 
studies that make glowing claims. Unfortunately you can't take those studies at face value. Most of the jobs created by mega-events are both temporary and low-paying."
"But the commonweal almost never gets as much out of these events as their proponents promise. Why, then, should the public foot the bill when most of the benefits go to the businesses that build the facilities the tourists use, and sell the stuff the tourists buy?"
"Advocates of welfare reform ought to act on their principles and get off public assistance."

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Federal ALP calls for earlier end to tobacco advertising
In August this year the Federal Opposition moved an amendment to the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Amendment Bill 2000, to bring forward the cut-off date for new applications for exemptions from the prohibition of tobacco advertising at sporting and cultural events to October 2000. Michael Danby, the local MHR for Melbourne Ports spoke strongly in support of the amendment. 
"You have to wonder whether the principal raison d'etre is the Formula One Grand Prix car racing, or whether it is really tobacco advertising - purpose designed in this case, in my view, for the sale of cigarettes not to Australians but to Americans and Europeans. If this sounds far-fetched then I ask you to consider that these two cars and their drivers were plastered with the West cigarette brand name that would be unknown to most Australians. West is a cheap, 'value' brand of cigarettes manufactured in Germany and sold in America. 
It is especially popular amongst young European and American males. Let us not fool ourselves. This is an event held in Australia that is designed not just to promote cigarette smoking to Australians but also to sell cigarettes to the large audience overseas who watch the Grand Prix on their tele-visions. Sponsorship in this situation is not benevolent; it is clearly advertising ..... I recall an overseas friend of mine, who caught a glimpse of the Albert Park Grand Prix one year on television, remarking that it was hard to tell whether the event was staged in a city called Marlboro or Qantas."
Mr Danby reminded the House of Representatives that in March 1998, Max Mosley, a member of the FIA, the body that governs Formula One motor racing, said that tobacco advertising on cars may be banned by 2002 if it was proved that it encouraged people to take up smoking. Mr Danby then noted a study published in the medical journal The Lancet in 1997, which showed that young fans of motor racing were more likely to take up smoking than were those who were not interested in the sport.
Mr Danby drew attention to the lack of transparency on arrangements covering future exemptions.
"In fact, legislation which was passed during the Kennett years concerning the Australian Formula One Grand Prix prevents the release of such information. It is very hard to verify what arrangements, formal or informal, are actually binding, since no-one is allowed to know them."
If Federal Labor is serious about opposing tobacco advertising or commercial-in-confidence arrangements it now needs to direct its criticisms at its Victorian counterpart as well as Dr Michael Wooldridge. 
The continued secrecy surrounding the arrangements for tobacco advertising and the ongoing applications for exemptions for the Grand Prix are now squarely in the hands of the Bracks Government. The days for blaming the Kennett Government are over.

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SAP submission to Government enquiry
In July this year Save Albert Park made a submission to the Victorian Public Accounts and Estimates Committee Inquiry into Environmental Accounting and Reporting. The main issues were:
- the role of a proposed Commissioner for Ecologically 
Sustainable Development
- State of Environment reporting, and
- public and private sector reporting on the environmental impacts of policies and projects. 
SAP was invited to discuss its submission with the Inquiry sub-committee on 11 September. Here is an outline of our case, some details of which we've been asked to elaborate on further.

Commissioner of the Environment 
Save Albert Park's submission supported the establishment of an Office of the Commissioner of the Environment that would be modelled on the office of the Auditor-General, in order to be seen as independent and not directed by government. A statutory independent Officer of Parliament provides for a clear line of accountability, independence from departments and agencies, and the authority necessary for the role. 
We submitted that the Commissioner must also have an ombudsman and auditing role, with the powers to initiate investigations as well as responding to requests from Parliament. The Commissioner must have access to all public sector 
information and should be able to conduct special audits of the environmental impact of specific policies and projects, including those where private sector organisations have contractual arrangements with government e.g. CityLink.
We believe that the current framework requires a channel for community complaints and requests for investigations where departments and agencies are believed to be (a) in breach of legislation (b) ignoring legislation or (c) not meeting performance indicators. 

Reporting
While SAP supports the role of the Commissioner to produce a periodic 'State of the Environment' report, we also recommended the production of an annual 'Green Report'. This report, equivalent to the Auditor-General's annual reports on the Victorian Government's finances, would report on matters such as:
- Public complaints investigated
- Public sector compliance and performance (including 
private sector companies performing services under contract with the State Government)
- Specific investigations of portfolios and projects.
Indicators
In the submission we drew particular attention to the development of indicators which relate to the protection of the urban open space environment. It was suggested that the Government's proposed legislated Parklands Code, and the standards covering the provision of public open space in the draft ResCode, could provide a foundation for more detailed performance indicators for government departments and agencies.
Public Sector Reporting 
SAP submitted that individual departments and agencies should be held accountable for their specific policies and activities. We suggested that a legal requirement for environmental performance reporting would give some teeth to the present EES processes and would provide a system of accountability for 
specific projects. Environmental impacts are recognised as costs to the community at large and public sector bodies need to be held accountable.
We noted that performance reporting is particularly critical where departments and agencies are exempt from the requirements of relevant environmental legislation as in the case of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation. 
The Inquiry is a reminder that the AGPC is not required to be publicly accountable for the impact of the Grand Prix on Albert Park Reserve, nor is it required to produce any plans for reducing the length or extent of the impact. At the moment, Save Albert Park provides the only annual report on the environmental impact on the park.

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Report on GP impact fails to deliver
The NIEIR Economic Report on the 2000 Grand Prix (see last month's newsletter) includes a section entitled "Community Effect". Both Save Albert Park and the City of Port Phillip had previously called for a comprehensive social and environmental impact study, but what they got was a superficial and defensive analysis of some very dubious survey data. 
Business survey
The so-called "business survey" included in the Report, completed in the weeks following the GP, is no more than a superficial follow-up to the one done by NIEIR in 1996 and is of little or no value. Only 49 responses were received from the survey of 287 businesses which covered seven areas from 
St Kilda to Carlton including Southgate/Southbank and the Melbourne CBD. The authors themselves admit that they have "reservations with the effective accuracy of the results of the survey" but this doesn't prevent them from making dubious claims on the basis of the survey results.
The consultants also conducted a telephone survey of 
residents and businesses in areas closer to the race-track. This found that:
- 18.3% of businesses reported a positive impact in the week of the Grand Prix
- 13.8 % of businesses reported a negative impact
- A majority of residents rated the inconvenience at less than 5 out of 10 (not surprising considering some respondents live several kilometres from the race-track)
- 31% of residents rated the inconvenience at 6 or more or had gone interstate
The Executive Summary of the Report was careful to avoid the harsh reality that 25% of residents said they were unable to shop normally in the week of the Grand Prix. For reasons unknown, this "negative externality" was costed on the basis of travel time to Prahran (to shop). One could assume that City of Port Phillip traders are more interested in loss of turnover than the costs of their customers travelling to Prahran!
Park usage
The section entitled "Constrained park usage", evaluated the cost to park users in a similar manner as it evaluated losses to traders i.e. it calculated the cost to users of going to an alternative park or sporting facility! In the opinion of the Report, the measure of the appropriation of a public park is the number of people affected, multiplied by transport time at $10 an hour. Tranquillity, ambience, permanent damage and rights of access are not relevant to the "alternative cost" approach used throughout the Report.
Sports fields
The Report claims that sports fields are lost for five weeks, which at least acknowledges that the whole sports precinct of 22 fields is unavailable for an extended period. Our observations and information from Parks Victoria show that on average, more than 6 weeks is lost. The Report does not say that 56% of fields are lost to normal use for 9 weeks and three fields are unusable for 12 weeks. It simply puts an estimated value on the travelling cost to sports people who have to move to other grounds for the period their "home grounds" are unavailable.
Park or venue?
The treatment of the park as a commodity, which we can get somewhere else when ours is not available, pales beside the extraordinary claim that closing the park to all but paying patrons to an expensive event actually increases the effective accessibility of the park to Victorian residents generally. 
It ignores Albert Park's history as the "home of amateur sport" which attracts clubs and their supporters from all over Melbourne, and the fact that the Park now also houses the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre. It promotes a policy of encouraging commercial events in public parks rather than in appropriate venues. During the race week Albert Park is no longer a public park; it is motor racing track for paying patrons. Instead of a park designed for a diversity of sporting and 
recreational activities, it is reserved exclusively for one 
business/sport.
Compensation
The report's conclusion that "local residents have been 
adequately compensated for the negative externalities created by the QAGP" goes to the heart of the matter. The maintenance of public parks should not depend on the holding of commercial events. Taxpayers, and not just local residents, use and pay for the upgrade of the park. They have received no compensation for the impact of the Grand Prix, never mind that the notion of compensation compromises the very concept of public open space.

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F1 on the Move
The Brands Hatch circuit, which recently took the British Formula One Grand Prix from Silverstone, may be in deep 
trouble with its attempt to upgrade its circuit in time for the 2002 race. 
The British Secretary of State for the Environment will decide whether to call in Brands Hatch's plans. "Some local 
residents and environmental groups and residents have objected to plans to expand the circuit into nearby woodlands." 
The penalty for not having the circuit ready is A$27 million. (The Times 30/8/2000)
We suspect a similar penalty was written into the secret 
contract for the Melbourne GP. This would explain why the police force was mustered in such large numbers to ensure the track in Albert Park was completed in time.
Donington Park motor racing circuit (near Derby) is waiting in the wings with an A$67 million re-development program to take over the British GP from Brands Hatch. 
The circuit is well away from housing, is located between two motorways, is next to an airport and has the potential to park 40,000 cars. The circuit is privately owned. (The Times 30/8/2000)
Sounds like the perfect formula - and doesn't require taxpayer subsidies.


"The measure of a civilisation is the quality of its open space."
- Ruskin

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Farewell Lucy May
Save Albert Park members have been deeply 
saddened by the tragic death of Lucy May on September 10. 
Lucy was a very active and committed member of SAP especially in the early days of our campaign. We will always remember her elegance and beauty, with the yellow flower in her hair amid the dust and devastation in the Park.
Lucy will be remembered for many things - her gentleness, her ability as a writer, her strong loyalty to many causes such as the MUA battles on the wharves and East Timor, and above all, her concern for other people.
Lucy was a nurse by profession, and at the time of her death was a theatre sister at the Peter McCallum Hospital.
A very large gathering farewelled Lucy at her 
funeral service in Brighton on September 17. Among those who spoke in remembrance of her were Elva Keily, Carolyn Hutchens and Rod Quantock.
Our thoughts are with her family.

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Ecclestone's world
Recent items of interest from the British press:
Bernie Ecclestone's one million pound donation to Tony Blair's Labour Party has surfaced again in "Bernie's Game", written by Terry Lovell. 
"Bernie's Game baldly states that Ecclestone gave £1m to Labour in order to ensure the exemption of Formula One from a tobacco advertising ban. Ecclestone denies this: 'I gave the money because I was asked by a third party.'"
The book "has been pulled from publication amid legal wrangles". (The Sunday Times 20/8/2000)
There are moves by Formula One management to reduce the race event to two days. 
"The sports governing body will meet team chiefs to ponder proposals to turn grand prix weekends into two-day rather than three-day events". "Altering the length of grand prix 
weekends will be at the top of their agenda". (Daily Telegraph 30/8)
This would mean no Formula One cars on the track on the Friday of the Melbourne event, which would no doubt affect attendance on the day, and reduce the time visitors and race teams stay in Melbourne. The economic impact study would have to be done all over again!

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Parks charge
Many SAP members continue to withhold the Parks Charge component of their water accounts as a protest against what they see as inappropriate policies and practices of Parks Victoria regarding Albert Park and other Victorian parks. They see this as an effective way of demonstrating their continued opposition to the loss of access to, and misuse of, public 
parkland.

One of the vigil's (and SAP's) most enthusiastic and energetic workers was recently quoted in a feature article about Premier Bracks (The Age 20/9/2000). 
She was one of the many disillusioned voters quoted in the article; "voters who are appalled when Bracks is all smiles with Ron Walker; aping Kennett's support for the Grand Prix; who feel disappointment when Bracks doesn't deliver on his promises of Government transparency".
"I couldn't even begin to count the number of hours, weeks, months I've spent working to get rid of Jeff, which by default transcribes into helping to get the ALP in. But I can say this: I got a lot of blisters from that bastard Bracks. Last State election I took a week off from work and letter-boxed 
12 hours a day for that whole week. When I couldn't walk because of the pain, I letter-boxed on my bike. But after Bracks' failure to open the books on the GP and his support for last week's police violence, when the next State election comes around I'll be working just as hard to get rid of him".
Joanna is one of the hardy band who is rostered on a 
weekly basis to set up the vigil at 7am and take it down at 6pm (no easy task on dark, cold, wet winter days). All this as well as a job, a family and inveterate letter writing. 
Vigilers are committed individuals who never give up.

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Bird walk in the park
SAP members and their families and friends are invited to join the renowned bird expert Mary Ellen Talmage for a Bird Walk in Albert Park Reserve on Saturday October 28. Meet at the Children's Adventure Playground  (opposite Armstrong Street) at 10am.  The walk will end at the SAP Vigil site at noon for a picnic. Please bring your own lunch.

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