Summer Days and Diesel Fuels

It is mid-summer. The weather is warm; the daylight hours are long; the children are on school holidays; the cygnets and ducklings on the lake are growing up. And once again they are moving Grand Prix infrastructure into Albert Park.
During these months of the year when people can best enjoy the Park, it is no longer a Park. It is a construction site. Trucks belching diesel fumes cart in load after load of concrete and steel. Ugly grandstands rise and restrict vistas. Temporary fences and barriers usurp the freedom to wander. 
And all of this injures - and probably kills - the ability to enter the Park to recreate, to actualise, or just to enjoy the sheer pleasure of being alive and in this inner suburban oasis as the days of summer draw in.
Before all and after all the issue of the Grand Prix in Albert Park is a park issue. 
It's not an economic issue or any other kind of issue. 
I repeat: it is a park issue.
It's wrong - as Governments are wont to do - to monetise all value, and to insult the Park and its users by reducing 
its value to mere dollars. Not all values can or should be 
monetised. Public parks stand out as a prime example.
This year's Formula One Grand Prix will be the sixth in Albert Park. Six years on, it doesn't get any easier to accept the infrastructure when they bring it in. 
And it doesn't require any less resolve to enter the Park and bear witness to its subjugation. It just doesn't.
I think that's because the location of the Grand Prix in Albert Park is a fundamental wrong. An insult to Nature. 
A wrong that needs convoluted, mainly economic, propaganda to justify it. 
And as usual that propaganda easily convinces the gullible.
The size and the self-evidence of the wrong helps explain why Save Albert Park is thriving as a committed community group whose campaign continues unabated seven years on.
Proponents of the Grand Prix in Albert Park have forced us to wage our campaign on several fronts. But on these long warm summer evenings we must not lose sight of the fact that the essence of our campaign is the park issue. 
The takeover of a public park for a car race is plainly and simply wrong. Always has been. Always will be.
Ross Ulman, Convenor

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$9 million to extend GP Contract

According to the 'Australian Financial Review' (7th December 2000)
"The Victorian Government recently paid an estimated 
$9 million to extend its contract to hold the grand prix race 
in Melbourne until 2010". 
We have been told that this information is from reliable non-government sources, but have been unable to elicit any 
further details or clarification. Victorians would be interested to know whether this is an extra $9 million up-front fee 
on top of the annual licence and franchise fees, but of course, all contract details are secret.

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Attendance Count - 2001 Grand Prix

SAP's accurate counting of GP patrons entering Albert Park in previous years has provided us and the media with valuable information. 
As the event will be held one week earlier this year (i.e. not during the Moomba weekend) we think it will be an interesting exercise to continue with this practice in order to compare the numbers attending.
The SAP committee organising the attendance count is looking for additional volunteers to assist with counting. 
The count will take place at each entrance gate; volunteers are rostered on two-hour shifts and training is provided on 
the job. 
If you can help, please contact the SAP office.

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GP Set Up Works Take Over The Park

In the second week of January the Australian Grand Prix Corporation began set-up works on stands and overpasses in the pit straight areas, areas still in a very degraded condition from last year's event. 
Concrete crash barriers painted with Qantas signs lined the straight after one week. Despite the money spent on marketing the Grand Prix and the weeks of trackside advertising, it is remarkable that the 1999 Sweeney Sports Survey found that only 1% of 1500 respondents mentioned Qantas as a sponsor of motor racing.
Park users this January have been affected by earlier than usual Grand Prix works. By Australia Day six grandstands were under construction, two over-passes were up, and there were extensive sections of concrete barriers, fencing, and the usual container dumps. Three sports fields had been taken over. 
The official explanation is that the race is one week earlier, but it is thought that some infrastructure arrived directly from Adelaide after being used for the Le Mans race. 
In what is, after all, the school holiday period, users of 
the Community Children's Playground and Coot Picnic Area had to contend with the visual blight and physical inconvenience 
of concrete barriers, fencing, advertising signage, and nearby construction works. 
One mother seeing the safety fencing surrounding the playground observed not unreasonably that "I wasn't sure that we were allowed to go in there".
The latest City of Port Phillip community newsletter lists 43 festivals and outdoor activities to be held in the City from early December to the end of April. 
In this time, Albert Park Reserve, 60% of the city's open space, has only two activities scheduled - the Grand Prix and the Great Melbourne Bike Ride (which only uses the road).
What better evidence could we have that the Grand Prix dominates the use of the Park for at least four months of the year to the exclusion of other events?

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Parkwatch For Parks Victoria

Since 1995 Save Albert Park's ParkWatch Group has mon-itored the impact of the Grand Prix in Albert Park Reserve. Their findings have been meticulously recorded in five annual Post-Race reports, the latest of which will be launched in the run-up to this year's race. Now, six years later, Parks Victoria has decided to set up an "albertparkwatch" email address for the purpose of public input on Park issues, "especially during the set up of the Grand Prix". 
Parks Victoria have asked specifically for comments and observations on:
o the general condition of the Park
o Australian Grand Prix Corporation contractor behaviour
o general Park user behaviour
o issues needing management attention.
SAP suggests that members take this opportunity to 
comment on any aspect of the impact of the Grand Prix on the Park and its users in 2001.
The email address is albertparkwatch@parks.vic.gov.au 
but does not allow Parks Victoria to reply! 
If you require a response to any matter, you will need to write to or telephone the Albert Park office of Parks Victoria (Will Cox, 9686 3290). 
Members without access to email can also forward 
comments to the SAP office.

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GP Road Death Trap

These are the words on the Herald Sun's posters advertising the paper's PM edition on 25 January 2001. The featured news report, written by transport journalist Genevieve Lally, opened with the following paragraphs:
"Melbourne's Grand Prix circuit has become a deathtrap for motorists, with almost 50 serious crashes in the past five years. And taxpayers could be forced to pay hundreds of 
thousands of dollars to fix the killer zone - just six years after it was built".
"Parks Victoria has applied to VicRoads for funding to curb the damning toll under the State Government's $240 million blackspot program. The move is the first acknowledgment by a government department that the road has become a danger zone since the race was relocated to Albert Park in 1996."
Call for Public Enquiry
The article provides some long-overdue recognition of the findings of two major reports on the Park roads prepared by civil engineer Graeme Bannerman: "Built for Excitement not Safety" (Feb 1998) and "Racetrack in the Park - Success or Failure?" (June 2000). 
Bannerman has used police accident statistics to demonstrate that casualty accidents have more than doubled since the GP circuit replaced the old Park roads in 1995. 
In his second report, Bannerman identified the Park roads as a blackspot zone and called for a full and urgent public enquiry to establish how public planning processes were over-ridden in the interests of international and local motor racing bodies.
Three Deaths since 1998
The Herald Sun article quotes VicRoads figures showing that there have been 49 casualty crashes and two deaths in the past five years. In fact there have been three deaths in three 
different parts of the race-track: a motor cyclist killed in a head-on collision at the north chicane in Lakeside Drive in 1998, a roller blader killed by a car in Ross Gregory Drive in 1999, and a motor cyclist killed on 1 December 2000 when he hit the fence at Turn 2 of the GP track in Aughtie Drive (see below). 
In addition to the police casualty accident figures, there have been scores of documented instances where vehicles have lost control on the sweeps and bends of the GP track, crashed through the bollard and chain fences and ended up in playing fields and picnic areas. 
In one of the most potentially serious incidents, in evening peak hour traffic on 6 September 1999, a car went out of 
control on Lakeside Drive, crossed the opposing traffic lanes, crashed through the fence, careered up the grassy bank of the lake, crossed the busy jogging track, and plunged into the water.
GP Corporation Calls the Tune
The Herald Sun article went on to discuss what is to be done to make the roads safer. Parks Victoria regional manager, Nigel Caswell, was quoted as saying that the Grand Prix Corporation is a 'stakeholder' in the Park and would have to be consulted about any road safety treatments. 
He also said that the Corporation made no special payments to help keep the road network safe.
Save Albert Park has no doubt about the only sure way to 
fix the blackspot problem; move the race out of the Park!

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Fatal Accident In Aughtie Drive

On Friday 1 December 2000 at about 10pm a motor cyclist was killed at Turn 2 of the GP race-track, at the entrance to 
the Carousel Restaurant car park. (Photo shows location.)
The small arrows show the location of road lights recommended in the June 1998 Albert Park Traffic Management Plan 
prepared by Greg Tucker and Associates for Parks Victoria. These lights have not been installed.

To date, Parks Victoria has been denied funds to implement the Traffic Management Plan, but it has finally applied for funding under the current "Statewide Black Spot" 
program, but only for Aughtie Drive! 
For reasons unknown, funding has not been sought for Lakeside Drive. It has been the scene of one fatality, a recent horrific head-on accident causing serious injuries, and many other recorded accidents. Aughtie Drive carries 2,700 vehicles per day, compared to Lakeside Drive's 23,400 vehicles per day. 
Both roads qualify for black spot funding.
The consultants recommended that lights be installed at Turns 1, 14, 15 and 16 in the Aughtie Drive section of the 
GP track, but as with Turn 2, the scene of the December's fatal accident, none have yet been installed. 
They stated in their report: 
"Roadway lighting is an integral part of traffic management practice. The general concept of roadway lighting design is that the road environment and objects in it need to be made sufficiently visible to ensure that the driving task is performed successfully".

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Business Partners

The People Telecom is one of the latest business ventures of Ron Walker, originally launched in mid-2000 under the name of Equest Telecom. According to the Business Age (4/12/00) Mr Walker owns 30%, and the Internet arm of John Fairfax Holdings 20%. Other individual backers include Bernie Ecclestone, Brian Powers (Chairman of Fairfax), Margaret Jackson (Chairwoman of Qantas), and Campbell Walker.

WEF protests and the media
SAP member, Dr Bernard Barrett, who was for 16 years the State Historian for the Government of Victoria, has 
produced a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the 
media coverage of the protests at the World Economic Forum in Melbourne in September.
The report has been submitted to the State Ombudsman who is conducting an inquiry into the police handling of the protests. 
The report makes disturbing reading. It concludes that 
the media portrayed the protesters as violent in the months leading up to the protests and continued to portray the 
actual protests as violent despite the lack of supporting 
evidence in the television coverage. 
The report entitled "Beating up: a report on police batons and the news media at the World Economic Forum, Melbourne, September 2000", can be found on website - www.vicnet.net.au/~gcforum/BarrettReport.htm

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Dates For Your Diary

SAP Forum 
A Planning/Information/Tactics session 
for all interested SAP members will be held on the 
afternoon of Saturday, March 31 from 1pm - 5pm. 
More detailed information will be included with the next Newsletter. Mark this in your diary!
Defamation Law Reform Symposium
Save Albert Park draws members' attention to the brochure enclosed with this newsletter about the symposium to be held on 24 February on the topic of defamation law reform. 
SAP has joined a coalition of community organisations 
and individuals to support this symposium which is being 
organised by Free Speech Victoria. It is the first step in a 
campaign to reform the defamation laws.
The issue of defamation law reform is very pertinent to organisations such as SAP. 
The use of defamation action by large corporations, developers, politicians and even government agencies to silence debate and criticism is well documented. Even the threat of defamation action can be, and often has been, sufficient to gag an individual or community group, even though what they have to say is in the public interest. 
The fundamental issue behind the campaign for reform of the defamation laws is the protection of the democratic right of individuals to participate in public debate and to comment on matters of public interest.

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Other Campaigns

Bondi Beach Olympic Stadium
On 12 December 2000 SBS screened the documentary "Beachballs" on the community protest against the building of a 10,000 seat temporary stadium on Bondi Beach, and the relocation of community businesses and arts programs from the Bondi Pavilion. 
SAP's support of the Bondi group was acknowledged, but more gratifying was the understanding of the issues shown by the film maker Bronwyn Kidd. 
Ms Kidd, who drew parallels with the Albert Park GP protest, noted that the protest group was not so much opposed to the temporary relocation of community groups from the Bondi Pavilion, but the way in which "State Governments are imposing big developments on communities without consul-tation" (The Age Green Guide, 7/12/00).
"If this could happen this time for a 10-day event, despite a lot of community fears and opposition, what can happen 
to public space in the future? And does the community have any rights?"

Lilydale to Warburton Rail Trail
Despite continued opposition by the Shire of Yarra Valley, Friends of the Warburton Trail and Bicycle Victoria, the Minister for Environment and Conservation has leased the Crown land (which links the trail to the Lilydale MET station) to the Sisters of Mercy property company for use by the 
Mt Lilydale College. 
Despite requests for a meeting, the Minister did not consult with the Shire Council or the other opposing groups, and did not attempt to arbitrate a compromise which might have 
provided partial access by trail users, e.g. out of school hours. Ms Garbutt's office held a meeting only after the decision was made.
This issue again highlights the fact that Crown land set aside for recreation has no protection from appropriation by government. In this instance the Minister's decision has taken planning out of the hands of local government. 
After the usual public consultation process, the Shire had set aside the land in question, but according to reports, the College made no submission to the planning process. 
Bicycle Victoria and the Friends of the Warburton Trail 
continue to oppose the decision and are asking supporters to write to Premier Bracks.

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SAP General Meetings

SAP office, 195 Bank Street, South Melbourne. 7.30pm 
FEBRUARY - Tuesday 6
FEBRUARY - Tuesday 27
IMPORTANT! Because of the timing of the 
2001 Grand Prix, the normal 
March General Meeting has been brought forward to 
Tuesday, 27 February 2001. 
There will be an additional Newsletter to reach 
all members before that meeting.

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