Sacrifice of the People's Playground

"People's Playground: A History of the Albert Park", by Jill Barnard and Jenny Keating, makes interesting reading. 
It tells us that the Albert Park Reserve was proclaimed a 
public park in 1864, and that the Park's history has been one 
of "Controversy, funding crises, government neglect, commercial interest and passionate partisanship".
Given this recipe it's no wonder that the Park has very often been the subject of public protest. Its first protest was in 1863 - against a decision of neighbouring municipal councils to remove cattle grazing rights.
"The combination of grass, lake and roadways seemed to spark an inevitable desire for races round the park." It was in the 1930s when motor racing was first mooted. "However, the idea of motor racing through the park attracted a howl of protest" which resulted in the Minister for Lands declaring that "I think it would be wrong to have this race in Albert Park. More suitable sites could be found".
The more things change the more they remain the same.
The first motor racing in the Park was probably in the 1950s. Public opposition to the races grew after the 1956 Grand Prix, and after the 1958 race Premier Bolte announced there would be no more motor racing in the Park whilst his government was in office.
Public protests on Albert Park issues became more organised, and from the 1950s the Albert Park Protection League (APPLE) lobbied the State Government and the media.
The book's final page proclaims "....Albert Park is still there, still surviving, still inspiring an incredible loyalty and passion among its devoted supporters." Indeed.
Never in the 137 years since its 1864 proclamation has the Park been sacrificed to commercial interests as it is at present, with the connivance of a government, which astoundingly has resorted to secrecy to protect those interests. 
And at no time in that 137 years has the Park had a more committed and organised community advocate and defender than Save Albert Park.
I honestly believe that compared with a month or two ago, we are currently closer to our objective of ridding the Park of car 
racing. But we need to maintain the pressure by keeping the 
relevant facts before the media and thus the public; and before the politicians.
The facts are on our side. We will continue our campaign for as long as it takes.
Ross Ulman, Convenor

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SAP 2001 RACE WEEK REPORT

VIGIL IN THE PARK
The Vigil operated at its usual site until Monday, 26 February, despite the chain-wire fence erected along the park boundary. This fence provided a very convenient mount for our giant banner, "CIRCUIT OF SHAME". At midday on the Monday, Rod Quantock met members at the Vigil to 
pre-record interviews for SAP's 3CR program "Beyond the Barricades". The Vigil resumed normal operations immediately following the week's closure of the Park.
THE COUNT
More than 140 volunteers were involved this year in the SAP count of patrons over the four days of the event. Thanks to everyone for this magnificent effort.
Full details of the count will be provided in next month's newsletter.
SAP MARQUEE
The official SAP marquee was in operation at the approach to Gate 1, the entrance used by corporate and grandstand patrons. Erected every day from Wednesday until race day, the marquee was used as a media contact point, a member meeting place, headquarters for the attendance count, and as the display centre for the "VIP Names" board.
The board carried the names of 70 well-known Australians who were prepared to say publicly "Motor Racing in Public Parkland is Wrong".
To all those who agreed to have their names confront 
the thousands of race patrons who entered Gate 1, SAP is extremely grateful.
"PICNIC" IN THE PARK
At about midday on Wednesday, a group of SAP members appeared in a van in Pit Straight, right in the heart of the closed and security-guarded park. Here they released yellow balloons, displayed a banner reading "Get Australian F1 out of the Park", held media interviews, and then had a picnic on what was left of the grass on the race-track verge. This event provided some of the TV news that evening, and once again showed our resourcefulness and determination to highlight the closure and misuse of a public park.
ROOF ART
Since the first race in 1996, SAP has used houses of local residents to mount a "Roof Art" protest against the use of a public park for a car race. The roof art has been an effective deterrent to news and publicity aerial photos. 
RECLAIMING THE PARK
At midnight on Monday 5 March Save Albert Park members marked the restoration of the park to the people of Victoria with a surreal moonlit walking tour of the mess and wreckage of the event, after which a few hardy members spent the rest of the night at the Vigil site. 


Save Albert Park thanks the hundreds of members who volunteered their services and took part 
in the various raceweek activities with enthusiasm, determination and good humour.

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SAP's 2000 Post-Race Report

LAUNCH
Cr. Julian Hill, the Mayor of the City of Port Phillip, launched the SAP 2000 Post-Race Report at Gate 1 of the track (Albert Park Reserve was no longer a public park) on 28th February 2001. The Mayor noted that Albert Park, which comprised 60% of the open space of the city, and popular with locals and 
visitors, was essentially privatised for six months each year. 
"The Parkwatch Post-race Report reveals in graphic detail exactly what holding the Grand Prix means for our environment, our economy, our enjoyment, our safety - and most importantly the safety of our children. But underlying all these problems is the fact that having a Formula 1 race here, in precious parkland, represents an alienation of public space. It simply should not happen. The Grand Prix should be on a permanent, purpose-built track elsewhere."
He concluded by commending Save Albert Park for their determination to keep bringing the issues to the attention of 
the public, the Government and the Australian Grand Prix Corporation.

REPORT SUMMARY
Save Albert Park's fifth Post-Race Report is a hard-hitting and comprehensive overview of the impact of the 2000 Australian Grand Prix (AGP) on Albert Park. 
As in previous years, the report was compiled using information obtained from year-round monitoring of the park by SAP members, and from input by members with particular areas of interest and expertise. The report is now available at the SAP office.
Several major themes emerge from the detailed content of this year's report:

• During AGP set-up and take-down, Albert Park becomes a vast works area with multiple construction sites. This leads to major management problems that so far have not been solved.
• As a result of this, not only is the amenity of Park users compromised, but also their safety.
• Many areas of the Park sustain significant damage, some areas are not adequately restored, and some are becoming more and more degraded every year.

ALBERT PARK AS A WORKSITE
A Code of Conduct exists to regulate the AGP set-up and take-down works; this is designed to protect both the Park and its users, and each year the contractors are fully briefed in the Code. However, the report finds ongoing problems with compliance.
Parks Victoria's best efforts to monitor contractors are 
hampered by the extent of works, the number of contractors, and a lack of sufficient staff to cover all areas of the Park regularly, or to follow up Code breaches. 

Unsafe work practices persist throughout the site and a number of these are described in the report. Construction sites are not adequately fenced off from the public and many works occur too close to Park users. WorkCover was alerted to these concerns last year and undertook to monitor the site more closely in 2001. 

Amenity and safety issues stemming from the "park as work site" paradox were especially worrying with regard to the Children's Community Playground that was eventually almost completely surrounded by infrastructure. 
The Playground is also close to the temporary works compound, which generates heavy vehicle traffic on the road that playground users must cross on their way from the car park to the gate in the safety fence. When it was used by works traffic, even the presence of traffic lights and a traffic marshal failed to check speeding along this road.
The report notes that the temporary safety fence cut off the play area from the barbecue pavilion and the public toilets. Portable toilets were again stored inside the fence prior to closure of the Park, and left unlocked. A structure was built inside the playground fence with only a thin rope separating it from the play area.

In general, those who persisted in using the Park during the works period in 2000 encountered greatly reduced open space, heavy traffic on park roads and paths, detours on jogging paths and noise, air and visual pollution. The latter includes advertising signs which, as in previous years and in spite of objections, first appeared in mid-January and remained until early April. Sports fields that carried infrastructure were unavailable for months.
The report includes a number of recorded instances of near misses and actual injury due to traffic on park roads and/or unsafe work practices. It also includes a section on the year-round dangers arising from the use of a purpose-built Formula One race-track as a public road.

DAMAGE TO THE PARK
The 2000 Report details recurrent problems in the care of the Park during the works period.
Some trees were not protected according to the Code of Conduct and budget limitations were invoked to explain this(!). Trucks damaged trees and contributed to compaction around tree roots as they failed to follow routes designated by Parks Victoria. Watering was again lavish in Grand Prix "show" areas, but often neglected in other areas.
Once again, a number of sports fields were poorly cleared, and the timing and quality of restoration was judged unsatisfactory in some cases. While Parks Victoria achieved some improvements in sports field renovation, this does not apply to other areas of 
public open space. 

In a number of areas, including popular picnic areas, which were occupied by infrastructure for many months, restoration was tardy and unsatisfactory. The report identifies several extensive areas becoming more degraded each year.
The Minister for the Environment and Conservation and the CEO of Parks Victoria are invited to visit Albert Park during the works period, without notice to the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, to see the problems at first hand. 
It is plain that the GP cannot co-exist with a well-managed public park.

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Infrastructure Details Revealed

The Australian Grand Prix Corporation seems oddly proud to publicise the amount of infrastructure shifted in and out of the Park for the four-day circus. Thanks to its publicity machine Victorians who can see the irony in it, now know that the "temporary circuit" requires:

• 3,000 four-tonne barriers with 'debris fencing'
• 25 km of spectator fence with over 40 km of total fencing
• 50,000 sq m of artificial grass, 7,000 sq m of bark chips
• 3,000 sq m of temporary hardstand and asphalt.
• 65 tonnes of rock for temporary traps
• removal and replacement of 13 km of post-and-chain fencing
• removal and replacement of all street furniture including 500 signs and 50 light poles.
• 35 km of electrical cabling

And then there are the spectator and corporate facilities.
Next year there will be additional light poles and traffic calming measures to remove if Black Spot funding measures are implemented.

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Circuit Safety in the Spotlight

The tragic death of the race marshal and the injuries to spectators will, depending on the outcome of the coronial Inquiry, focus attention on the Australian Grands Prix Act 1994. 
If it is shown that there are no legal rights to sue the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, the State Government must act consistently with its original criticisms of the Act when in Opposition and thoroughly review it. SAP has prepared detailed proposals for amendments to the Act and is writing to the Victorian Government seeking input to any amending process. 
The race-day accident and other incidents should also raise questions about the wisdom of using a temporary track that has been fitted into the physical constraints of a public park. 

New safety measures could prove extremely embarrassing to the AGPC. While Ron Walker, not surprisingly, claimed that "Albert Park is without doubt the safest circuit in the world" (Herald Sun 6/3), two local accident experts have called for improved track barriers (increased heights and wrap-around mesh barriers) and for crowds to be further back from the track. Indeed we understand from motorsport sources that the FIA had already "mandated an all-round one-metre increase in the height of safety fences only one week before the Australian race." (AutoAction News, 16-22 March 2001).
The drawbacks of using a temporary track have been further underlined this year.
Firstly, the complaint about the safety of one of the temporary gravel run-offs is not an isolated instance in F1 racing. Gravel traps are reportedly high on the agenda as a circuit safety issue, and the redevelopment of Silverstone will include replacement of gravel traps with high friction asphalt. This will be used at two other circuits in 2001 (Motorsport News, 16-29 March 2001). 
Secondly, while improvements to safety fencing can be readily accommodated on a permanent track as in Malaysia, higher 
fencing will add significantly to the costs and transport problems of a long temporary track like Albert Park (1.5 km longer than the old Adelaide circuit).

Improved safety fencing and other new requirements may at best mean embarrassing additional government grants, and at worst be impossible to meet. As Professor Tom Triggs of Monash Accident Research Centre has observed "They match international standards but we have got to remember that in Albert Park everything is pretty close to the track - in other places things are a bit more removed." (The Age, 6/3)
The location of the latest fatal accident, turn 3, is very close to the scene of Martin Brundle's accident in 1996. In the Herald Sun's guide to the circuit, turn 3 is described as "a really good corner because the road is fairly narrow and there's a pretty serious crown across the middle of the track". 
Alan Attwood quoted the observations of driver Hakkinen that "This is a very, very difficult circuit to drive" and one that "can really trick you quite badly" (The Age, 6/3/01).
The inevitable technological improvements to Formula One cars may demand greater distances between track and barrier, and between barrier and spectators. In 1996, Gerhard Berger, then the drivers' spokesman, was reported complaining that "parts of the track were too close to fences" (The Age, 9/3/96).
While we have to await FIA proposals and the results of the coronial inquiry, there is clearly a risk in building circuits which are designed to meet the minimal requirements of the present rather than the future, and within the constraints imposed by public roads in a public park. 
As Formula One racing develops, the Albert Park circuit could become basically obsolete. 
The viewing conditions for patrons, for instance, are basic and will fall behind other sporting venues, as demonstrated by the new Malaysian track. 
In the meantime, between races, the Park roads are public roads which will remain unsafe while they are designed to meet the requirements of Formula One racing, not the needs of the ordinary motorist and pedestrian.

On the day following this year's race, SAP released "Grand Prixtensions 2000" - its economic analysis of the 2000 GP. As the enclosed article by journalist Royce Millar (The Age Money section, 5/3/01) points out, the Report's assessment that the race cost the Victorian public $16.14 million to earn a direct economic benefit (roughly equivalent to a total flow-on effect 
of $11.2 million) is 
conservatively based for the following reasons:

• The report uses the Government's own capital costs figure of $50.5 million despite there being official documentation of $60 million of expenditures. 
• In estimating the operating costs to the public sector, the report deliberately excludes public sector sponsorships and the RAAF flyovers, and has not attempted to estimate a commercial rent for the park. Nor has it deducted the questionable revenue streams claimed by the Government (e.g. Victorians' expenditure of savings).

Two messages clearly emerge from Grand Prixtensions 2000. 
Firstly, governments need to do a thorough cost-benefit analysis before they commit large amounts of public funds to highly commercial events in the name of tourism promotion. In the case of the Grand Prix the State Government is left with unproven place promotion and investment inducement justifications for its investment of public funds. These were not enough to impress the SA Government.
Secondly, no private sector corporation or consortium would stage the event using a temporary track like Albert Park. Victoria needs a 
permanent track where the costs can be spread over multiple races and other uses over the year.
The SAP media release concluded "The Bracks Government must act on its commitment to develop a standard methodology to assess the value of major events to Victorians, and commission Treasury or the Auditor-General to undertake this task in consultation with specialists in tourism economics."
A copy of the Executive Summary of Grand Prixtensions 2000 can be obtained from the SAP office.

"If Victoria is to disprove the economic analysts then a new economic strategy is required. The major events strategy of the Kennett Government may give the impression that every thing is 'On the Move'but it provides at best a temporary diversion." 
STEVE BRACKS, 
'Challenges for Labor' in Taskforce 2000, 2nd report.

"It's about getting our priorities right. The cost could not be justified at the expense of basic services." 
(South Australian Premier JOHN OLSEN on scrapping the Le Mans race, Herald Sun, 4/3/01).

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Advisory Committee Seeks Submissions

The Minister responsible for the Grand Prix, John Pandazopoulos, has at last formed the promised Advisory Committee on the running of the Grand Prix. 
Public Notices giving details of the objectives, terms of reference and calling for submissions were published in all Melbourne papers on Saturday 24 March and in local papers the following week.
This committee, on which the City of Port Phillip is represented, has a limited role, namely to "consider and advise on mechanisms for maintaining an appropriate balance between the 
needs of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation and the needs of the public while maximising the benefit and minimising any inconvenience".
The Committee will take submissions in writing or by email from "the local community, businesses and sporting groups" in its role as an "avenue to raise operational issues" with the Government. The specific operational issues listed under the Terms of Reference are:

• the setup/take down times of race infrastructure
• traffic management and transport arrangements
• the effect of the event on local business activity and the community
• the effect on Albert Park and park users.

These terms of reference do not exclude submissions addressing the management of the set up and set-down program.
Although some members may view this as a cynical exercise 
in "Clayton's consultation", to sweeten the pill of the contract 
extension and to minimise opposition, SAP believes it important that the race organisers know that Park users are not satisfied with the running of the event and know what needs to be done. 
Through its Parkwatch activities and Post-Race report SAP has vigorously campaigned to protect the interests of the Park, the Park users and the community. 

The latest Post-Race report provides clear evidence that the event is run on a tight budget which leads to a lack of super-vision of the set-up and dismantling works, a lengthier occupation period than is needed, and poor or no restoration of many affected areas. 
SAP hopes that all affected members of the public will make submissions representing the various interests of the community - sporting, recreational, local business, parents of children who use playgrounds, dog walkers and so on. 
Send submissions (by May 15) to the:

Albert Park Advisory Committee, c/- Grahame Wise, Sport and Recreation Victoria, GPO Box 2392V, Melbourne 3001, or email to grahame.wise@dsrd.vic.gov.au 

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Senate Motion Lost

Senator Lyn Allison moved a motion on 2 March calling on the Victorian State Government "to transfer the race to a permanent, purpose-built venue elsewhere in Victoria - which will right the ethical, environmental and economic wrongs caused by the event being held in Albert Park¾. 
The motion noted the impact of the race on the Park, the promotion of tobacco, the greenhouse gas and air pollution resulting from trucking 27,000 tonnes of infrastructure into and out of the Park, and the questions hanging over the economic evaluations. Regrettably only the Greens and Australian Democrats supported the motion.
She also issued a media release calling for the State Government to invest in renewable and alternative energy transport technology rather than pouring money into the Grand Prix. "Surely, there are better uses for tax dollars. There are definitely better uses for our public parks." 

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Vale Joanna Johnston

Joanna Johnson died on the evening of Wednesday, March 21. She passed away peacefully following her long and indomitable struggle with cancer. Her name will remain a byword for courage among members of Save Albert Park. During the early days of struggle she was a member of the peacekeeper group.  It is fair to say that she was not temperamentally suited to the role, for Joanna was too passionate, too feisty a character. She was never remotely violent or impolite, but she felt she needed to be in the thick of the action.
If bravery is defined as holding one's position despite being fearful, then Joanna was the bravest of the brave. She was often nervous about her safety at the myriad protests in Albert Park, but not once did she take a backward step. If there was a lock-on to works equipment, she would be there. If there was a Grand Prix fashion lunch to be invaded, she would be there. She was arrested so often that even she lost count.

She used her considerable writing skills - she was a freelance journalist and editor of high standing - to bombard newspaper editors with her reasoned criticisms of Jeff Kennett, Ron Walker, Bernie Ecclestone and their cronies. Even the partisan Herald Sun was compelled to publish her letters on occasions, much to her satisfaction.As with so many other Victorians, the misapplication of naked power at Albert Park served to ignite Joanna's social conscience. She was committed to actions at Prince's Park and Royal Park. She delivered election material for Stephen Mayne in his tilt against Jeff Kennett. 

She spent many hot days in central Victoria for Bill Hill, the independent candidate for Benalla. Almost single-handedly she letterboxed the entire Carrum electorate before the State election, and when the blisters were too painful she rode her bike.
Joanna was a humanist. She believed in the basic decency of the human race, in its logical progression. She eschewed the cult of the selfish, grasping individual to whom the dollar would always be the bottom line. Basic to her outlook was a highly developed sense of community, which extended well beyond the limits of Albert Park. Joanna is survived by her husband Neil, daughter Anna and son Richard. Save Albert Park extends its sympathy to them. She will not be forgotten.

Kevin Summers

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