by Shane Sody

Cognitive dissonance is “the discomfort a person feels when their behavior does not align with their values or beliefs.”

State Government Ministers must be feeling this discomfort as they see black plastic shrouding more than ever of your Victoria Park / Pakapakanthi (Park 16).

These pics were taken on Tuesday 22 October, more than three weeks before the Adelaide 500 event which is scheduled for the 14th to 17th of November.

For months, your access to this part of your Park Lands has faced growing restrictions, as the Motor Sport Board has transformed much of your Open Green Public Park into what is effectively a shrine for a four-day carbon emission festival.

Open, Green, Public Parks should be synonymous with peace, calm and nature. But that’s not the case in Adelaide.

Taxpayers are subsidising this festival of carbon emissions, and you lose not just the racetrack area, but also large sections of your eastern Park Lands, from Rymill Park / Murlawirrapurka (Park 14) all the way through to the southern part of Victoria Park / Pakapakanthi (Park 16).

Large parts of Victoria Park are shrouded from view, as if your Park Lands were encased in black body bags.

For many more weeks, the calm and peace you can usually find in your eastern Park Lands will disappear. This year, the demands of motor sport have led to restrictions within three parks, to accommodate not just the core Adelaide 500 events, bur also a new dirt speedway track, like this, in King Rodney Park / Ityamai-itpina (Park 15).

In May 2022, the State Government declared a climate emergency.

Now, the State Government is bidding to host, in Adelaide, a world conference of parties to discuss the climate crisis.

But the same State Government continues using taxpayer dollars to glorify internal combustion emissions that are worsening the climate crisis.

How can this happen?

A forty-year-old law to promote motor sport is the culprit.

The South Australian Motor Sport Act 1984 was brought into operation to permit Formula One motor racing to be held in your Park Lands the following year, 1985. However, that same law is now used to legally authorise fencing off, restricting access, and dumping motor racing detritus into large swathes of your eastern Park Lands for an ever-increasing period each year.

The South Australian Motor Sport Act 1984 does not limit how much of your Park Lands can be claimed for motor sport. Nor does it place any limits on the length of time they can be fenced off to prevent your access.

The Act gives absolute power to the relevant Minister (currently the Premier, Peter Malinauskas) to declare a “specified area” and specified “prescribed works periods” during which the Motor Sport Board effectively takes over, and “the rights or interests of any other person in or in relation to the land are suspended for the declared period.”

What’s more, there is no limit in the Act on how many such events may be held, or how often they can be held.

Of course this land grab is not consistent with the Park Lands Management Strategy that was prepared by the State Government’s own advisory body Kadaltilla / Park Lands Authority.

However that Strategy is irrelevant because it is trumped by the dirty South Australian Motor Sport Act 1984.

Some of the annual motor sport paraphernalia remains in your Park Lands for months after the conclusion of the Adelaide 500 in November.

Crash barriers and other detritus will persist again in Victoria Park/ Pakapakanthi (Park 16) until after the subsequent Motor Sport Festival scheduled for March 2025.

A dirty law - an anachronism

The word “anachromism” may be defined as “a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old fashioned.”

Being 40 years old, the South Australian Motor Sport Act 1984 is an anachronism. Among other things, it fails to acknowledge the climate crisis.

The South Australian Motor Sport Act 1984 was legislated before we all became aware that Open Green Public spaces improve public health and even save lives.

The author of this article, Shane Sody, is the President of the Adelaide Park Lands Association and the editor of the semi-monthly newsletter, "Open Green Public".

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