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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-29 Daily Xml
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PORT ADELAIDE

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide) (15:35): I have lived on the Lefevre Peninsula for 11 years. Both kids were born since Declan and I moved there, and Semaphore, Largs and Port Adelaide are their home turf. In comparison to those whose families stretch back generations, we are new-comers. Once you live in the Port or on the peninsula, you rarely move far away, and families tend to stick together. I would love to think that our children will stay and make homes there, too.

A decade of living in and loving a place gives you some perspective on the changes to the area, and spending months knocking on people's doors and asking what matters to them is a fast track to understanding what the community thinks. What I distil the message down to is this: community comes first. Places change; the tide of history can be cruel. Working through that change must be done with the community—with what we share, not with what we hold privately—at the centre.

What we have seen at the Port is a massive step-change caused by the containerisation of international shipping and the desertion of the inner harbour by the big shipping companies. Gone are the thousands of wharf workers and their families, working, living and thriving in Port Adelaide. This has happened everywhere in the world where the first harbour was down a river in a confined area. However, that change does not need to be a catastrophe. Efforts have been made in the past few decades, some more successful than others, some with more good will than others.

The location of three substantial museums—largely built on volunteer enthusiasm combined with international level expertise—has been a wonderful addition to the Port, giving it a grounding as a tourism and family destination. The location of the shopping centre away from the heritage heart of the Port has been more destructive, with much of the life now hidden and almost lost in the maze of streets.

Accommodating the expanding SA economy and therefore the increase in freight movements to Outer Harbor has added complexity to the Port area. The associated jobs are welcome. Noise and air quality issues need to be managed. The removal of the trucks from the heart of Port Adelaide is a positive step that was made to differentiate between freight activity and the inner harbour. However, the removal of disruption and noise is one thing, bringing life into the area is another, and this where I return to my message about community being at the centre of revitalisation.

The wrong model is to put the development of private spaces first and to separate those spaces from the community they sit in—its history, its culture and its future. This is why, in my opinion, the Newport Quays development was never accepted by the community as being part of the revitalisation of the Port, and the destruction of the boat yards to make way for development was widely regarded in the community as a tragedy.

The Port's future success depends on several ingredients. First, the community needs to be fully part of the decision-making. Serious options with costs and implications need to be shared with the community. Secondly, public spaces in the Port must be cared for first. When building a community, the first step is to cherish the shared places and assets. The places where we congregate, spend time with family, and bring visitors to are the ones that define a community.

Thirdly, anything that happens in the Port must revel in the fact that it is in the Port of Adelaide, that it is not some sanitised 'anywhere' place. This is a place with deep Kaurna, migrant and maritime history. It is home to a diverse arts community. It has an increasingly healthy environment, with dolphins living nearer a capital city than nearly anywhere else in the world. It is a place where people still know how to make wooden boats.

I do not want to give a definitive list of what I want to see because that is something that needs to emerge in partnership with the community, but I will give five ideas that I want to test with the community:

1. More public space that is good to spend time in: lawns, BBQ areas and, above all, a playground to attract young families. I know that when you have small kids, above all, you want a free place to go and see other parents and let the children stretch their bodies and have some fun.

2. Putting the inner harbour at the centre of activity. This means getting watercraft onto the harbour from kayaks and row boats through to returning the One and All alongside the Falie at the harbour, and the City of Adelaide and the Nelcebee, too. To this end I would like to see a water plan for the inner harbour so that we can plan for the maximum compatible activity on the water.

3. Creating a pathway for a leisurely bike ride or walk around the inner harbour so that you can still have some exercise and finish with a coffee at the Port.

4. In the longer-term, creating a maritime precinct that recreates a boat yard, with young people being able to come along and watch boats being built.

5. Opening up spaces for artists to fill and create attractions for more people to come to the Port.

These are my thoughts after listening carefully to the community. I know that we need to work out how to fund the ideas we collectively come up with. We still need more people to live and work in the Port, and we still need to get public and private investment into the Port, but I believe that we must start with our shared spaces: our community assets. More discussion needs to happen and then some real action is needed. We need to start seeing real, practical action, action that honours our past and celebrates our future.

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