Max O.
The Labor
party knows no bounds in how far it is prepared to stoop in carrying out the wishes
of the big end of town. The western suburbs of Adelaide have in particular had
a hard time with Labor local government councillors from the Charles Sturt
Council selling out the communities of Cheltenham and Woodville.
The land of
the old Cheltenham racecourse was lost to the local residents about 4 years ago
and now a new housing estate is under construction by the developers, AV
Jennings. The Cheltenham Park Residents Association campaigned for the
racecourse to be turned over to open space parklands and for a wetlands that
could harvest storm water, thereby recycling water and mitigating flooding to which
the area is prone. Charles Sturt has one of the smallest percentages of open
space (less than 7%) of any council area in Australia.
The SA Premier
Weatherill, who is also the local MP for the state electorate of Cheltenham,
pretended to be the white knight claiming that he would seek a commitment from
the developers to leave 35 per cent of open space, 15 per cent affordable
housing and promised a State Government funded $20-million stormwater project
at the site. In contrast the Liberal held electorate of Adelaide, where local
residents stopped the former Labor state treasurer Kevin Foley and his
developer mates from turning over the old Victoria Park racecourse into a mega
entertainment and racing car precinct, has now become an open space parkland.
The old
Cheltenham racecourse-cum-housing estate has cynically been renamed St Clair.
This renaming is cynical because the whole nefarious story doesn't stop there.
The next
plot of land that the developers wanted to profit from was the St Clair reserve
in Woodville. Originally the developers had purchased the old Actil (Australian
Cotton Textile Industries Limited) factory site, which is adjacent to the St
Clair reserve, to build their housing estate. The St Clair reserve was created
as a result of a 1942 petition from local residents for a memorial park dedicated
to war serviceman from the area, and the St Clair recreation reserve was kept
in trust by the council until recently.
However once
they became aware that the Actil land was contaminated, the developers had no
interest in building on this site and convinced their mates on the then Labor
controlled Charles Sturt Council to swap the 4.7 hectares of Actil land for a
similar amount of land from the St Clair reserve. An almighty storm for the
last 4 years then descended on this local council and the community as a result
of this cosy bit of corrupt, insider trading.
The local
community were so outraged by this land swap deal that they voted out the previous
mayor, Harold Andersen and the save the St Clair campaigner, Kirsten Alexander (below),
became the new mayor. Many of the old Labor councillors were also shown the
door at the last local government elections and were replaced by the save St
Clair campaigners who organised themselves under the banner of City of Charles
Sturt Ratepayers and Residents.
Unfortunately
the struggle to save the St Clair reserve has been a bitter, slow rear-guard
battle. Even though the land swap was a done deal, it hasn't stopped the save St
Clair campaigners from pursuing all avenues of blocking and reversing this
scheming decision.
However the
Labor party has done its utmost to thwart the independents’ attempts to save St
Clair as open space. They have 'worked over' some ward councillors to change
sides (offering one councillor preselection for a state seat at the next 2014 state
election and inducements to other councillors the community don't yet know
about) and were able in May of this year to rescind an earlier decision to
lobby the State Government to preserve the 4.7ha piece of St Clair Reserve
earmarked for the housing development.
The contest
over preserving the St Clair reserve is so tight that at the March council
meeting Mayor Kirsten Alexander had cast her deciding vote to pass a motion
which asked the Labor State Government to halt the housing development. Now
this has been overturned by just one vote (8 : 7). No doubt the save St Clair
campaigners won't be daunted and will continue on the fight.
Karl Marx's
adage from the Communist Manifesto," All that is solid melts into air, all
that is holy is profaned......", which chillingly described the bourgeoisie’s
voracious appetite for
exploiting and changing our existence and the environment for the pursuit of
profit, also aptly depicts the behaviour of not only the malicious developers
but also the social opportunists in the Labor Party!
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