Introduction

The Fair Go For Gawler blog page enables disaffected people and groups within the Gawler and surrounds community to communicate with each other and other interested parties about the  Delfin Gawler East project and the Development Plan Amendment (DPA) which supports it. Visitors can voice their grievances about, or support for it. The blog is also tending to ‘morph’ into a vehicle through which  broader aspects of urban development in our region can be explored, even how the excessive power of vested interests…on both sides of politics….. is eroding the public’s confidence in our version of democracy.

WOW! This blog site has now had its 2,000th visitor since it was created . THANK YOU TO ALL.

Cheers from the blogmaster - Jow Bloggs

A 12 year history of bypass political football

Readers will be amazed at this collection of facts and extracts from The Bunyip and other articles as far back as 1998. The people of Evanston Park have been political footballs for this whole time.  See how political expediency is affecting us and how the title of the road has changed. Click here for an-extracts-history-of-an-eastern-bypass-from-1998-v13

Govt and Delfin say Bowman Crt must be exit to Potts

Conflict between agreed Gawler Council strategy and planning staff seems to be the case over the exit point of the ‘connector rd’ being at Potts Rd via Bowman Crt. Internally, some are pushing for the road to align with Bentley. Delfin have always wanted it to connect via Bowman Crt as the alternative obviously triggers bigger issues and conflicts. To start with, the wrath of the politically active upper Evanston Park people would be fuelled. Then there is the cost to Delfin of having to negotiate the purchase of multiple homes including farm infrastructure, and the fact that the Govt has stated in DPA  they would not support the road to be near water and gas pipelines. As well, Delfin and other developers they might partner with certainly would be in a worse position in terms of being expected to help fund the eventual future road extension through to Tiver. By terminating at Bowman Crt, they could more easily enforce their case of any future roadway expenses being that of Council and Govt., their (Delfin) commitments having been met .

 Jow Bloggs

Project should be canned

The July meeting of Gawler Council with Delfin and DTEI attending seems to have been a farce. Delfin have reiterated they will not pay for infrastructure such as roads outside of their development precinct. Makes sense. Gawler Council is up to its eyeballs in debt and the state govt is also flagging major financial woes. Council has said all along it will not support the project unless all concerns such as who pays, fire, water, environment and living amenity of established homes on road routes are satisfied. Well its obvious none of the above can be satisfied. Its obvious the project should be canned and the DPA should not go ahead. There is plenty of more suitable land around Gawler closer to the rail and northern expressway.

Council reportedly now says it will not support Bentley Rd Reserve for Gawler East link road

After having in 2009 unanimously supported the use of Bentley Rd reserve for the creation of a link road from Gawler East to Tiver and Main North road, it seems at its meeting of Tues 23rd Feb, things have changed. What could be behind this?

Piccolo accuses Council of secret meetings and non negotiable attitude towards alternative to Bentley route.

MP Tony Piccolo in his mid November speech to parliament has accused Gawler Council for holding secret meetings, being non transparent and fixed on their position about the southern route for the link road/connector road (bypass). Mr Piccolo says he has listened to the people of Evanston Park and has suggested alternative routes which would still be within Gawler Council’s boundary, but says Council remains committed to the Bentley route. Click here to read Mr Piccolos speech to parliament on this matter. Community Cabinet Grieve 19 November 2009 (3)

For us Evanston Parkers, destined to have a highway within a few metres of our back fences, the degeneration of communications between Council and Govt is most concerning, and adds yet another chapter to the earlier post article about how we have been political footballs for nearly 12 years.

Gawler East DPA deferral

Minister Holloway at the November 9th community cabinet planning forum (which many of us didnt get to because we had been led to believe the date had been changed) made a statement that he would not finalise the Delfin Gawler East DPA until he was satisfied the negotiations between the stakeholders had addressed the issues raised by the proposed development, particularly who is to fund the infrastructure/roads.  MP Tony Piccolo reasserted this in his speech to parliament the following week. One wonders how the dozens of community and Council objections will ever be addressed.

Australian democracy – an overhaul needed?

This article is a little outside of the planning issues normally floated on our community blog. There is a link though, given the elections mode we are entering.

Australians have long been known for our laid back lifestyle, shorten the tall poppy syndrome, and for not taking ourselves or politics too seriously. But its time for us to to wake up, invest the time and resources for the public to become educated about civic understanding and the various forms of democracy, critique our version of it and the system’s integral linkage with capitalism.

We are watching on as the most successful economy of the first half of this century- China – forms its hybrid blend of communism, socialism, capitalism and poor human rightsism.  We wont ever create a perfect world or a perfect political system, but one thing is for certain – a system of government which has less party alliances and indebtedness to vested interests, and one which allowed the likes of Nick Xenephon to grow in number, would be healthy.

From an international perspective, Australia and Canada are often compared. We are similar in population, land size and economies. Politically though, they are years ahead of us. It has been a country on a mission to cull the vested lobby, having completely removed union and business funding of electoral parties. What a great step forward for modernising democracy - fewer ‘umbrella shelterers’ and forcing those representing us to be more individually accountable. Conclusion: 0ur version of the Westminster system clearly needs a Canadian style overhaul.  My view is supported by former Governor General Major General Michael JefferyAC, CVO, MC  as shown on the SBS documetary titled Decadence: The Meaninglessness of Modern Life, hosted by Pria Viswalingam. Australia’s political system and greed driven society has many wrongs. Click here for more on Viswalingam’s docos… Decadence_(SBS_TV)

Where are the buyers going to come from?

Yes, we have some ships to build and the 3rd Army squadran moving to Salisbury thanks to the Fed Govt. , maybe even some mining activity into the future. But one wonders where the droves of homebuyers wanting to come to Gawler are going to come from…those with jobs that is. Manufacturing and the Wine Industry have been two of the backbone industries for this state for many years. Our wine markets have been hit for a six by the world financial crisis and massive overplantings by big corporations using tax incentives. Manufacturing is in big trouble. Mitsubishi has gone, Holden has lost market share and is clearly struggling with many workers having taken redundancy packages. Amazingly the Govt seems to have stood back to watch Bridgestone’s demise, soon to erase 650 direct manufacturing jobs and probably a thousand more in the way of suppliers and service providers…this occurring in our premier’s own electorate! Now we have the federal industry minister saying he will commit another $11million towards creating new manufacturing jobs in this state. Why couldnt Mr Rann have saved those we already had? Bridgestone makes great quality products but struggled under our crazy open door imports policy, yet tyres are something that will always be needed and a critical requirement for any future automotive industry.  Why cant we do more to  hold onto and help the industries with jobs that we already have?   A whole lot more real estate agents will not make up for Bridgestone Mr Rann.

Back to my original point. It could be a long, long time before there are enough people with jobs to create the demand for the envisioned Gawler explosion.

Govt. planning forum date debacle

Its 2nd November and I receive a letter from MP Tony Piccolo inviting me  to the Community Cabinet – Planning & Devt Forum on 9th November  at the CWA Hall, Tod St., 5pm to 6pm. Yes I will go, even though the time slot is a shocker, given it would be  peak traffic time and many of us work well past 6pm nowadays. It was a good excuse to leave early for a change, and it would be good to see ministers Holloway and Conlon on our turf.  

But then a couple of days later another letter arrives from Mr Piccolo saying the venue has changed to the Uniting Church hall, and it would be on 9th December at the same time. Ok, no problem. I changed it in my diary.  Then I opened The Bunyip this week to see the meeting had been on the date originally advised…They had been, met, had some more media mike pics taken and gone! 

Upon querying Mr Piccolos office, I learnt they had mucked up the second notice, had realised it well prior but decided not to send yet another notice of change because they thought it would cause even more confusion. Good one.  Any chance of it been a deliberate ploy to minimise the number attending, given this community turns up in droves when planning is mentioned? Normally that type of thought wouldn’t even cross my mind, but very cross I am. Now lets see if theres a public apology from Mr Piccolo and attempt made (as futile as it would be) to get them out here again before Christmas.

DPA rezoning may be given thumbs up before Christmas so Govt has time to spin infrastructure spend promises as part of election campaign

Its that time of the electoral cycle the unfunded promises of govt spending for the future start to be spun. A frequent visitor to this blog site phoned me (wouldnt communicate on blog for fear of reprisals) to say he/she had been told by Delfin that their latest from the Govt was that everything is on track for the rezoning of Gawler East and Evanston Park , and that it would happen before Christmas so the Govt could make infrastructure spend announcements leading up to the elections in March. He/she was in the know because he/she is one of those wanting to sell a large piece of land to them and they had been keeping him/her in the loop.

Whats should we make of this? A couple of things come to mind immediately. 1. The Govt’s community cabinet planning and devt forum  held at Gawler this week was just another cynical effort to say they have undertaken broad consultion, whilst the rezoning will go ahead anyway. 2. The closeness of Govt and vested interests in rezoning is becoming more and more evident, further worsening the public’s distrust of the process. Greens MP Mark Parnell says we have a strong likelihood of the dangersous Qld culture of  mates supporting mates coming to the fore in SA. See more on this by visiting his website www.democracy4sale.org

Delfin backs away from bypass/link road funding

The draft commitment deed for the Gawler East development, whilst still a working document, tends to point to a possible about-face by Delfin Lend Lease in regard to who is going to fund the controversial connector/link road/bypass from Gawler East to Evanston Park. Much evidence exists to show a funadamental premise of the development was that DLL were to pay for this road. But the draft deed says otherwise, suggesting the Town of Gawler and State Govt would pay. This is further supported by a controversial spreadsheet document leaked in July to the residents of Evanston Park which shows the ‘responsibility’ for the road would be held by a combination of DLL, Town of Gawler, Barossa Council and DTEI (State Govt) but a footnote states it would “be paid for up front by Town of Gawler and DTEI with contribution sought later from all future development (developers?) which includes commercial and the racetrack”.  We can certainly derive from this that who has it on their balance sheet is a long way off being concluded, especially given the Town of Gawler is struggling under existing debt and the State Govt has a thousand other priorities. Perhaps Paul Koch in his Bunyip letter to editor 28th Oct is on the money when he says it looks like Delfin hadn’t’ done their homework well enough before bidding for the site.  In the mean-time, it seems unrealistic to believe a public company like Delfin would ever be drawn into sponsoring the costs (up front or otherwise) of any future extension of the link road over Potts and through to Tiver.  Why would they have it on their balance sheet? After all, it’s outside of their land precinct altogether. 

Could it be that it is all becoming uneconomic and too risky?  Could it be too that if Concordia is now becoming more likely to be given the green light ahead of Gawler East, a proper eastern bypass road located well away from existing and future residential land is making more and more sense? Lets hope so.