The politics of parklands take center stage at Labor’s MotoGP reveal

Peter Malinauskas unveiled Adelaide’s planned MotoGP circuit beneath two large trees, in an arts centre that looked more suited to a climate-change presentation than a motorsport launch. The setting reflected the political problem Labor has faced over its $96 million street circuit in the city’s eastern parklands.

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This is the area that, of course, has got the most attention given the understandable angst and concern that exists in some elements of the community, which I sympathise with, on tree loss

When the government announced in February that it had taken MotoGP hosting rights from Victoria, rider Jack Miller roared across the River Torrens footbridge for the cameras. Sunday’s presentation took a different approach. More than half a dozen slides focused on the environment, trees and the parklands, the issue that has generated the strongest public opposition.

The government has faced a petition signed by more than 43,000 people and demonstrations calling on it to “stop the chop.” The anger followed an upgrade to the North Adelaide Golf Course that required 585 trees to be felled in the northern parklands. Malinauskas acknowledged the concern, saying it was understandable that tree loss had attracted attention.

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net nature positive

Kirsty Bevan, chief executive of Conservation Council SA, had repeatedly opposed the project while pressing the government to make an environmental investment matching the damage it proposed. She said conversations initially returned to the same answer: the project would proceed. Bevan told the ABC that she had warned the premier the government could either be remembered for destroying the parklands or for developing in a way that benefited nature.

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The conversations from there just kept coming back, 'We're going to go ahead with it'

She said she was surprised when the government accepted some of her suggestions. Malinauskas subsequently presented the council’s view that the overall project would be “net nature positive,” revealing how public pressure had shifted the government’s approach while also creating a fracture within the environmental movement.

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There was a moment in one of the conversations I had direct with the premier where I talked about the long-term impacts on nature and the parklands