David Penberthy: The people who resisted the race’s revival most vociferously blithely shut down Rundle Rd this month
The understanding afforded to the inconvenient Illuminate event is much more generous than anything the anti-V8s crowd ever extended, writes David Penberthy.
Opinion
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If ever there was an issue that highlighted the tensions between artsy Adelaide and blue-collar Adelaide, it has to be the management of the Rundle Rd closure that was sprung on our fair city by surprise a few weeks ago.
The arguments used in favour of the road closure and the event it underpins are somewhat laughable, given they are the polar opposite of the arguments that were used to hound the V8s out of existence.
Apparently closing Rundle Rd for three months is the price we have to pay to stage an artistic event that will be attended by 130,000 people and will inject several million dollars into the local economy.
Fair enough, but in contrast, staging the V8s was all too hard, even though in its last pre-Covid-19 incarnation in 2019 it was attended by 254,000 people, 15,200 of them from interstate, and injected a whopping $45.9m into the economy.
Just to be clear from the start, I have no real issue with the fact that one street has had to be closed in order to stage an artistic event which sounds like it will be amazing.
There are other ways to get into the city, as irritating as it might be in the short term for residents of the east.
What does invite a wry smile, though, is the fact that we put a major event to the sword in the V8 Supercars due in large part to its inconvenience. Yet the same people who resisted the race’s revival most vociferously are the same ones who blithely shut down Rundle Rd this month, all in the supposedly higher name of art.
To borrow a line from George Orwell, some road closures good, some road closures bad.
I am loathe to write anything critical of Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor, for whom I have a great deal of affection and sympathy, lumbered as she is with the cat-herding exercise of managing that often-crazy council, as evidenced again this week with the shock resignation of councillor Greg Mackie.
But the Lord Mayor and other councillors made no secret of their antipathy towards the V8s in the lead-up to the state election, when the then Labor opposition was running on a promise to reintroduce the race, a promise it will rightly honour in keeping with its mandate later this year.
Much of the council’s dislike towards the race involves the 20-odd weeks of disruption it causes for people trying to get into town.
It seemed odd then that with little, if any, public discussion about the impact, the council voted 8-2 last month to close Rundle Rd between East Tce and Dequetteville Tce for a lengthy 12 weeks to enable the staging of a Turkish-created light display called Wisdom of AI Light.
The event is the headline act of the Illuminate Adelaide winter festival.
The council had a spirited internal debate about the manner in which the closure question had been handled, and effectively apologised to ratepayers and businesses for blindsiding them.
“This closure is incredibly disruptive and I share residents’ frustration,” Councillor Alex Hyde said.
The level of understanding being afforded to this event is much more generous than anything the pro-arts, anti-V8s crowd ever extended towards fans of muscle cars.
It shows the extent to which the personal appetites of inner-city types can have impact upon the broader interests of those living beyond the CBD and its immediate surrounds.
Cities are meant to be democratic places that belong to all of us, not just those who live nearby.
The treatment of the V8s by Tourism SA, the previous government and the Adelaide City Council smacked of elitism.
The weirdest part of it all was the beady-eyed economic arguments used by Tourism SA, and signed off on by the former government, to justify axing the race.
The idea that its economic returns had somehow “plummeted” to $45.9m is absurd when you consider how many arts festivals (and indeed entire artistic sectors such as opera and ballet) would collapse immediately if they could no longer draw on the eternal generosity of the taxpayer.
It is one of the reasons why increasing funding to the Fringe made sense, because pound for pound, it’s one of the few artistic events that it is a roaring, punter-driven success with a mass public audience propping it up through ticket sales.
The case for future growth through more public investment was legitimate, giving it capacity to generate even more private revenue through better interstate marketing and a major drawcard headline act.
The clash between Adelaide’s beret-wearers and bogans reached a memorable zenith back in March 2012 when the roar from the V8s drowned out Italian composer Ennio Morricone’s performance at that year’s Adelaide Festival.
Surely when it comes to both sides of the cultural divide, be it high art or souped-up V8s, there should be no good, bad or ugly.
The city is there to be shared, and projects should not be green-lighted on the basis of personal biases, but whether there is an argument for their mass attendance.
Let a thousand flowers bloom. If we can shut a major road for three months for a light display, let’s welcome the V8s back with good grace.
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