Patrick Carlyon: No one talks much about Adelaide in Melbourne or Sydney

There’s one small problem with trying to get under Melbourne’s skin over Adelaide’s quality of life, writes Patrick Carlyon.

Many years ago I wrote a story that good-naturedly suggested that Adelaide and South Australia should be invited to secede from the rest of the country.

The argument hinged on an economic truth at the time – that SA took more from the rest of the nation than it gave back.

I wouldn’t write this now. The blowback included some rather nasty Adelaide radio interviews and character assessments.

Yet the broader dynamic remains the same. No one talks much about Adelaide in Melbourne or Sydney. What happens in Adelaide generally doesn’t matter much to the east coast.

You might go to Adelaide for work or to visit family. The Adelaide Oval is one of the great sporting grounds. A visit to Henschke remains on my bucket list, and any invitation from said winery would be warmly received.

Yet the lens of focus for people not from SA is typically not aimed at SA.

It was said in the media this week that Melbourne was more expensive and less accessible than Adelaide. Also, Melbourne was “slightly more snobbish”, which was far too kind. Melbourne is far more snobbish than Adelaide.

The trouble with such comparisons is simple – why compare?

Adelaide’s famous Rundle Mall “balls” when the city went into a short Covid-19 lockdown. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Kelly Barnes

No one in Melbourne wonders about the apparent rise of Adelaide’s restaurant and bar scene. No one fears that the Adelaide young persons’ migration to the east will dim in belated appreciation for the attractions of home.

So-called interstate rivalries are generally the preserve of state premiers who seek to tilt the news from bad news stories about ambulance ramping or Covid catastrophes or the like.

Call me patronising – you wouldn’t be the first.

But there is no Adelaide-Melbourne rivalry. There can’t be for the obvious reason that no one in Melbourne accepts the fact of a competition.

Live in Sydney, and you’ll find the same attitude to Melbourne. When it’s put to Sydneysiders that Melbourne might be superior, they look puzzled by the premise.

I was in Adelaide a few weeks ago. The coffee from Banjo’s Bakery Cafe in Glenelg was the best in a whirlwind trip of four states.

Another highlight was the Coopers Alehouse at the airport, which blurred as a kind of vortex when my flight to Melbourne was delayed.

My excitement was not in leaving Adelaide, but in going home, where no one much ponders the rooftop bars or logistic advantages of a charming city somewhere northwest of Ballarat.

Patrick Carlyon is a Herald Sun columnist [e-mail]