Sydney property tycoon Lang Walker’s wrecking Festival at Plaza
FIND out how the $500 million Festival Plaza upgrade is tracking, plus discover which former MPs are looking for a new start in council elections and learn who will be among the VIPs at Sunday’s SANFL Grand Final.
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FIND out about Sydney property tycoon Lang Walker’s wrecking mission at his $500 million CBD development in this week’s Off the Record.
Plus, discover which former MPs are looking for a new start in council elections and learn who will be among the VIPs at Sunday’s SANFL Grand Final.
Walker’s wrecking Festival
PROPERTY tycoon Lang Walker has moved to quell disquiet about the pace of his $500 million Festival Plaza development by again declaring talks are well advanced to sign tenants.
And, through spokesman Tim Allerton, Walker has released to Off the Record pictures of the newly completed demolition of the unlamented Festival Centre carpark.
Allerton said Walker Corp was about to award a $20 million contract to a South Australian company “to carry out earthworks, retaining walls and footings for the new carpark and plaza”.
This is “on track” to open in 2020, coinciding with the Adelaide Casino’s $330 million expansion, which includes a 123-room luxury hotel, three bars and three signature restaurants.
Allerton signalled “some major announcements before Christmas” about new tenants for the project, which includes a 23-storey office tower between the Casino and Parliament House and a 4000 sqm premium retail and entertainment precinct — the latter within a three-level complex fronting the plaza.
There has been speculation that Walker would complete only the carpark by 2020 and move slowly on the office tower and retail/entertainment precinct.
But sources close to the project said the Liberals had significantly accelerated Festival Plaza since winning office in March with “constructive and enthusiastic oversight” and a “can-do attitude”, saying Labor had “held up works in almost every area”.
Major players in the Riverbank precinct have been impressed by the appointment in September of Riverbank Entertainment Precinct Advisory Committee chairman Roger Cook — the major projects tsar to Liberal state president John Olsen when he was premier.
Last month, Premier Steven Marshall conceded the Festival Plaza redevelopment had been delayed by several months due to a hold up in completing roadworks, saying Walker Corp had only just received site access.
Lower league for retired MPs
LIKE old footballers who can’t quite quit, but instead slip quietly down through the grades, so the upcoming council elections have thrown up a few faces who have known greater glories.
A former MP noted for her love of cycling around her electorate, Vini Ciccarello is seeking a spot on Norwood, Payneham & St Peters Council, in the Kensington/East Norwood ward. She was the Labor MP for Norwood from 1997-2010, when she was defeated by future premier Steven Marshall.
Ciccarello was a well-known mayor of the former Kensington and Norwood Council, from 1991-97. She failed in an NP&SP Maylands/Trinity ward by-election in August last year, losing out to another former mayor, Mike Stock.
Angus Redford, who held a Liberal Upper House seat from 1993 until 2006, is also standing for the same council, in St Peters Ward.
Redford was presiding member of the Legislative Review Committee from 1997-2002 and chairman of the Wild Dog Issues Committee from 1998-2001.
Another former Liberal MP, Kym Richardson, is seeking a second stint on Onkaparinga Council. The affable former SANFL footballer, police officer and sports manager held the-then marginal federal seat of Kingston from 2004-07.
Richardson served on two parliamentary committees.
Seeking to return to Adelaide City Council is former Greens senator Robert Simms, who lost a close preselection vote in May to Sarah Hanson-Young.
Simms, once a staffer for former Australian Democrats senator Natasha Stott Despoja, was elected to the council in 2014 but quit the next year to fill a casual Senate vacancy following Penny Wright’s resignation. Simms lost his Senate spot at the 2016 double dissolution election.
A couple of Liberal rural ex-MPs are also looking to join councils. Michael Pengilly wants to return to his old job as Kangaroo Island mayor, while former Speaker Graham Gunn is running again in Streaky Bay.
No 19th man jokes here
IT’S not often we start with a disclaimer pointing to obvious bias but in the interests of fairness it should be noted that both of the heads at the top of this page are rampant Redleg fans, so it took great restraint not to make any 19th man jokes this week.
But Off the Record are not the only Norwood fans in town.
Premier Steven Marshall, whose electorate office is opposite Norwood Oval, will be supporting the ‘Legs as he continues his rehabilitation from being a childhood Magpies fan. Fellow Libs including speaker Vincent Tarzia, John Gardner and former Norwood player, and now member for Morphett, Stephen Patterson, are also fans.
Defence minister Christopher Pyne as well as wine moguls Wolf Blass and Grant Burge will be there in red and blue, as will entertainer Greg Champion.
Opposition leader Peter Malinauskas, a renowned Port Adelaide fan, will also be in attendance.
On the red and white side of the fence longstanding Roosters supporters and sponsors Robert and Fay Gerard will be at Adelaide Oval, as will Maras Group managing director Steve Maras. North chief executive Greg Edwards said the club was also inviting as many of its 1987 and 1991 premiership stars as possible.
Right’s spear carrier
AUTHOR and former Advertiser sub-editor Kerry Wakefield, the wife of Liberal powerbroker Nick Minchin, has launched a “small centre-right news aggregator”.
Wakefield says the project draws on her recent experience with United States media, which she gleaned during Minchin’s stint as Australia’s Consul-General to New York from 2014 until May last year.
Of course, this was during the campaign for the US Presidential election in November, 2016, when that notable Right figure Donald Trump won office.
Wakefield, an author for The Spectator Australia and a former Canberra press gallery journalist for The Age, says her aggregator, tipofthespear.com.au, is “focused on the political and cultural battle unfolding in the West”.
This is taken “largely from the last Western redoubt of free speech, the US, where debate is not hampered by censorship.”
Green type
SARAH Hanson-Young’s defamation case against David Leyonhjelm hit the headlines this week but no matter the result, the Greens’ senator will continue to prosecute the case against sexism in parliament.
Next month, Hanson-Young is releasing En Garde, a book looking at sexism and politics.
It has been endorsed by no less than former Tony Abbott chief of staff Peta Credlin, who says while she disagrees with Hanson-Young “our battle is about ideas, not her gender’’.
Handy Andy
THE failings of the SACE Board which oversees the state’s year 12 students have been well documented. Last month The Advertiser revealed almost half of Year 12 students don’t complete their SACE in that year.
Education Minister John Gardner is now trying to beef up the quality of the board, persuading SAAB Australia managing director and UniSA adjunct professor, Andy Keough, to join up.
Keough replaces Robert Debelle, who resigned last month. Ann Doolette has replaced Debelle as deputy presiding member.
New faces
FEMALE Liberal MPs aren’t the only ones fleeing Canberra. Liberal staffers James Murphy and Eleisa Hancock have returned to SA as government staffers.
Murphy, a media adviser to former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and Federal Minister Simon Birmingham, will start as chief of staff to state Health Minister Stephen Wade next month. He will replace Wade’s acting chief of staff, Jonathan Nicholls.
Hancock, a former media adviser to Christopher Pyne, is stepping in as Attorney-General Vickie Chapman’s flack.
Originally published as Sydney property tycoon Lang Walker’s wrecking Festival at Plaza
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