Adelaide
When the Snowtown murder trial concluded in 2003 a prominent criminologist scandalised the good people of Adelaide by saying there was nothing surprising or remarkable about the case.
New Yorker Allan Perry, a lecturer in criminal law at the University of Adelaide, blamed what he called a subculture of degeneracy in the city’s most depressed and dysfunctional suburbs, defined by inter-generational welfare dependency, the daily abuse of alcohol and drugs, shocking levels of child abuse, child neglect and family violence.
Dr Perry said the only thing which shocked him about Snowtown was that people were shocked by it. And he really cut loose in his description of my hometown, sending talkback and the letters pages into meltdown, and prompting the then Attorney General Mick Atkinson to tell him to move back to Brooklyn.
Continue reading "A horror movie about poverty and welfare" »
If you thought young Australians were only ecstatic while listening to LMFAO at Stereosonic while chugging overpriced bottled water, think again.
A News.com.au survey has found that more than half of Australians under 35 are happy or ecstatic that Obama is here. Ecstatic!
Well, that may be true on Sydney’s glittering beaches, in the delicatessen queue at Prahan Market or on the broad and leafy streets of Burnside, but you know where it’s not true? At the Occupy Adelaide protest.
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Terry says:
@: The ones borefe the last one were pretty bad though. Unlike Cain, who dropped in the polls because of the smear machine, Perry’s drop in the polls appeared to have had more to do with his debate performances.ReplyLike or Dislike: 1 0 Read more »
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PsychoHyena says:
@Miles and if I work as hard or harder than you, why shouldn’t I get paid the same or more? Miles I would be fine with an equal across the board tax-rate with all concessions/rebates removed. This is where the unbalancing happens of course, the more money you earn the… Read more »
In the name of God, why should anyone be force-fed the word of the Lord while they’re shopping?
That swarthy dude with his dulcet tones outside Roger David in Rundle Mall? He can convert me to men’s suits any day. But these sanctimonious sermonisers and their 100-decibel rantings? No way, Jesu.
Myer is My Sunday place of worship, thank you very much, and Adelaide City Council can have My Vote for ridding our secular shopping strip of these screechy preachers who are apparently just as deafening as chain saws, jackhammers and farm tractors.
Continue reading "Let’s tell these bloody street preachers where to go" »
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bob says:
These guys also beleive that black people are the descendants of Ham, and are cursed by God. Read more »
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Jason Todd says:
I’d happily wander by and leave them undisturbed if they were discussing christ at christmas. However, considering that chances are I wouldn’t be able to wander past these guys without having them scream at me that I am an immoral sodomite who is destined for the bowels of hell for… Read more »
We South Australians have some harebrained ideas sometimes. This week, Adelaide City Council decided to push ahead with multi-million dollar plans to revitalise the dreary and deserted Victoria Square into a major CBD hub.
That’s despite the fact that the State Government is already pushing ahead with its own multi-BILLION dollar plans to revitalise the nearby Riverbank precinct as the new city’s heart and soul.
After lengthy debate on Tuesday night, Adelaide City Council voted to invest $11.5 million on Victoria Square – despite the fact that there’s no commitment from the state or federal government to cough up the $100 million needed to complete the project.
Continue reading "How many revamped precincts does one city need?" »
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Glen T says:
Complete nonsense. Rundle Mall is dreadful because the Borders, Colorados, and the like chased out the interesting small shops that were there before, turning Rundle Mall into yet another shopping centre. Encouraging back those unqiue shops is they way to go, rather than stepping into the shopping centre glitz arm’s… Read more »
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stephen says:
Adelaide’s OK. Just ‘pre-sync’ the people. (They’re a bit ‘OJ’.) Read more »
In the exciting world of statistics and public policy, one set of findings often begets another diametrically opposed set of findings. For example, there appears to be a direct link between worrying about multiculturalism and living in those parts of Australia untouched by multiculturalism.
Take a trip up the Queensland coast to Caloundra or go to a hinterland town such as Gympie. Aside from lemon chicken at the local Chinese, there is no discernible non-Anglo influence in these communities. Most of their residents wouldn’t know a burqa from a beer mat. Yet these were the same places which elected One Nation MPs in bid to protect their gloriously monocultural lifestyle, despite that lifestyle being under siege from absolutely nothing.
Over the past 12 months there have been three different surveys which have all identified Adelaide as the most liveable city in Australia.
Continue reading "Australia’s most liveable city produces excellent whine" »
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Dianne says:
I arrived in Adelaide in 2006 from crime riddled South Africa. At first, I appreciated the peace and quiet plus the freedom of movement. You can use public transport without fear of being mugged or murdered. However, I must admit that there is a certain lack of adrenalin in this… Read more »
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Warren from Hindmarsh says:
Hey chill out every one——In Adelaide we have the best wine and wineries at our door step. end of story Pembo! Read more »
Good health is fundamental to our lives, so in assessing whether a government decision is good, bad or just acceptable it is useful to apply the health criterion. If this was applied to every decision, no doubt government would improve. I am going to apply this criterion to the Adelaide Oval.
Our health has two fundamental needs. Easy to understand is the need for hospitals, emergency services, life support systems (intensive care) and family doctors. Waiting lists and hospital closures are rightly big news.
Even more fundamental to health are the natural life support systems, the natural resources, water, availability of productive, non-degraded land, biodiversity and stable climate. These are deteriorating, and scientists have used the words global environmental change to describe them. This change is accelerating.
Continue reading "Stuff Adelaide Oval, let’s fix the environment first" »
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Bruce says:
As great leaders of nations such as the romans found in the past. You must keep the multitude happy. Otherwise risk unrest and revolt. Read more »
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Robert Smissen, rural SA, God's own country says:
Carl you miss my point, because of that Drop-kick frop Sidcup has withdrawn funding the Keith hospital will lose it’s emergency centre & become little more than an old folk’s home. The Keith hospital was built using local PRIVATE money because there was a need for a hospital but the… Read more »
What is wrong with Adelaide? We call ourselves the ‘Festival State’, but far from being overrun by action we appear to be operating as a surrogate nursery for the rest of the country’s sporting events; they are born here, we suckle them, and then they unceremoniously move elsewhere. And they never call!
We lost another of our great sporting events last week, The Rugby Sevens carnival. I was lucky enough to attend two weeks ago for the carnival’s last Adelaide showcase with my son, but had I realised it was a rugby funeral I would have worn black.
The Deputy Treasurer and Minister for Tourism John Rau was unconcerned, however, by the loss of yet another great sporting event. He shrugged his shoulders and said ‘the fact is we can’t win everything’. Well, yes Minister, but why are we losing so many?
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CaptainReality says:
No jobs. Read more »
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Reggie says:
Hey nossy, aren’t you the Winton Kid, or am I thinking of someone else? If you are, never turn your back on the bright lights of Adelaide by comparison. Some of the nicest smartest people I’ve ever met come from Adelaide and although I’ve only been there once, I back… Read more »
Another day brings another Defence scandal, prompting a colleague of mine to quip that the people of Inverbrackie and Woodside are probably grateful now there are refugees in the housing estate rather than military personnel.
He said it with a smile, but serious intent.
The Adelaide Hills’ Inverbrackie Detention Centre has not been without its own scandals since it became home to families from Sri Lanka, Iran and Iraq.
First there was the Fruit Picking Incident. About six young asylum seekers scaled a fence - an internal fence, mind, they never got as far as the outside world - to pick fruit. They spent at least ten minutes picking cherry plums.
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Marilyn Shepherd says:
Indonesia is not a safe port of call for refugees. It is not signatory to the refugee convention, they murdered nearly 200,000 East Timorese while we watched, they murdered our 6 journalists, they murdered tens of thousands in Aceh and Ambon and West Papua for decades, their army tortures people… Read more »
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NESLIHAN KUROSAWA says:
Hi Tory, To me personally, having good neighbors is a bit like having good friends to share our worries & support each other through thick & thin, right?? When we talk about asylum seekers in particular, it is a whole new picture all together, my question to you today is… Read more »
Can a football team change a town? Can sport become a symbol of renewal, and give a community a sense of optimism and purpose?
Elitists who regard sport as a mindless pursuit would scoff at the suggestion. They would probably hold that the only change a football team can make to a town is to pollute people’s brains with useless trivia, distract them from pressing social realities, and eat into valuable self-improvement and family time.
The 20-year history of the Adelaide Crows – sorry, the mighty Adelaide Crows – provides a compelling counterpoint to those who would dismiss sport as frivolous or meaningless.
Continue reading "How a football club helped change a city" »
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Shane says:
Oh boo hoo, Tony. The reason Adelaide doesn’t have a draw like Collingwood’s is because ... now, run off and get a pen to write this down, dear ... they are a MELBOURNE team and the majority of teams are in MELBOURNE. I suspect you’re just (Adelaide?) bitter because the… Read more »
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steve parker says:
I still remember my young daughter running out onto Brighton Road and the madness scenes with car hornes going and scarves everywhere. People were dancing and screaming. A great team in the best city in the World!!! Go you CROWS!! Good article David! Read more »
The Property Council of Australia - in one of those surveys aimed at getting their name on every news service - has named Adelaide Australia’s most liveable city.
‘Liveable’ is such a beige term. Talk about damned with faint praise.
They used a bunch of different characteristics such as traffic congestion and housing affordability to judge each capital city.
The fact that Canberra came in second goes to show that having a rockin’ good time wasn’t a criterion. (Oh come on, the Holy Grail doesn’t count).
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CaptainReality says:
Grew up in Adelaide, left, came back to start a family, left again (with family) because there are no jobs in my industry. I doubt that I’ll ever go back, because although I like the place, the lack of jobs makes it unliveable. Read more »
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Dan says:
I do agree, Australia is Mulitcultural, so how about you stop being a snobby fool and move somewhere else. you Racist. There is everything to love about the cultural diversity that comes with immigration. When someone makes an effort to become part of our beautiful land, why don’t you walk… Read more »
Like the rhythm of the turning pedal, the professional cycling season has followed an annual pattern for a century.
As the European winter evolves into early spring, riders take their bikes from garages and leave the velodromes to venture back onto the roads in preparation for another season. Riding at first in the slush and ice of melting snow, their thoughts turn to the warmth of the Mediterranean Sea.
Known as the ‘Race to the Sun’, the professional season traditionally commenced with Paris to Nice, a weeklong race from the French capital to the southern holiday resort.
Continue reading "Chasing the sun all the way to Australia" »
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Kat says:
Great article. I think the TDU offers Australians a fantastic experience of elite cycling in their own backyard. I’ve also been to the TDF and agree that spectators are incredibly lucky to get so close to the action at the TDU. Thanks for the informative, interesting article Kevin Read more »
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Ron says:
Skeptic much?! Or perhaps Kevin is just writing an article about a sport he really enjoys. Since this isn’t the first cycling article Kev has written & since he clearly knows a lot about the sport and enjoys it…I’d say the latter is more plausible. Read more »
Adelaide. It’s orderly, clean and quiet.
Maybe too quiet.
Because somewhere behind the odd mix of plummy accents and mullet haircuts, some seriously nasty stuff happens.
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owsyfh says:
gpv19o utijmrtdchoq, bbtrlotsmeuq, [link=http://gynsusgtufyx.com/]gynsusgtufyx[/link], http://rlzkowcflelx.com/ Read more »
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federal says:
Adelaide bashing - how mature. The fact is you’re more likely to get murdered anywhere else bar Tasmania or the ACT, and if you’re unlucky like the teenage girl in Port Elliot, they’ll drive over from Victoria to murder you. Which is exactly what some investigators thought happened to the… Read more »
If Australian cities could be defined by an aroma, you might pick jasmine for Sydney, tropical rain for Brisbane, coffee for Melbourne. While Adelaide would probably stump for an earthy shiraz or a fragrant bunch of Ross roses, the sad reality is that for many Adelaide households the defining aroma is the sickly stench of bong water.
The do-nothing culture of Adelaide’s sizeable unemployed underclass has been defined in large part by one of Australia’s greatest public policy failures – the liberalised cannabis laws which normalised the daily use of marijuana. Equally, the explosion in the size and reach of biker gangs in the City of Churches was fuelled by those laws, which for a long time enabled a virtual franchising of backyard dope production through hydroponics.
Even today, now that the laws have been tightened, there are more hydroponic shops in Adelaide per capita than any other city in the land. One website says there are more shops here per capita than any other city in the world, including Vancouver, where cannabis is decriminalised. According to one pro-cannabis website I read this week, there’s about 40 of these stores in the metropolitan area alone.
Continue reading "How the 10-plant rule sent much of a city to pot" »
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odd says:
Yeah but Chriss there’s also the millions worldwide who smoke pot and never have any health issues. It goes both ways, same with alcohol. Seems odd to allow one and not the other, especially when the one allowed by law is doing so much damage to people and the community.… Read more »
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Chriss says:
Working in the health scene here in Adelaide, I’ve seen many great young minds been lost to dope. Alas they will soon be joining the throngs of minds lost to grog. Sad. But guess health-team workers will never be unemployed. Read more »
It’s not often in politics that a single sentence can guarantee you victory in four vital seats which have historically been among the most volatile and closely-fought in the Federal Parliament.
But Adelaide’s own ex-pat Melburnian Prime Minister Julia Gillard may have done just that with one inspired and clearly-enunciated line in her debut press conference as Labor Party Leader.
“I grew up in the great state of South Australia…”
Continue reading "Why Adelaide’s own Julia Gillard can sweep SA" »
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Tim says:
Alan… You’re not too bright are you. When you criticise the just about every facet of our lives and the policies that govern them, make sure you’re using the correct punctuation or you just look like a fool. Are you a fool? As for all this parochial nonsense as to… Read more »
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Steve says:
Ah Penbo maaate, When ya wake up tomorrow, The Handbags will still have lost the 78 GF and fabulous Phil ‘The Penguin” Gallagher will still have been pushed in the back and kicked the game clincher. Julia, on the other hand, may have renounced what left-leaning tendencies she still has… Read more »
Adelaide is no longer the city of churches or the arts capital of Australia. It’s not even Yass with poofs, as famously dubbed by Doug Mulray shortly before he was mercifully removed from national television by Kerry Packer.
According to the people who run the Sydney Fish Markets, Adelaide is now the mullet capital of Australia, a bogan backwater which is ripe for ridicule by the pony-tailed pseuds who run Sydney’s advertising industry.
The Fish Market’s new marketing slogan - “More Mullets Than Adelaide” - says more about Sydney smugness than Adelaide’s earthiness.
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Chris Bass says:
“Upper middle-class white boys imitating the middle-income Sydney Lebanese boys who mimic the middle-class black American entertainers who pretend to have risen from the streets.”...What a joke. Firstly, the Hoods have never imitated anyone (let alone someone from Sydney? regardless of racial origin which seems to be extremely important to… Read more »
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S.L says:
Some people just don’t get it. I had to go to a 50th birthday party with a 70s theme (why do parties always have a theme these days?)last year so I went to the hairdressers the day before to style my hair into a mullet. The young trendy girl barely… Read more »
The people shuffled in, pair by pair. They clutched hands, and their eyes shimmered with excitement.
As they got within sight of the object of their worship, cameras snapped frantically. One woman, in the middle of a crowd of people on a sunny summer day, started crying. Overwhelmed and transported, she smiled through her tears.
Mary MacKillop’s tomb? Nup, panda enclosure. Adelaide Zoo.
Continue reading "I love pandas but I couldn’t eat a whole one" »
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WC says:
I must say I find it a bit sad that I can’t be moved by fat creatures who are too lazy to even get it on. When did the child in me die? Read more »
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Liz says:
K you can’t change nature,it’s the way of pandas and they won’t change to suit us.How do you know what I do that’s practical? It certainly wouldn’t be going to China and adding to the tourist revenue.“greener than thou” elitism…nicest thing anyone has said all week.Thank you. Read more »
Cities have personalities, they have a tone to their collective voice, and my former home town of Adelaide has a voice which can generally be described as courteous, civil, thoughtful, prepared to make a point, but also willing to listen.
My adoptive town of the past decade often finds itself at the other end of the register. Sydney is often so boisterous as to be uncouth. It can be pig-headed, abusive and rude. In its political and social discourse, Sydney’s general modus operandi is to start with a full-blown argument and work your way backwards towards civility from there.
But in the NSW school holiday fortnight just gone, which we passed happily back in SA, there was a very different edge to Adelaide’s voice. The normally sedate city sounded depressingly like Sydney at its unthinking and aggressive worst as its leaders and citizens dealt with a genuinely terrifying spate of crimes linked to the so-called Gang of 49.
Continue reading "Crimewave turns our most genteel city into a moshpit" »
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Louise says:
Adelaide’s population is a fraction of Melbourne or Sydney and the Gang of 49 has rattled us. Thanks David for bringing this to the attention of the rest of the country. Yes we don’t do enough to rehabilitate criminals, in fact those that have been caught will return to Magill… Read more »
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Jennifer says:
iansand 08:54am: you are correct, it is so “much cheaper to stop people being criminals before they start than to stop them when they are entrenched ... and that the middle way is called early intervention!” Study after study has proven this. So why doesn’t the government properly invest in… Read more »
In Adelaide we worry a lot. A mall, trams, grandstands, hospitals even roundabouts cause hours of debate. However, nothing winds us up more than someone criticising our city. We’re so defensive.
Sometimes I think we get so outraged because secretly we worry that Adelaide may actually be a backwater.
Often the “solution” that is put forward is to build an iconic building such as a tower or a fantastic or unusual museum. These are all great ideas – we should build more unusual and more controversial buildings. Interesting buildings give a city character. I like buildings that have gardens down the side and on the roof. It would be great to see some of them.
Continue reading "Is Adelaide the most insecure city in Australia?" »
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Diana says:
Truthfully as lovely as Adelaide is it isn’t lacking change or a Michelian star, Adelaide is lacking in history. Adelaide is lacking in small dingey little coffee shops, twisting alleys, ruins, urban legends and old buildings. Everything in Adelaide is either just over one hundred years old or new, the… Read more »
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PJD says:
My Father, a proud fourth generation South Australian, used to say that the Eastern states, still could not cope with fact that their cities were settled with convicts and Adelaide was settled with free settlers! I think it is they who have the ‘chip on the shoulder’ and are continually… Read more »
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From: Punch on: Open thread 09/02/2012
marley says:
I'm one of the older ones, so I've certainly seen a few changes in my time. When I started school I learned to write with a nib pen, dipped in an inkwell (no, I'm not kidding). My mother became a dab hand at getting inkstains out of my clothes. Flicking ink at one another in the classroom was an essential… [read more]From: I’d rather have a piece of toast than listen to crap lyrics
Erick says:
Led Zeppelin are responsible for my all-time favourite mixed metaphor: "There you sit, sit and stare, like a book on a shelf rusting." (Misty Mountain Hop) I laugh every time I hear it. Hmmm, I believe I've decided what to play on the way to work today. [read more]Gentle jabs to the ribs
No wuckin forries. These nuckin futs are tuckin fops
Well, puck me with a fitchfork. The F-word is apparently an acceptable part of Australian speech. That’s… Read more
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