A letter to the Premier from Possum Park / Pirltawardli (Park 1 of your Park Lands)
- as dictated to Shane Sody
Dear Peter (can I call you that?)
I'm told that you've been talking about me lately. You've been telling people that you are going to make some big changes to me.
I'm worried about that.
I'm afraid of what's coming; I'm afraid of what you want to do to me.
But I'm also surprised that you don't want to use my name. Why don't you ever call me by my name?
I'm called Possum Park - or in the Kaurna language, Pirltawardli (which means possum place). Some people just call me "Park 1" but you never use any of those names.
Sometimes I think you are gaslighting me, or gaslighting the people who care about me. But I guess you are just want to make money from people who like hitting little white balls all over me. You always just call me a golf course, as if that was the only thing that mattered about me.
But I'm so much more than that. I remember the waves of people (in the 1800s) who chopped down my trees. That was a really low point for me, being so bare, but then, over the following decades I bounced back.
Since the 1860s, some kind humans have been planting lots of new trees in my hills and valleys. As they did, insects and worms came back, birds came back to feed on the insects and worms, fungi came back to live in the soil and on the trees, and the animals and birds found homes in my trees.
Now I've got at least 113 species living in me! It's such a responsibility to look after them all, but I'm trying to give all of them the habitat that they need. I'm even generating oxygen for your human friends.
Now I'm told that you want to chop down hundreds of my friends; these trees that I've been nurturing for decades.
Why would you do that to me? Surely it can't be just so your friends can chase little white balls?
And why won't you use my name?
Yours sincerely
Possum Park (but you can call me Pirltawardli)
PS Some cheeky humans made this pic some months ago. At the time, I’m told you thought it was a bit unfair on you, but now it seems that they knew what you were planning after all.
