by Robert Farnan

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has announced to its 2,000 Adelaide staff that they will be moving into the proposed Walker Tower 2 on the former Festival Plaza, when the Tower is complete.

The former Festival Plaza, part of Park 26 of your Adelaide Park Lands, has been gifted to developer Walker Corporation, for $1 per year over 100 years, and work is under way to build a 38-storey office tower on what was previously open public space..

*One of the giant billboards erected by the Save Festival Plaza Alliance - at the intersection of Donald Bradman Drive and Marion Road.*

By our estimate the move by the ATO would take up about half of the available floor space, and the ATO would therefore become the anchor tenant. This seemed challenging news, but in fact offers a huge opportunity because it raises even more issues and underscores the extraordinarily poor process that has occurred, a process we believe is highly vulnerable.

The ATO, by contracting to move in, has become a crucial actor by making a project that is clearly otherwise commercially unfeasible, feasible.
The Federal Government is therefore becoming complicit in the whole rotten process, much commented on by the Auditor General, and most recently by the Ombudsman, that is depriving the people of Adelaide of their plaza, as well as wrecking their city with a huge building that is so obviously in the wrong place, whilst drawing daytime activity out of the CBD.
Whilst the Commonwealth Government has abrogated its heritage protection responsibilities by its failure to protect the SA Parliament as a site of intense global cultural significance, by moving in it has revealed itself as a beneficiary with a major conflict of interest.
The ATO has made this participation even more emphatic by doing it at likely great cost to taxpayers of $6m year on year, due to the premium rates over and above standard comparable office rates. This would represent $6m that would be cut from federal government services, year on year, and in a time when severe cost-of-living pressures are still likely to apply.
and, wait for it - it is highly likely that State Government will follow with an announcement that it is to move in, also at high cost, to this plum location. Oh, but the views darling!

Strangely enough, this presents the Save Festival Plaza Alliance with a number of different possibilities for action.

Our billboards are a critical means of communication to augment what is happening behind the scenes - the premier is famous for his tin ear and the billboards are 'in his face'.

*An earlier billboard erected by the Save Festival Plaza Alliance - also at the intersection of Donald Bradman Drive and Marion Road.*

The mysterious concept of ‘air rights’ is becoming a prime focus of our campaign.

It is something that has only appeared fleetingly in one radio interview with the minister. You may hear more from us about this.

Alternative reasons for the jump in building height from 3 storeys to 38 simply do not make sense;
the idea that a 38 storey tower on a smaller footprint would hide the 6-storey-high parliament less than a 3 storey building is ludicrous;
the more so when there is no equivalence between a shortened three storeys and 38 storeys.
We are active behind the scenes and we expect to have more information to share soon.

Please be reminded that, essentially, this is not a planning matter, it goes much deeper than that and the issues it raises will not simply go away.

Key to it is the government's land misappropriation - with no rationale. On a fully commercial project, no work would yet have begun.

Thank you again, and again, for donations! It has bought us another week!
We believe the billboards give us a voice, and for the time being their location is effective due to its proximity to the airport and a diagonal siting prominent on both roads.
Please donate if you can. We have had very many three figure donations, one of four figures, and many are making regular smaller payments. A huge huge thank you all round.

Our new bank account.

BSB 805-007 CUSCAL (CreditUnionSA)
ACC 00331035 (will display as Save Festival Plaza Alliance- Robert Fa)
We will attempt to acknowledge deposits by email the next day.