Ruth Ratcliffe & Owen Richards, Sydney
Around 200 activists rallied outside NSW parliament on May 13 to protest the state Labor government's inaction on the ADI site. Speakers called on Premier Bob Carr to declare the site a conservation zone, which would make it impossible for development company Delfin Lend Lease to build its proposed 5000 homes and three shopping centres on the land.
Greens Senate candidate John Kay, the Democrats' Dr Arthur Chesterfield Evans, Phil Jenkins from Defend the Harbour Foreshores, Maurie Sheenan from the Protect Public Lands Coalition, and a number of ADI activists and local residents addressed the protest.
Speakers emphasised Liberal-Labor collusion in allowing Delfin Lend Lease to profit from the site, and highlighted the threats to the biodiversity of the area, considered by many to be the "lungs of western Sydney". Calls for public recreational and environmental space in Sydney to counter rampant urban sprawl were met with applause.
On May 5, 150 people also attended a public meeting titled "Can the ADI site be saved? If yes, how, if no why not?". Noel Butler, ADI Residents Action Group (ADI RAG) member and chair of the meeting, said: "I've been around a while and in my time I've seen a lot of impossible things become possible and what made them possible was both people power and spokespeople who could get the message across."
Liberal MP Ross Cameron and David Bradbury, mayor of Penrith and ALP candidate for Lindsay, were heckled by the angry crowd.
Greens Senator Kerry Nettle also addressed the meeting, pointing out that Delfin Lend Lease had made substantial contributions to both Labor and Coalition election coffers and stood to make $1 billion if the development went ahead, due to the massive underpricing of the site in the original deal. She received sustained applause when she called for the whole site to be saved and affirmed that this was possible.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, May 19, 2004.
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