Whether or not Victoria Park should have a new grandstand I am unable to say. Neither are the vast majority of South Australians if truth be known. The general public simply doesn't have enough information ready at hand to be sufficiently well informed for it's opinions to be valuable. But what we are painfully clear about is the horrendous extent to which Adelaide has become the 'no development' capital of the western world.

For decades now most proposed developments have been scotched because they were unable to gain planning approval, usually at the local government level. It has become a joke. We are a retarded city and state and we became so at a time when tourism was one possible revenue stream during a dearth of new industries to replace those we were losing.

Planning to perfection in the eyes of a few has cost us all massively. The geniuses with their Master's Degrees took into account everything except the state's economic prosperity.

Local governments are intent on doing their own thing independently of everyone else in the state. They profess to be protecting the interests of their ratepayers. That claim is uncertain, but even if it were, Adelaide cannot be an amalgam of principalities. Each part of it exists for all citizens. Each area council must cater for the needs of all South Australians. That is especially so for the Adelaide City Council.

Consequently, I believe that even if Kevin Foley's temporary grandstand proves not to be the right thing in the end, his action in being determined to ride roughshod over a council that has welched on a development that the majority of South Australians have voted in favour of is to be applauded. Let us hope his government follows through and continues to demolish opposition from the perfectionist 'visionaries' who have turned Adelaide into a sad and sorry backwater.