A part from Adelaide Oval (which I fell in love with on my recent family holiday), there are a few things I liked about Adelaide. For instance, pedestrian crossings in the city centre have timers. I haven’t seen them anywhere else and they seem to cut down the red light runners, who risk life and limb as they try to beat cars across the road.
I saw it from both sides and the timers work for both pedestrians and drivers. Admittedly there are fewer people in Adelaide but there also seem to be fewer pedestrian-car clashes and fewer car-bike incidents. It certainly stops the last-second ‘Will I? Won’t I?’ scamperers.
Rundle Mall is a most interesting precinct and while sections of Victorian media have portrayed it in less than glowing terms at times, I liked it for a few reasons. The most obvious is the lack of trams, as I’m sure we’ve all had tram moments in Bourke Street Mall.
And the big difference between a morning walk in Glenelg and the streets of Hoppers was the lack of dog poo. The supply of plastic bag dispensers and appropriate receptacles at strategic points along major walkways helps, but it still comes back to the dog owners.
My friends on Facebook tell me many areas around Victoria have these plastic bag dispensers, but I’ve never seen one in the City of Wyndham. Let me know if they do exist here. What is the answer to this problem? If you see someone letting their dog defecate in a public place, do you say something or not? If you ever have done so, what happened?
I applaud the initiative of Local Government minister Natalie Hutchins to introduce a questionnaire for council candidates to give voters an insight into their qualifications to run for office. The more transparent the candidates are before being elected, the fewer surprises we voters should get during their term. It may not be the perfect system but it’s a start and anything that improves accountability is fine by me. One area it can’t address is dummy candidates, who run simply to provide preferences for someone else. Let’s hope we can address this in the future.
