Adelaide University - Developments & News

[Just build it]

Bye Union Hall. I'll see you in another life, when we are both cats.

[Aidan]

Bye Union Hall. I'll see you in another life, when we are both cats.

That's worth quoting in my .sig, at least for today

[AtD]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010 ... 069633.htm

[metro]

*dancing banana*

[iTouch]

lol union hall is getting raped by that crane. It's funny
take that you heritage listed imposter!!!

[baytram366]

A very sad day for Adelaide. While I didn't get time to go back and have another look before the demolition team moved in, I did find the photos I took in March this year. So now its Union Hall, what "older, useless" building will be next? Perhaps we should demolish the railway station or the town hall because we have no need for such a large station or we have out grown the town hall??
Why don't we just replace everything with dull glass towers that have no character at all? I work in one and they are not even energy effcient but thats another rant for another day...

[AtD]

Nice straw man, but Union Hall wasn't even old...

[metro]

A very sad day for Adelaide. While I didn't get time to go back and have another look before the demolition team moved in, I did find the photos I took in March this year. So now its Union Hall, what "older, useless" building will be next? Perhaps we should demolish the railway station or the town hall because we have no need for such a large station or we have out grown the town hall??
Why don't we just replace everything with dull glass towers that have no character at all? I work in one and they are not even energy effcient but thats another rant for another day...

I would agree with you 100% if it were Bonython Hall being demolished. But the sooner Union Hall is gone and a newer, more functional building completed, the better.

[Prince George]

Final parts of Union Hall seem to be coming down now. From our office we could see that the crane's back in there taking apart the rear section of the building.

[Professor]

Hughes Plaza last week

[stumpjumper]

It's interesting that Lavinia Emmett-Grey, last year's Adelaide University Union president refused to oppose demolition of the uni's only decent theatre.

Her argument was that students needed more space. She said that law students are sitting on the floor during lectures. I discussed the demolition with Lavinia last year, but I could not make sense of her argument.

The new building, the 7000 sqm Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing, adds a new facet to the university's activities. Its work is closely tied to the Defence Science Technology Organisation and its floor space will not be open to students in general. It won't get the law students off the floor.

I asked Lavinia if she was happy about losing the potential contribution to university life of a 500 seat theatre of professional standard on campus, and she replied that if I was so concerned about campus culture where was I when voluntary student unionism slashed Adelaide University Union's income from $4.5 million per year to $500,000, and what had I done about the fact that 80% of students had to work to stay above the Henderson Poverty Line?

I replied that VSU and student incomes were not relevant to the amenity provided by a theatre on campus, and she responded by saying that with the uni growing at 1000 students per year extra space was vital.

I said that the IPAS was mainly for research and would only cater for a few students, so it wouldn't relieve the crowding much.

Lavinia then accused me of being a typical Save The Union Hall guy - opposed to change, opposed to the growth of the University of Adelaide and to foreign students who comprised much of the growth, and with a bourgeois preoccupation with traditional theatre to boot.

All I could say was that I rejected all those charges, and that a lot of students had signed a petition to keep the hall. Many were members of uni theatre groups, but many weren't, and as far as I knew there was no corresponding pressure from students in general for demolition, just from the Union President.

Lavinia accused me of using the issue as a way of bashing foreign students.

WTF! I thought. I gave up and I left without getting any closer to her reasons for so strongly supporting demolition.

Now, I have some sort of answer, I think.

The new research institute was funded by the federal government ($29 million) and the state government ($5 million).

When Lavinia Emmett-Grey left uni at the end of 2010, she went for a brief period to the Department of Premier and Cabinet, then to a job as an advocate for the Australian Services Union.

I began to see some logic in her position on Union Hall.

'Do a good job muffling any student opposition to demolition of Union Hall, because it makes it easier, and cheaper, to build this ISAP.'

Lavinia wasn't prepared to bite the hand that she hoped would soon feed her. She was prepared to put her personal interest ahead of the interests of the students she supposedly represented, and who paid her Union President's salary.

That sort of behaviour might win the 'whatever it takes' award for political ruthlessness, but I understood that the ALP was trying to find people who were interested in their constituents as well as in wanting power.

It will be interesting to watch Ms Emmett-Grey's career.

[stumpjumper]

AtD, something doesn't have to be old to be valued. Look at the Sydney Opera House. That's not old - would you be happy to demolish that for an unexceptional multi-storey research institute?

[dsriggs]

You seriously comparing the Opera House to Union Hall? Really?

[AtD]

It's interesting that Lavinia Emmett-Grey, last year's Adelaide University Union president refused to oppose demolition of the uni's only decent theatre.

Her argument was that students needed more space. She said that law students are sitting on the floor during lectures. I discussed the demolition with Lavinia last year, but I could not make sense of her argument.

The new building, the 7000 sqm Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing, adds a new facet to the university's activities. Its work is closely tied to the Defence Science Technology Organisation and its floor space will not be open to students in general. It won't get the law students off the floor.

I asked Lavinia if she was happy about losing the potential contribution to university life of a 500 seat theatre of professional standard on campus, and she replied that if I was so concerned about campus culture where was I when voluntary student unionism slashed Adelaide University Union's income from $4.5 million per year to $500,000, and what had I done about the fact that 80% of students had to work to stay above the Henderson Poverty Line?

I replied that VSU and student incomes were not relevant to the amenity provided by a theatre on campus, and she responded by saying that with the uni growing at 1000 students per year extra space was vital.

I said that the IPAS was mainly for research and would only cater for a few students, so it wouldn't relieve the crowding much.

Lavinia then accused me of being a typical Save The Union Hall guy - opposed to change, opposed to the growth of the University of Adelaide and to foreign students who comprised much of the growth, and with a bourgeois preoccupation with traditional theatre to boot.

All I could say was that I rejected all those charges, and that a lot of students had signed a petition to keep the hall. Many were members of uni theatre groups, but many weren't, and as far as I knew there was no corresponding pressure from students in general for demolition, just from the Union President.

Lavinia accused me of using the issue as a way of bashing foreign students.

WTF! I thought. I gave up and I left without getting any closer to her reasons for so strongly supporting demolition.

Now, I have some sort of answer, I think.

The new research institute was funded by the federal government ($29 million) and the state government ($5 million).

When Lavinia Emmett-Grey left uni at the end of 2010, she went for a brief period to the Department of Premier and Cabinet, then to a job as an advocate for the Australian Services Union.

I began to see some logic in her position on Union Hall.

'Do a good job muffling any student opposition to demolition of Union Hall, because it makes it easier, and cheaper, to build this ISAP.'

Lavinia wasn't prepared to bite the hand that she hoped would soon feed her. She was prepared to put her personal interest ahead of the interests of the students she supposedly represented, and who paid her Union President's salary.

That sort of behaviour might win the 'whatever it takes' award for political ruthlessness, but I understood that the ALP was trying to find people who were interested in their constituents as well as in wanting power.

It will be interesting to watch Ms Emmett-Grey's career.

To your first sentence: What about Scott Theatre? I would have thought that would have been held in higher regard.

To the rest of your post: Are you trying to say that as this student rep agreed with the development, and the student rep is of poor standing, the development therefore is of poor standing? What is the point of that story other than to slander the student rep?

[stumpjumper]

Atd wrote
To your first sentence: What about Scott Theatre? I would have thought that would have been held in higher regard.

To the rest of your post: Are you trying to say that as this student rep agreed with the development, and the student rep is of poor standing, the development therefore is of poor standing? What is the point of that story other than to slander the student rep?

Scott theatre has been converted into a lecture theatre. It is no longer usable as a theatre.

I did not argue, or mean to imply, that because Ms Emmett-Grey is of 'poor standing' the development is also of 'poor standing'. As far as I know, the development is well designed and quite adequate for its purpose. My argument is that it should not have occurred at the cost of the Union Hall for reasons of student amenity, regardless of Union Hall's historic or architectural value.

I'll spell out my 'slander' (it would be libel not slander, a minor point) against Ms Emmett-Grey.

Lavinia Emmett-Grey, President of the Adelaide University Union for 2009 and 2010, did her best to marginalise any student voice arguing for retention of the university's full-scale theatre. She did this using the tenuous arguments that the new construction would alleviate pressure on the university's existing teaching spaces, and that because the envisaged increase in student numbers would largely comprise overseas students, that opposition to the demolition was equivalent to racism. (See Python, Monty: weight of duck = witch)

I suggest that Ms Emmett-Grey took this position because she had hopes, which were realised, of gaining a job with the support of the South Australian Farrell/Armstrong/Rann government which was backing the project.

I consider that action of hers to be clearly against the interests of the students she is paid to represent, and worthy of comment.

I invite Ms Emmett-Grey, now a lawyer working for the Australian Services Union, to sue me.

Ms Emmett-Grey has put her arguments in print at http://ondit.com.au/wrecking-ball-or-resurrection

She might do better to sue 'Zappy', the author of an otherwise outrageous post on a Usenet forum, who wrote 'Lavinia Emmett-Grey is an attention seeking left-wing monkey.' See http://www.usenet.com.au/index.php?grou ... &id=142929

I am not 'Zappy', but I do stand by my earlier post.