The world could be different if we were governed by a different breed of humans who understood that politics require morals and imagination.

The Adelaide Parklands, a unique belt of approximately 930 ha of public land surrounding Adelaide and North Adelaide, were set aside by Colonel William Light as part of his plan for Adelaide. This was a radical initiative at a time when parklands were the exclusive domain of royalty and wealthy landowners.

Encroachment began almost immediately. Large areas were gradually given over to public facilities until the 1980s when commercial entities – the Adelaide Casino, the Hyatt/Intercontinental Hotel and the Convention Centre – were granted long-term leases.

In May 2026, a $45 million redevelopment of the existing North Adelaide golf course was legislated for by the Malinauskas Government. This encroachment meant the removal of nearly 600 trees.

Following the slaughter of these parklands on the altar of golf and event tourism, I have been wondering how different things might have been if the South Australian Parliament had a few more poets and philosophers and a few fewer lawyers, unionists and ex-staffers drawn from the ranks of Young Labor and Young Liberal undergraduates.

Imagine eight to 10 poets and philosophers, people trained to think and write about the human condition, reminding their colleagues that governing is a moral and imaginative practice, not just administrative one.

This is not to suggest that poets and philosophers are inherently wiser or more virtuous than lawyers. Perish that thought. God knows there are plenty of vain, petty egotists lurking in every humanities cloister. But their disciplines pull them in different directions. Poets are professionally suspicious of euphemism; philosophers allergic to shoddy logic. Put a few of them in the Parliament and suddenly it becomes much harder to pretend that a ‘world‑class........

© Pearls and Irritations