We reproduce here the brief words of our president Hall Greenland to the Annual General Meeting of Friends of Callan Park held on 2 December. Our last meeting of the year – in the Patrick White room in the Writers Centre in Callan Park – was standing-room only.
Good evening. You will have been sent a copy of my president’s report 2025. So I will confine myself to a couple of essential observations.
People here tonight value the very nature and character of Callan Park.
We value its heritage – both First Nations and settler. The sheer number of middens found on Callan Point, for instance, suggest this place was an important venue for ceremonies and gatherings. Then there is the James Barnet-designed Kirkbride buildings, covering 4.5 hectares – the largest suite of 19th century sandstone buildings in Australia.
We value the sheer natural and physical beauty of the place too. A third of the size of famous Centennial Park in the eastern suburbs, but three times as beautiful. A North-facing, horseshoe -shaped ridge and valley that flows down to a cove in the most beautiful harbour on the planet. The natural beauty has been protected and enhanced by the Callan Park Bushcare group for the past 30 years.
We also value what Jamie Parker has dubbed “the moral heart” of Callan Park . We cannot forget that Callan Park asylum, established here in the 1870s, was founded on a vision of more humane treatment of our fellow human beings suffering from mental illness. This was arguably more honoured in the breach than the observance, but the humane intentions of the 19th century founders of the Callan Park asylum are indisputable.
And of course, we value it as our major regional park in the Inner West. – serving all the needs that such a park must. It is a sanctuary or oasis of beauty and tranquillity in a bustling, congested city. It is essential to more general well-being, to recreation, finely balancing passive and active recreation, and home to a range of shared community uses.
The trouble is that while we value all the heritage, natural, moral and recreational values of Callan Park, this is not a view shared by the current local and state governments.
Yes, the recent Draft Plan of Management exhibited by the Greater Sydney Parklands Trust, reads the site like we do – and that is very welcome – but that can’t be said of their political masters.
They want to disregard these layers of value and they see – or pretend to see – the site as a greenfield site open for development of one kind or another.
Which brings me to the three big threats to Callan Park that we currently face.
The tidal pool is the first and it goes before the local planning panel next week. That panel is composed of members appointed by local and state governments.
The second is the proposal for two plastic-grass fields – we have been told the Development Application for these will go on public exhibition any day now.
And then there are the changes to the Callan Park (Special Provisions) Act which have been recommended by a parliamentary committee, dominated by Labor and Coalition nominees. Essentially their report recommended privatisation and commercialisation and the gutting of certain essential safeguards from the Act.
I wish there was better news. But there are vital battles to protect Callan Park, and its essential values, looming in the very near future. We have faced them before, and defeated them, so there is no need for pessimism. I’ll leave it there for the time being. Thank you.