Time’s up for CBD Christmas tree | Playford campaign falls short | SA’s horse fighting confidence
This week, InSider farewells a Christmas veteran and ponders some startling stats about horse fighting.
‘End of life’ for Victoria Square Christmas tree
After years of treatment to prolong its life, Victoria Square’s giant Christmas tree is nearing the end.
The 25-metre-tall decoration, in its 25th year, is set to retire next month after one last Christmas wowing the locals and tourists.
Unfortunately, the tree hasn’t been doing much wowing of late; it last made headlines in 2023 for being described as “drab” and “uninspiring” by an Adelaide events company chief. Ouch.
Adelaide City Council seems alive to the criticism, releasing an expression of interest this week for artists, industrial designers and fabricators to propose a “creative and innovative Christmas Tree installation” for 2025.
It’s not that bad, is it? Photo: InDaily
The current tree didn’t exactly get a sparkling description in the council tender either.
“The current ‘Giant Christmas Tree’ installation is nearing its ‘end-of-asset-life’ and has been subject to several remedial treatments to prolong its life,” the council tender states.
“The ‘Giant Christmas Tree’ more recently has been labelled one dimensional, static, dated and not overly engaging, especially during daytime hours.
“The council view this project as an opportunity to reinforce Adelaide as one of the most beautiful cities in the world by re-imagining its iconic ‘Giant Christmas Tree’ installation in Victoria Square.”
If you’re thinking of pitching a Tannenbaum, it must be no more than 28-metres tall and last for a minimum of 25 years. It also must be “easily identifiable by visitors” (you’d hope so for a giant artificial tree) and capable of being dismantled in one day.
All Christmas tree proposals will be reviewed by council’s “Giant Christmas Tree Renewal Assessment Panel” (what a gig!) with shortlisted candidates notified in February next year.
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Christmas trees aren’t cheap either – the allocated budget is $1.8 million, according to the council tender, although the project is currently unfunded.
Adelaide City Council’s Christmas “action plan” for 2025-28 will be revealed early next year.
Horse fighting South Australians
In a busy newsroom, getting a journalist’s attention with your media release is a fine art and this week the PR team at Continental Tyres shot to the top of our inbox with a simple, but alarming fact:
Twenty-seven per cent of South Australian men think they could fight a horse.
Consider our attention caught.
This fact came out of a national study by Continental Tyres which found men are overconfident on the road and should “stop being dummies”.
One in eight men rate their driving abilities as above average. These same men, when asked which animals they think they could fight and live to tell the tale, horse galloped to mind.
In the ranking of imaginary horse-fighters, our state sits around the national average.
It seems the safest place in Australia for horses is the ACT, where only 17 per cent of respondents think they could take on an equine. But if you’re in the Northern Territory, lock up your stallions because a whopping 36 per cent of men are ready to throw down.
Though more than half the men across the country (56 per cent) are rational enough to admit they couldn’t take on a horse, the second-most common animal Aussie men think they could fight off were security dogs.
InSider must agree with the new ad campaign: don’t be a dummy.
South Australia also topped the heap regarding overconfidence on the roads, with 82 per cent of men considering themselves above-average drivers. This outdoes the national average of 77 per cent.
But overconfident driving and horse-fighting doesn’t translate to car maintenance it seems, with the study finding only 2 per cent of men believe they could change a tyre in under two minutes.
Another fun fact of the study is 25 per cent believe they can assemble a piece of IKEA furniture in under an hour, meaning more men would rather take their chances with a horse than a flat pack.
Continental Tyres Managing Director Mitchell Golledge said the research shows while confidence behind the wheel is important, overconfidence can be dangerous.
“As a tyre company, we want to remind all drivers to assess their true skills, check their tyres and stay mindful of road safety to protect themselves and others, especially ahead of the Christmas period,” he said.
Stay informed, daily
On behalf of all the women in our newsroom, we’d like to thank the team at Continental Tyres for giving us the perfect screener question to protect ourselves on future first dates with men: do you think you could fight a horse?
No luck for Playford MP
InSider has been closely following the plight of Labor backbencher John Fulbrook.
The Member for Playford has been asking for his seat to be renamed for more than two years because constituents are confusing it with the unrelated council area of Playford.
The state seat of Playford actually sits within the City of Salisbury and only goes as far north as Paralowie, while the Playford council area covers a much wider swathe of suburbs further north.
No overlap: The seat of Playford and the council area of Playford are seperate entities.
The naming confusion has seen Fulbrook’s office regularly referring calls to other MPs. When Playford Council proposed hiking its rates by 6.5 per cent earlier this year, Fulbrook said he received more than 30 calls from ratepayers who were not his constituents.
“We try to help people but I’m not in the business, I feel, of saying it’s not my job,” Fulbrook told the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission in April.
“And unfortunately the situation I have here is that I have very little options other than to redirect.”
Despite Fulbrook’s pleas, the boundaries commission on Thursday ruled against renaming the Playford electorate.
Their reasoning? The seat of Playford existed before Playford Council.
“The electoral district has borne the name of Playford for over 50 years and the City of Playford was created approximately 18 years after the creation of the electoral district,” the boundaries commission report said.
The commission also suggested a future redistricting might bring the seat and council area of Playford together. They also said changing the Playford name could create even more confusion.
“Switching the name of the electoral district with that of another nearby electoral district, like the electoral district of Taylor, may not alleviate the confusion to any material degree and, in any event, may generate a different kind of confusion, whereby electors presently in Playford and the electoral district whose name would be swapped with Playford fail to learn of or understand the fact of the name swap,” the commission said.
Fulbrook told InSider “I accept the umpire’s decision” but would consider the issue again if re-elected in 2026.
Why can’t we have nice things?
What might’ve been the greatest thing to ever happen has now fallen apart, with satirical news website The Onion’s plans to buy conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars website dashed by an American judge.
As reported by NBC News, a bankruptcy judge rejected The Onion’s bid to buy Infowars this week, ruling the process was “unfair”.
“I don’t think it’s enough money,” the judge said in a late-night ruling from the bench in a Houston court.
“I’m going to not approve the sale.”
CEO of The Onion Ben Collins said he would “continue to seek a path towards purchasing InfoWars in the coming weeks”.
“It is part of our larger mission to make a better, funnier internet, regardless of the outcome of this case,” he said.
That’s a mission InSider can get behind.
