It was one of the bravest articles I've read in this paper. There on the page opposite this one last Saturday an inner Newcastle resident welcomed the arrival of Supercars to the streets around her home, and indeed wrote that she felt privileged to live in the midst of the race.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
How do you reckon that went down with the East End elites whose opposition to Supercars has been unrelenting?
They were denounced, devastatingly, by someone whose claim to elite rank in Newcastle is vastly superior to those who've been sniping about Supercars in this paper's columns for three long years. Elite rank is not a claim she makes or suggests, by the way.
The person standing against the East End bloc is Helen Cummings, a former Newcastle Woman of the Year and a daughter of the first woman to be Newcastle's Lord Mayor, Joy Cummings, Newcastle royalty. Like her mother, Helen Cummings is a person of causes, among them the freeing of convicted child killer Kathleen Folbigg and the fight against domestic violence.
It's incongruous that so many complaints come from the East End because Joy Cummings was able to preserve much of the East End character, and I am confident that she would be as enthusiastic about Supercars showcasing Newcastle nationally as the city's current Labor lord mayor, Nuatali Nelmes.
There is no safe anonymity for Helen Cummings, and she was aware of the ramifications of that when she wrote in this paper three years ago that Novocastrians "stick hard to our point of view till it becomes a grudge". In that article about opposition to the removal of the railway line into Newcastle, the removal she supported, Ms Cummings, a life member of the ALP, wrote that her "views have become increasingly at odds with the political party" with which she was aligned.
That itself is a measure of her independence, because the Labor party peculiar to Newcastle is a fearsome animal both united and divided by hatreds and feuds.
Like her mother, Helen Cummings is a person of causes ...
I should point out that my commentary in this paper on Newcastle's politics and dysfunctional council in the mid 1980s was not happily received by most in the Joy Cummings political faction, and some accused me of contributing to the severe stroke that sadly ended her lord mayoralty and much of her quality of life in 1984. So even though Helen Cummings and I share opinions about East Enders' opposition to Supercars in Newcastle, I am not writing in support of a supporter.
In her article last Saturday taking issue with the East End's celebration of the COVID-19 cancellation of this year's Supercars racing in Newcastle, Ms Cummings told how as someone who had no interest in car racing she had found the racing from the very first day to be thrilling, and she pointed out the contrast between the excitement of many and the resentment of some.
"The first Supercars race day was an unexpected thrill," she wrote. "The momentum that had been building broke loose with the sunshine and people of all ages came pouring into our city. I felt privileged to live within the zone."
She felt privileged to live within the zone! How wonderfully positive!
As someone who had not a shred of interest in car racing or even fast cars, I have had a similar awakening. Not on the very first day, not even in the first year, but when I sat in front of the teev to watch a few minutes of the racing in its second year in Newcastle I was enthralled. The speed, the noise, the skill and the contest came together in a new experience for me, which was surprising given that the noise of distant hoons burning doughnuts at night makes me wince.
It is a big, brash event, and the V8 cars doing battle along the roads around our beaches and foreshore do this city a great deal of good in so many ways.
Of course any event in an urban area is going to have an impact on those in that immediate area, and while many of those events are annual some of them, some with the greatest impact, occur many times through the year. It is recognised as part of the parcel that is community.
Have the East Enders been to the Newcastle Show, to the football at the Knights' home ground, to the horse races at Broadmeadow, to watch the monster trucks?
Probably not.
Perhaps Ms Cummings's main point is that Newcastle's inner city is to be shared, that the amenity of the areas next to our harbour and beaches is not owned by people who buy a house and land there.
That is a truth so widely accepted that the most strident and perennial objectors to Supercars in Newcastle have changed their arguments to accommodate it. Lately they gripe not so much about the impact on them but about the impact on others.
They weep crocodile tears for the cost of Supercars to ratepayers, for the wider public losing free access to the East End for a few days a year, for the businesses that haven't done as well as hoped from the hordes that flock into the city.
But still they talk of intrusion, as an event on their turf for people who don't own their turf, and disruption, as the detours required by the preparations and the racing, and Ms Cummings reminded them that COVID-19 and serious illness is intrusion and disruption, that a short-lived restriction to create an event appreciated by so many people is not a loss of public amenity.
The opposition in the East End has been shown up by one in their midst who has a generosity and spirit they don't seem to understand.
It's time for them to move on.
jeffcorb@gmail.com
