Saturday 2 August 2025
11 am
Cutting down trees for a commercial encroachment for a
loss-making event in a public park is
WRONG.
The government provision of over $1 billion of Victorian’s money to support a car race in a park is
WRONG.
The expenditure of $350 million to construct a pit building/Paddock club venue in a park is
WRONG.
Save Albert Park is calling on all those
that acknowledge these wrongs
to join us in a
Demonstration of Protest
Saturday 2 August
11 am
The assembly point will be at the northern end of the pit building adjacent to the subway that goes under the road.
Read the current Newsletter here for more information.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Save Albert Park Inc was founded in February 1994, incorporated in 2001 and, in the public interest, became the effective opposition to the F1 Grand Prix when Labor backflipped in 1999 and joined the Liberals in their support of it.
Save Albert Park is a self-funded, non-party political, not-for-profit organisation with members all over Victoria who oppose the cost and takeover of a public park – by law under the Grands Prix Act 1994 for up to five months per annum – for an annual four-day car race that will have cost Victorians around $3 billion by the end of the contract in 2037.
Save Albert Park’s role
Save Albert Park’s most important function has been to work towards the permanent removal of the Grand Prix from Albert Park, to determine the facts relating to the event and to expose misleading claims made by the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, a Victorian government agency, and repeated by government and media.
Save Albert Park has supported the sports clubs in Albert Park negatively impacted by the Grand Prix for months every year. They say that government, including the Grand Prix minister and the AGPC, have done little to help them.
Save Albert Park has also supported local traders whose businesses continue to suffer because of the go-away/stay-away effect of the Grand Prix.
And we have advised like-minded groups around Australia who have opposed governments taking over public open space for motor racing events.
Through FOIs, with the intervention of the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner, we know that the AGPC adds around 70,000 staff and credentialed persons, such as delivery drivers and caterers, to its four-day attendance estimates. Tennis Australia, for example, have said that they do not do this.
We have also established – on the basis of observation and official information and our own accounting – that AGPC claims regarding attendance numbers and TV audience are grossly exaggerated.
Exposing false Grand Prix claims
Save Albert Park has been exposing the rorts behind the Grand Prix: despite what government and AGPC say, it is an economic and financial failure for Victoria. Read here.
Articles by retired Walkley Award journalist, Greg Baum.
>> Exposing false Grand Prix global TV viewing claims.
Read here.
>> Exposing inflated Grand Prix attendance numbers and more false TV viewing claims. Read here.
>> Exposing false national security claims. Read here.
July 2025 SAPIENS Newsletter out now.
>> Go to Newsletters
Fact Sheet
This fact Sheet exposes false claims made about the F1 Grand Prix and why it is a misfit in Melbourne’s sports industry.
Read our July 2025 Fact Sheet here.
Why would schools back the Grand Prix??
>> Government backs Grand Prix, but at what cost to vital services, such as schools?
Read our letter to school principals, school councils and teachers here.
Why would sponsors support the Grand Prix??
>> We believe that your company would get more exposure and brand value by contributing to projects that matter to the public, rather than a highly divisive event like Melbourne's Grand Prix.
Read our letter to current and potential sponsors here.
LATEST UPDATES
The Victorian government has prioritised US based Liberty Media, owners of F1, over funding Victoria’s future – our children.
A reported $350 million to construct a permanent pit building and corporate facility expansion in the Albert Park Reserve was announced at the same time government tried to hide its funding cut of $2.4 billion to Victorian state schools. 34 mature trees have been bulldozed for this expansion, causing further encroachment of valuable parkland.
Liberty Media will reap an estimated extra $30m annually in revenue from the expanded, exclusive corporate facility – paid for by taxpayers – on top of their exorbitant annual contract fee and revenue from trackside advertising.
More than 661,000 students attending some 1,570 government schools will be financially disadvantaged by the $2.4B funding cuts to schools. Read the article from Michael West Media here.
The AGPC has gone to extraordinary lengths – at taxpayers’ cost – to keep how it estimates its attendances hidden.
In 2013 at VCAT, the AGPC paid its case lawyers $101,590 to keep its crowd count methodology from public scrutiny. It succeeded, as it had also done in 2007.
In 2025 the AGPC took SAP to VCAT to have the FOI Commissioner’s ruling for it to reveal its crowd count methodology overturned, but the VCAT Member found in favour of the Corporation. The AGPC had argued against disclosure because of “the level of public funds invested” (in it) and “competitors having access to this information could impede AGPC’s effectiveness as a competitive business”.
The FOI Commissioner had stated that disclosure “would serve the public interest by promoting transparency and accountability, including in the performance of the Agency’s functions, public oversight of expenditure of public funds”.
Joan Logan had an article published in Pearls and Irritations on 11 January 2025.
>> Go to Articles of Interest to read this article.
On Thursday 13 March, Pearls and Irritations published another article by Joan: “Victoria’s government and opposition put Grand Prix ahead of their citizens”. >> Read here.
“Grand Prix attempts to dodge public scrutiny while taking billions in public subsidies”
Media release re VCAT’s decision is imminent. Will the Grand Prix be successful? We believe not. Read the Media Release here.
“Victorian Government and the Australian Grand Prix Corporation are hiding massive new grand prix corporate costs”
Did you know that the government and the AGPC agreed to pay for an expansion of the GP’s Pit Building and Paddock Club corporate facility, which is understood to be costing Victorians in excess of $300 million? Why have they not revealed these costs? Read the Media Release here.
“Grand Prix economic ‘benefit’ claims. Fact or Fiction?”
Who do you trust, the Auditor General and economic experts or a Consultant paid by government to boost F1? Read the Media Release here.
Read the report here.