President Roger Bryson invited the Mayor of the City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters, Robert Bria, to attend the Kensington Residents Association’s Annual General Meeting on 11th August 2026 and address the gathering. The transcript of Mayor Bria’s speech (below) is sourced from https://www.npsp.sa.gov.au/about_council/mayor_and_elected_members/mayors_speeches .

” While I often make speeches at Council events, it’s been a while since I have been invited to be a guest speaker by a local sporting club, community organisation, or in this case, a Residents Association. When Roger invited me some weeks ago to address you I did not hesitate in accepting because he specifically asked me to talk about Residents Associations and the role they play in the community. In many ways, his invitation and this topic was timely – at least it was from my perspective.

Three weeks ago, when I had a spare five minutes I was watching a video on You Tube where the American political and social commentator David Brooks was speaking. Some of you might know Brooks as a journalist, formerly with the New York Times, and now with The Atlantic, as well as being a regular guest on the ‘PBS News hour’ for a weekly segment with Jonathan Capehart. In the You Tube video, Brooks is talking to a group of university students about a book he’d just written titled How to know a person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. I liked what I heard and bought a copy from Dillon’s bookstore – I shop locally as a good mayor should do!!

In the opening six pages, Brooks runs through some anecdotes of his childhood and adult connections, his social awkwardness and his somewhat detached life. He went on to explain that these experiences led him on a journey of self-discovery and to change the way he interacted with people.

And then at the bottom of page seven, Brooks hits his readers right between eyes: “Being open–hearted is a prerequisite for being a full, kind, and wise human being. But it is not enough. People need social skills. We talk about the importance of “relationships,” “community”, “friendship”, “social connections”, but these words are abstract. The real act of building a friendship or creating community involves performing a series of small, concrete social interactions well.”

In the rest of the book, Brooks gives examples of people from all backgrounds who live for years without being truly seen [and] sometimes it has taken a life-changing moment – a death or a marriage breakdown – before even the people closest to them really get see who they are. It is a beautiful book that makes the reader reflect on their own life and their interactions with others. I highly recommend it.

At about the same time, a work colleague of mine sent me an email with a report commissioned by an organisation called Ending Loneliness Together. This organisation is a national network of university and industry partners raising awareness about loneliness. Recently, they released a national report, State of the Nation 2026: Understanding and Rebuilding Social Connection in Australia. The study was based on 4,001 survey respondents aged 12-95, and highlights prevalence of loneliness and social isolation, and who is most affected and impacted. In the report’s opening pages, Hugh McKay AO has this to say: “Over the past 50 years, we’ve been making decisions about how to live that have eroded social cohesion and taken a heavy toll on out health.”

Of course, in such a comprehensive study there are going to be a number of findings, and some of the statistics are quite confronting:

1 in 2 (51 %) people living in Australia report some form of social disconnection – being either lonely or socially isolated;
1 in 5 (19 %) people are both lonely and socially isolated;
Men and women across all ages reported similar levels of loneliness and social isolation;
18-25 year olds are the loneliest (18 %);
45-54 year olds and 65-74 year olds are the most socially isolated (27%);
45-54 year olds are the most lonely and socially isolated (28%).

I could keep going on with the statistics, but I think you get the picture. Put simply, the report found that as a society we are not engaging with one another as much as we used to. Importantly, the report looks are what can be done to foster more meaningful connections between people. According to Ending Loneliness Together, part of the blueprint for creating a more connected Australia involved multiple players. It talks about how regular contact with friends and family reduces risk of loneliness and isolation. It talks about workplaces being great places for colleagues to share stories, go out for their morning coffee and office lunches. It talks about Councils providing opportunities for free activities – for this Council, the Concerts in the Park series, St Peters Fair, Raising the Bar, Zest for Life, and Christmas Pageant come to mind. And it also talks about the critical role regular chats with neighbours play in social wellbeing.

By coincidence, last week was Loneliness Awareness Week and the theme was, ‘Connection doesn’t happen by accident. It grows in the space we create for each other.’ Of course, the issues of loneliness and isolation are not new, nor are they confined to Australia. In 2000, Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community highlighted what he believed at the time to be the decline in community in the United States beginning in 1950. Interesting how he and Hugh McKay both looked at this issue over a half a century timeframe. Putnam looked at a number of ways in which Americans had slowly disengaged from community life, which [he] argues posed a threat to democracy. Why? Because the core value of a thriving democracy is active participation by the citizenry. This includes voting, volunteering, peaceful protest, organising petitions, making in-person representations, making written submissions, attending community forums and helping out at working bees.

By now, you’re probably asking yourselves, “So, what does all this have to do with Residents Associations, and in particular the Kensington Residents Association?”

The answer is, everything! For the past 49 years, the KRA has been, to quote David Brooks, creating community by performing a series of small, concrete social interactions well. And, it is an Association that is comprised of active citizens who write submissions, make presentations and turns out at public meetings. Since its formation in 1977, the Association has been a constant in a world of social and political change. It has been a focal point for community leadership, a source of advice and advocacy, and a repository of history and local stories. It has survived governments of different political colours and numerous Councils, and continues o be a relevant player – if not central player – in the affairs of the Kensington community.

Now, more than ever, we need communities that are engaged and participating, we need volunteers, we need people who care enough to want to have a say in the public square on important matters. Yes, they have a right – in fact a duty – to scrutiny, to probe, to question, to challenge decisions and the environment in which those decisions are made – this is all part of a healthy democracy. As the saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Instead, we need residents associations to organise, prioritise and strategise to get the things they want in their local community. But when Residents Association see [their] role as the unofficial ‘Opposition’ to a Council or even the State Government, things rarely end well. This is where walls go up, trust goes down, suspicion leaks out and ideas turn in.

Thankfully, this has not been my experience regarding my professional working relationship with the current KRA President, Roger Bryson. The fact we both barrack for the Redlegs certainly helps! We can pick up the phone to discuss issues knowing we can disagree without being disagreeable, our discussion can be robust but respectful, and while our views may sometimes appear to be fixed, they are always forward-looking. This is where the KRA sets itself apart from other residents associations. One of its clearly stated aims is to “promote closer communications between Norwood Payneham & Peters Council and residents.” More than any other community organisation I know, the KRA makes an effort to genuinely see people – in this case their fellow residents from Kensington. With a membership of more than three hundred people, the KRA is unquestionably forward leaning and outward looking. It treats people with consideration and respect, it genuinely works to bring people into the fold to makes them feel part of something bigger than themselves. It does this not by raising a clenched fist against those in positions of authority but instead extending an open hand of friendship to those who share their values, their streets, their parks, their heritage and their neighbourhoods. It’s the ‘Pizza in the Park’ and ‘Film Fundraiser’ events that help local stay connected through food, film and friendship. It’s the volunteers at Borthwick Park who plant saplings, pull weeds and act as custodians of our natural habitat. And it’s the regular newsletters – yes newsletters – while seemingly simple – that become the neighbourhood telegraph for locals to keep them informed about their suburb. As much as anything else, regular communication can make people feel seen.

In the fast paced world we live in, it’s easy to put ourselves ahead o our community, but sometimes its pays to put our community ahead of ourselves. A few years ago, I attended a service at the Greek Orthodox Parish of Prophet Elias on Beulah Road, where Bishop Silouan of Adelaide was speaking to the gathering. During his sermon, he passed on a message from the Greek Archbishop, which went along the line that to enlarge others we must diminish ourselves. In other words, every now and then we should take a step back to let others be seen and heard.

All of this brings me back to Brooks and his view of the world: “In this age of creeping dehumanisation, I’ve become obsessed with social skills: how to get better at treating people with consideration; how to get better at understanding the people around us. I’ve come to believe that the quality of our lives and the health of our society, depended, to a large degree, on how well we treat each in the minute interactions of daily life.”

Perhaps there’s a lesson in that for all of us. Perhaps we should all become obsessed about getting better at treating people with consideration. Perhaps we should all become obsessed about getting better at understanding the people around us and thinking about how we treat each other.

So in closing, I again thank you for the kind invitation and the opportunity to address you. The KRA is doing a great job in making people feel seen and helping to end the loneliness and social isolation amongst neighbours and friends. So, please continue to perform those small, concrete social interactions and create spaces where people can connect. Thank you. “

Next time you’re in Borthwick Park, head down the stone steps in the Nature Play Area. On the edge of Second Creek, look toward the old stone bridge on Thornton Street and consider the ‘trash rack’.

It’s part of a network of some 20 sites across metro Adelaide, all owned and maintained by Green Adelaide. Data from the last 7 years show between 5 and 25 tonnes of debris is caught and removed each year from the Thornton Street rack. In the year ending June 2025, over 10 tonnes of material was removed from Adelaide’s waterways at this key location, right here in Kensington.

A site inspection occurs when 7mm of rain falls in 24 hours or 10mm of rain falls over a 7 day period. Without a rainfall trigger, sites are routinely checked every 21 days. Cleans are scheduled as needed.

The Rack Phone rings! Who answers the call? Never fear, residents of Kensington, Mechanical Vegetation Solutions will soon be here! These dedicated contractors appear from nowhere, clean up the neighbourhood, then zap off to fight trash elsewhere, a bit like the comic book super heroes of old. Check out the Tale of the Trash Rack Heroes.