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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 591 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

There are numerous examples around the world where old buildings have been successfully converted into museums and galleries. The very popular Powerhouse Museum in Sydney was created from a collection of old industrial buildings which many people thought were absolutely unusable and ugly. The recent Paris exhibition at the National Gallery came from an art gallery in Paris that used to be a railway station. The science museum in Melbourne used to be a sewerage pumping works. The old hospital buildings may not be totally suitable for the type of museum space envisaged for the National Museum, but let there be at least some consideration of how the existing buildings could be reused.

If the construction of the National Museum is again put off, the old hospital buildings can still be effectively used. The ANU is currently using Sylvia Curley House for student accommodation and has indicated in the past that it would be happy to continue this arrangement. The Community Action on Acton Group has suggested a range of economically viable uses for the building, such as for low-cost accommodation and community uses, that would actually raise revenue for the Government. However, once these buildings have gone we have destroyed any chance of recycling them. We believe it is irresponsible of the ACT Government to commit itself to spending $8m of taxpayers' money now to demolish the Acton buildings before the Assembly has agreed to this land swap agreement.

Turning to the Kingston side of the land swap agreement, we still have concerns about who will be paying for the clean-up of contamination on the site. The statement tabled yesterday says that both governments will clean up contamination on their own land at Kingston. However, the contamination on the ACT land, at the old bus depot, the old power station and the electricity substation and depot, mostly occurred before self-government; so, really, the Commonwealth Government should be paying for this clean-up as well. It cannot be argued that the contamination on the ACT land has occurred only since self-government. It is quite clear that just about all of the contamination is the result of activities on the site when it was under Commonwealth government control.

There is also the question of what happened to the $15m that was offered to the ACT Government as part of the original land swap agreement with the former Prime Minister. I understand that the $15m was paid to the ACT in 1995-96 as special revenue assistance and that Mrs Carnell told the Community Action on Acton Group that the money was not a payment for demolition of the Acton buildings or for cleaning up Kingston. It has been suggested that this money already has been spent in the health budget.

Let me say, in conclusion, that surely the Government can wait a few months until this whole deal is sorted out. It has not been sorted out. There are people challenging what the Chief Minister tabled yesterday. We have a right to look at it before we just bend over and do what the Commonwealth demands when we have no guarantee that we are going to get back from the Commonwealth what we should be getting,

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