Page 3615 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 2005
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western end of the foreshore, which currently encompasses the markets and the soon-to-be-completed glassworks at the powerhouse, which the Chief Minister told us about at question time today.
What I would like to add was the Liberal initiative. Money was set aside, we should remind ourselves, four years ago. It will be great to see the completion of that. I recently wrote to both the Chief Minister and the minister for tourism, Mr Quinlan, suggesting that they might consider the development of a transport museum at the current Australian Railway Historical Society in Kingston. In a positive response the tourism minister, Mr Quinlan, said:
I am aware of the continuing interests of the membership of the ARHS in the future development of the site to be part of a broader transport museum. If the ARHS were to expand into a broader tourism museum to showcase a component of our heritage, there would be some tourism value. The ACT is in continual need of fresh tourism product to cater to varying interests of visitors to the territory and Australian Capital Tourism would indeed be part of promoting the new tourist attraction when established.
There you go, Mr Quinlan: your name on a plaque, a legacy to the ACT—one, I am sure, Mr Quinlan would not shy away from at all.
There is no doubt that the redevelopment of such a significant tract of land across the whole of Kingston foreshore—indeed, it is one of the most valuable community assets—is well under way to becoming one of the showpieces of groundbreaking urban design that will, hopefully, blend in well and complement the natural landscape of the Jerrabomberra wetlands adjacent to the old Eastlake precinct.
It is pleasing to the eye to see the shift in the landscape in an area that had always been a precinct designed to service government via the Australian Government Publishing Service and the government fleet workshops. In addition, the powerhouse was a vital public utility during the early development stages and construction of the new capital of Canberra. It is on this very point that I would like to congratulate the former Carnell government and now the current government for their willingness and determination to see, much like the redevelopment of the Kingston bus depot markets, the old powerhouse being once again put to use.
The powerhouse, such an iconic building of significance to the ACT community, will house the glassworks, which I am sure the Canberra School of Arts will establish as a thriving facility to attract and maintain a thriving glass industry for Canberra, including such activities as the creation of the glassworks workshops and classes provided, et cetera. The concept has stirred in me the great idea that, in the spirit of Walter Burley Griffin’s design principles, particularly one of symmetry, there is a real prospect of developing another facility at the other end of the residential precinct at the Kinston foreshore. If the powerhouse can have a new lease of life, then surely the rail precinct could also become a premier attraction in the form of a heritage transport museum.
In the same way as the current ACT government anticipates there will be significant benefits to the community from the development of the glassworks, I hope that it will be assumed also that there should be no reason not to consider the real prospect of providing a more broader transport museum that could showcase our heritage and history, centred
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