Page 1420 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 14 May 2014
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The convention centre proposal received $250,000 from the ACT government many years ago, which was more than matched by the community, to fund the Australia forum study, and we now have the Australia forum study from April 2011. But the amount of funding to get the project shovel-ready since then has been incredibly disappointing. There was a line in one budget of $1 million for the Australia forum, but in reality it was a land study to see how much they could get out of West Basin should it proceed, and the amount of money from that $1 million actually spent on the Australia forum was very small.
You have to juxtapose that against the money for capital metro, the government’s preferred piece of infrastructure—the piece of infrastructure that of course keeps them in government and buys Mr Rattenbury’s support. In a single year, in a single budget, the government committed 10 times more to capital metro than they had done in 10 years for a new convention centre. I think that summarises their commitment. I think I am being generous when I say 10 times more; it is probably much more than that but we will call it 10 times more.
Mr Hanson: Shame.
MR SMYTH: And that is a shame. It is a shame because it is this government that have stood in the way of the convention centre going ahead, and it is this government that pay lip-service by speaking to the tourism industry and businesses in this city and saying, “Yes, we’re behind this.” But you have to question their priorities with something like capital metro. I am sure capital metro will get a huge cash boost in the coming budget, so that they can keep the Greens sweet, but it is not the sort of project that can immediately have an impact on our city. If this government had done their work, if this government had been ready, and if the government had not been negligent in the way they have looked after this project, this project could well have got some funding. But it did not.
Who is to blame? According to the Canberra Times, the Chief Minister blames the federal government. The Chief Minister apparently got a letter from the Prime Minister saying there is no funding for it at this time. There is all of this wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth since the Chief Minister revealed on Monday in the Canberra Times that it had been rejected. In a way, she outs herself, because in the Canberra Times article she says:
We put in about $1 million to get to this point and we have agreed with the business support stakeholders on a site for the convention centre …
A million dollars is all this government has put in, according to Ms Gallagher. I think it is dramatically less in real terms. She goes on to say she does not understand why the government would do this. My understanding is that the explanation is very simple. The federal government looked for construction-ready, shovel-ready projects that they could get out of the ground quite quickly because they are expecting a downturn in mining in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 years. What they wanted were projects that could go ahead immediately. Did the ACT government take a shovel-ready convention centre project to the federal government? The answer is no.
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