Page 1421 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 14 May 2014
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You have to question what they have been up to when they have not got it to the shovel-ready stage. This is not a new issue, Madam Speaker. At the tourism awards in December 2001, Ted Quinlan said, “By December 2002 we will have selected the site for the new convention centre.” That did not happen, really, until late last year, and I think actually it was early this year, more than a decade later—a decade of neglect and a decade of wasted opportunities.
Everyone that I know that looks at the operation of convention centres says that it will induce business. A better facility, a bigger facility, a state-of-the-art facility will see business come to Canberra. That is good for the economy, it is good for jobs and it is good for the government as it helps the government coffers. But the government has turned a blind eye to this project from the start.
Everyone tells me that if a new convention centre is built then it will lead to a number of new hotels, because if you are seeking a bed in Canberra tonight, you will not get one. The 20 weeks that the federal parliament sits means that most of the beds are occupied, certainly for those 20 weeks, and the business of government helps to keep our hospitality sector at very high levels of occupancy. That is a good thing. But a new convention centre with a bigger capacity will mean that there will be a need for one, two or three additional hotels, and that is good for the economy, it is good for jobs, it is good for business and it is good for the government.
But the government are just not committed to this project. The proof of the pudding is in the numbers. They have had 13 years in office. They have spent, according to the Chief Minister, only a million dollars on the project. After 13 years in office it is not shovel-ready and it is not ready to go. When the opportunity comes—noting that they had rejection after rejection from their former Labor colleagues when they were in office—when they were asked for shovel-ready projects they did not have a single one to take to the federal government.
That is the failure of this government, and that is why this motion condemns the ACT government’s inability to adequately prepare for and win support from both the present coalition and prior Labor federal governments on strategic infrastructure to provide a soft landing for our local economy.
The important thing is, of course, that the government know this process because they wanted money for capital metro. They went to the previous Labor government through Infrastructure Australia, and the government should know that major projects worth over $100 million have to go through Infrastructure Australia. I am sure the Treasurer will enlighten us when he stands and moves his amendment as to how many times they have taken this project to Infrastructure Australia. I suspect the answer is that they never have. They have never made the effort. They have never gone through the process adequately to ensure the outcome that the community in this city wants, because at the end of the day their priorities are not the priorities of the community. Their priorities particularly are not the priorities of the business community, which has come together and said the number one priority is the new convention centre.
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