Page 1426 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 14 May 2014
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The Prime Minister wrote back to the Chief Minister indicating that the commonwealth was unable to contribute any funding for the business case but he indicated that it would consider nonfinancial support. It is not entirely clear at this stage what that might entail but the ACT government has agreed to work with the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, Jamie Briggs, to further explore these opportunities.
Despite the lukewarm response from the commonwealth, the territory government is committed to continuing to work with the Business Council and the Convention Bureau to take this project forward. It has already had a number of meetings subsequent to this information being made available from the commonwealth. A key stakeholder forum will be convened shortly to support this work and will draw on the significant progress made in the September 2013 workshop.
A detailed functional and operational brief is being developed and will be finalised later this month. I repeat that because I think the shadow treasurer was not listening: a detailed functional and operational brief will be finalised later this month. The government is intending to call for expressions of interest for the preparation of the reference design which will enable detailed costings to be developed as the key input to the business case. The reference design and business case are planned to be completed by the end of 2014-15.
The territory government is progressing work on the convention centre. So it is disappointing that the opposition are engaging in petty point scoring rather than joining with us in making a contribution to this particular process. But in the end it is unlikely that the federal government will provide significant support for this project. So it will fall to the territory government and the private sector to deliver it. I am not optimistic, given all that has been said and the track record of the Liberal Party in supporting Canberra.
There is very little opportunity, it would seem, for there to be federal funding forthcoming in the short term. We will continue to ask and we will continue to see whether—maybe this can be a test, Madam Speaker—there is any capacity for the Liberal Party to support any infrastructure projects in the ACT because all we saw last night was the re-announcement of a range of Labor infrastructure projects funded in previous years, and we are meant to be grateful that they were not cut.
Some of them were cut, actually. The University of Canberra loses $25 million worth of funding for an infrastructure project that was already committed in a previous budget. In fact, that is the second time that has happened to the University of Canberra. I am referring to the money that was committed under regional development funding for the second stage of the UC sports hub. It was funded in the budget. I repeat that it was funded in the budget. There was a provision made and that funding was cut. So the University of Canberra has had two projects canned. The ANU loses funding last night as well. So, we see a continual—
Ms Gallagher: NICTA.
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