Page 2425 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 13 August 2014
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(i) a new building on the Government owned site (part of Section 19 Civic);
(ii) a new building on an existing privately owned site within Civic; and
(iii) a campus-style of office accommodation utilising one site or a number of adjoining sites;
(h) the case has been made for a number of requirements in the ROI including that accommodation be within 10 minutes walk of the Legislative Assembly and that the bulk of the public service be accommodated in a single building or hub;
(i) commercial office vacancy rates in Canberra have increased from 12.9 percent to 13.6 percent, the highest since 2010;
(j) vacancy in non-Civic areas has increased from 13.7 percent to 14.5 percent, the highest on record;
(k) 24 500 square metres of new space is due to be added to the Canberra market in the second half of 2014;
(l) a new government office building will add to the oversupply of office accommodation in Canberra; and
(m) the significant number of vacant properties across Canberra has not been adequately considered as part of any business case for a centralised office building; and
(2) calls on the ACT Government to:
(a) immediately halt any plans to build a new office building;
(b) conduct an analysis and report to the Assembly on all existing and planned commercial office space across Canberra suitable for ACT public service accommodation; and
(c) provide a business case to the Assembly outlining the costs and benefits to the ACT budget and ACT economy of leasing existing accommodation across Canberra as opposed to building and leasing new facilities in a centralised facility.
I must say that I did not think we would be back in this place talking about this issue. It is not that long ago, as you would recall, Madam Speaker, that my predecessor, the now Senator Seselja, dismantled the original office block proposal, death star I. And in that case, despite millions of dollars of public money being spent, despite thousands of pages of spin, armies of consultants—and I remember them appearing at the estimates committee—the simple fact is that the ACT does not need this office block and certainly cannot afford this office block. Why are we getting it? It is a bit of a mystery but we will try to unravel that as we go. And this question has been asked before. The reality is that it did not stack up previously when this was looked at and it does not stack up now.
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