Page 2553 - Week 08 - Thursday, 14 August 2014
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co-location of Canberra’s thoroughbred harness and greyhound racing clubs prior to the finalisation of the corporation’s master plan. Elephants’ three-year gestation for their offspring is a long time, but the gestation of this master plan must go down in history as—
Mr Hanson: A white elephant.
MR SMYTH: perhaps a white elephant—one of the longest master plans of all time. But one cannot help wondering if, if Capital Metro goes ahead, perhaps the whole plan has not been to have a master plan for EPIC because EPIC might be on the block too—a nice big development at Thoroughbred Park and EPIC. There is perhaps some logic in having EPIC in a different location; it is a prime site there on Northbourne Avenue. But you do have to wonder whether, in the delay in finalising the master plan, there is an ulterior motive.
We had some nice banter during the hearings about caravan rallies coming to Canberra, and I am sure all members will be pleased that in 2016 two caravan rallies will be coming to EPIC, one of which is confirmed and one of which is under negotiation. Again, it just shows the versatility of having that facility close to the centre of town so that we can use it for a whole lot of things beyond its function as the showground. It does of course provide a venue for various sorts of business events, and indeed, in this case, caravan rallies, so we look forward to all those caravaners coming. I understand that the Treasurer may have got some correspondence seeking assistance for these things. If we can help to bring some grey nomads and some not so grey nomads to Canberra for these functions that would be a good thing.
We are moving closer, of course, to accommodation, and we now have a preferred tenderer, who is called Free Spirit and who has been identified as the developer and tenant to build and operate low-cost tourism accommodation. That is a good thing. It has, of course, also taken an incredibly long time to get to this position. One of the areas that are almost at capacity is visiting school groups. It is very hard for the groups to get the sort of accommodation that school children need and at a price that they need so that they can visit the nation’s capital, and I suspect that a new facility, again in that location, would be welcomed by the industry. I have a lovely quote from the CEO about that development:
Currently services to the blocks are being progressed, the timeframes for that will end—will be the end of September. That is going to plan. Free Spirit have commenced advertising for accommodation for next year. They are proposing to have the development up and running by the first term in 2015. Obviously we are helping as much as possible to get that development up and running.
As the committee would perhaps know, there have been delays in getting the block. That is mainly because we have the largest colony of legless lizards in the world—not really, that was a bit of a joke—but we have had some challenges with legless lizards and getting commonwealth clearance. That has all been finalised, and we are now working very closely with EDD and the government to get this happening.
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