Page 4278 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 25 October 2017
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does not mean that community concerns are not equally important so that we can have certainty for all parties going forward. We do not want to have another 20-year period where every five years local community groups and the golf club are at loggerheads with each other over yet another proposal.
Many people have questioned the government’s involvement in the current development proposal. It is no secret that because ClubsACT backed the Canberra Liberals at the last election this government has now refused to deal with ClubsACT. Mr Barr has publicly said he will not meet with ClubsACT. Mr Ramsay has publicly said he will not meet with ClubsACT. Instead, the government will only deal with the CFMEU-backed, Tradies-run Canberra Community Clubs.
In July 2017 the Federal Golf Club left ClubsACT and went to the CFMEU-backed Canberra Community Clubs group, and at that time Scott Elias, the general manager of the Federal Golf Club, said publicly:
The government will talk to them. As far as I’m aware the government won’t talk to ClubsACT. It basically comes down to what’s in the best interests of the club to get that development through … We want to get it through this time and we will do everything we can.
Three weeks after the announcement of the defection of the Federal Golf Club to the CFMEU-backed Community Clubs group the government set up the one-off community panel for consultation on the proposal. This panel discussion was by invitation only, with even MLAs to attend only a very small part of those meetings.
Members of the panel included the Federal Golf Club, the developer, Mbark, the National Capital Authority, the ACT Government Architect, heritage representatives, the Conservation Council of the ACT, the Friends of Grasslands, the Red Hill Regenerators, three local residents groups, the Inner South Canberra Community Council, the Council on the Ageing and the Canberra Business Chamber.
This quite hastily put together, one-off community panel—when I say “one-off”, Mr Barr was quoted as saying this was a one-off panel—locks people and MLAs out. It makes it seem like the outcome of the community panel—and I am referring to emails I have received from community groups here—is a fait accompli, that the consultation was a sham and that the government have already decided to back this development application.
In a briefing that I had from the directorate earlier this week I was told that all the community groups were happy, they thought it was the best proposal that had been put forward and they had received comments such as “as good as they have seen”. The directorate, however, did not finish the sentences. The community groups provided me with their version of what was said at that panel meeting that, incidentally, I was locked out of. I was invited. I RSVPed. And when I turned up on the night I was unable to get in the locked door. It was quite unfortunate. It was quite unfortunate from many points, not least of which was that I could have perhaps gone to another event or, even better, stayed at home with my family instead of driving half
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