Page 1484 - Week 06 - Thursday, 2 July 2020
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I will now move on to the fate of the current occupant of the site—the CIT. As a member for Murrumbidgee of course I support the goal of restoring a CIT campus to Woden. My electorate has lost two CIT campuses in recent years—the south side campus in Phillip and, prior to that, the beautiful horticultural campus at Weston. Fortunately, it has been slightly rebuilt as Fetherston Gardens, but that is a loss still being felt by the neighbours.
The proposed new Woden campus has the potential to be a good thing for the Woden town centre, the wider electorate and, hopefully, for all of Canberra. I understand the CIT is intending to, in the future, have subject-based campuses, so there would be something like what they do with automotive at Fyshwick—they only do automotive at Fyshwick et cetera. So I trust that all of Canberra will end up using the new Woden campus.
I worry that there is a risk that the CIT will be stranded if the land deal with the university and the new campus at Woden are not well coordinated. The deal with the University of New South Wales must not see the Reid CIT campus close before the new Woden campus is ready. Importantly, the Woden campus must be capable of meeting the current and future needs of CIT students.
In saying this, I note that the proposed new site at Woden is a lot smaller than the current CIT site. I have raised this issue with both Minister Gentleman’s office and the public servants involved and I have received assurances that this risk is recognised and is being managed through the staging of the land transfers. As I said earlier, I trust that these risks are kept front of mind as the projects continue and that the land transfers are not made until all the requisite work has been done by both the University of New South Wales and the ACT government to ensure that we continue to have a viable CIT system and that the Murrumbidgee electorate gets the CIT campus it has been promised.
In conclusion, the Greens will be supporting this bill because of the protections it contains. The scope is limited to one land deal, and it contains protections which will help ensure that the ACT community gets value from the deal. As a member for Murrumbidgee, I welcome the commitment to restore a CIT campus to Woden.
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella—Manager of Government Business, Minister for Advanced Technology and Space Industries, Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Minister for Planning and Land Management, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Urban Renewal) (11.40), in reply: I rise to close the debate on the in-principle stage of this bill. I thank members for their contributions. If agreed to, this bill will facilitate the establishment of the new University of New South Wales—UNSW—Canberra city campus in the ACT. This amendment bill is an outcome of negotiations between the territory and UNSW, confirming the agreement between the university and the government to invest together to establish a world-class teaching, research and innovation precinct.
All of the key economic sectors that drive Canberra’s growth and diversification—defence, space, cybersecurity, agricultural science, health and tourism—depend on the
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