Page 5135 - Week 12 - Thursday, 27 October 2011
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resulted in the government’s current policy regarding the proposed use of the Fitters Workshop. If there was something that the government did that Mrs Dunne and I have missed in this and there really was something, it would have been incredibly useful for the public debate had the government made this public a bit earlier.
It is possible that Ms Burch will say something but if she has got something to contribute it would have been very useful had the government contributed this earlier, particularly, I understand from what Mrs Dunne has said, as both she and I have sought briefings from the department and not obtained any useful information on this.
The last option, which was not supported, was to explore options for the multi-use of the Fitters Workshop, which include alternative accommodation for Megalo in the Kingston arts precinct. That is really where the Greens have been going all along. We see Megalo having a future in the Kingston arts precinct but we also see the very strong representations that have been made by parts of the music community.
The other thing which we have not talked about at enough length is heritage. Canberra is a new city and we have only a very few parts that have heritage significance. The Fitters Workshop is one of them. One of the things that are very attractive about the possibility of it being used for music and in a multipurpose way is that it would mean that the interior of the workshop would stay substantially unaltered. Clearly there would have to be heating and air conditioning added and clearly there would need to be external toilets. But essentially the interior could stay as is, which would not be the case with the Megalo proposal in terms of the DA that I have seen.
From a heritage point of view, it would seem to me—and I am not claiming to be a heritage expert—that one of the major points about the Fitters Workshop is the glorious space that is there at present. And a solution which keeps that glorious space would seem to be one which should be looked at very carefully.
I will go through my amendments very briefly. In terms of reference to the standing committee, what I have done is tightened it a bit. I think the issue is not so much what happened in the past. It is very unfortunate, what has happened in the past. And one of the things that I have been agonising about at great length is clearly what we are talking about now. Public consultation should have happened a couple of years ago. We cannot roll back time.
At this point in time the problem is that there is actually no good way forward. Commitments have been made to Megalo and Megalo, in all good faith, has believed the government’s commitments. We do not want to do anything to disadvantage Megalo. So it has been really hard for the Greens to come to the point of saying that at this point this is the way to go forward.
Part (2A) of my amendments is saying that we are hoping that the Speaker will make funds available to employ some external expertise so that, instead of saying, “Yes, we think it sounds good,” or, “Yes, we do not think it sounds good,” we can actually have someone who knows about the situation give us some advice on the subject. Then, as per Mrs Dunne’s motion, we are moving to suspend the capital works project until the standing committee has reported. But we have added another clause, which is:
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