Page 2244 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 5 June 2013
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the then planning minister, decried. Colin Stewart, one of the great planners and architects of the city, put a lot of effort into that. That was in 2005. Mr Seselja put up a bill in 2005 to establish the city developing authority to get the show on the road. That was eight years ago, and here we are, in 2013, and the government has found the city at last. Fascinating, is it not?
But they only found the city after they had done the city to the lake. A criticism from the business community is that you get this doughnut effect where you have got this ring of activity around the city. There is a concentration on the north-east side of the city. It is primarily around Garema Place and the Canberra Centre. Now the government has got to go to the south-west side of the city because they have finally got religion. They have found the city.
But the city plan is yet to come. It is like so many things that they do. It is like the great big government office building. They were going to build the office building and then work out the government accommodation strategy. We are told, “We are going to build the city to the lake. We don’t know what the city is going to look like and what the city will be, but we will do the to-the-lake bit.”
You question why they would do the to-the-lake bit first. Look at the way the city-to-the-lake project has evolved. Initially they wanted the new convention centre down at the lake. But then they worked out that you do not get as much return on a block of land for a convention centre as you do for residential. So the city to the lake unlocks value. It says here on the second page of the presentation we were given, “City to the lake transforms the city and unlocks value.”
This is about money. This is about revenue. This is about feeding the urge to spend. It is about feeding the hungry beast that is a Labor Party budget. Spend, spend, spend! The presentation continues, “And aligns with and complements the capital metro project.” We are going to sell off the city to fund the train centre so the boys can fight over who runs the train, who drives the train and who gets to play with the train.
But at the end of the day we still do not have a city centre. We still do not have a CBD. It is like so many things that they do, Madam Speaker. They get the sequencing wrong. They do not work out their capital works projects. That is why their projects blow out so often. I do not think anybody can have any faith that this will actually be delivered. I do not think anybody realistically has any confidence that this can actually be done after the 12 years that this government has had in delivering their capital works, most of which have been over time, over budget and under scope.
Indeed, I remember going to the tourism awards in December 2001. Ted Quinlan proudly stood up and said, “This time next year we will tell you where the new convention centre will be.” Twelve years we have waited for that announcement. They have got it finally located on the plan. But the question is: can anyone have any confidence that they will actually get there and that they will actually build it based on their record?
They talk about beginning the transformation of our city through major infrastructure projects to meet the challenges of our second century. Most of that work was done by
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