Page 2906 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 2013
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another election before any money flows for Weston Creek, and upgrades of Tuggeranong are at least two years away from starting.
The Narrabundah ball park promise of $5 million is another “one day, some day” promise. We can only hope the Canberra Cavalry team can maintain momentum and sponsorship at its current substandard facilities for at least several more years before anything happens. Narrabundah was not entirely forgotten, however. The velodrome is getting $650,000 for remediation works that apparently are urgent and serious. The velodrome has been in operation for something like two decades, but the closure notice said the track was too dangerous to remain open. (Second speaking period taken.)
The government allocates valuable resources each year to maintenance works, and as opposition spokesman I get a lot of criticism from sports clubs about the lack of logic and timing in the government’s maintenance program across a number of facilities—toilets that do not work, fields that are top-dressed at the wrong time and fields that are top-dressed with diesel marking lines which are put there to save money but which create erosion. The danger caused, especially at the junior level, by the ditches that occur as a result of the diesel top-dressing is something I have been concerned about for quite some time.
But all those errors fade into oblivion when it comes to maintenance and supervision of the velodrome. Questions asked during the estimates process brought to light some interesting facts. The only maintenance done at the velodrome is a mowing program for the dry land grass and weekly cleaning of the amenities building. There is periodic re-marking of the track and a monthly facility inspection by Sport and Recreation Services staff. So what was the reason for the urgent and immediate closure in November? An engineer’s report on the original—I repeat, the original—20-or-more-year-old track that was completed seven months before in April 2012 suggested the track design was flawed and presented a danger and an unacceptable risk to cyclists. Presumably this danger had existed for hundreds of cyclists over thousands of days, and even then it took seven months—until just after the election—to bring this to the attention of velodrome users.
I asked whether any other sporting facilities in the ACT were at risk of closure due to safety reasons and the minister’s answer of, “No, not that I am aware of,” will bring little comfort to any user of any other sporting facility in the ACT. But do not worry, budding Olympic and major event cyclists, the ACT government has arranged an alternative training venue for you a mere 300 kilometres away in Sydney. The estimates committee’s recommendation 41.2, volume 1, page 40, on the need to develop an improved maintenance schedule for ACT sportsgrounds to avoid another velodrome disaster is a timely warning to governments to do better.
By comparison, the dissenting report’s sycophantic 500-plus recommendations and messages of thanks paying homage to the minister’s work in this area—500, I just cannot believe that—are more in line with what was promised in the election rather than what has been delivered in the budget. Their praise for the government keeping sports hire increases to a minimum is laughable given the circumstances, and their
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