Page 2520 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 9 August 2016
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
It is quite instructive to take a review of the state of some of the sportsgrounds around Canberra, highlighting the issues that have been brought to my office. Let me start with Greenway. At Greenway, the surface of the oval, surprisingly, is itself quite good, which is quite a contrast to some of the other ovals I am going to talk about. But in Greenway the issues are more infrastructure based. The changing rooms need a lot of upgrading and the seating needs significant work.
In Gungahlin the lighting had to be replaced—it was incorrectly installed in the first place—apparently at no cost to the ACT government. But the question needs to be asked: where is the supervision as to what is being installed? Why such an oversight? How could that happen? And what is the actual impact and cost on Canberra sport?
Gungahlin is supposedly a purpose-built, multipurpose ground, but the playing surface is shocking, to use the words of the sports renting it. There is no subsoil drainage installed. The question remains: how is that going to be addressed, at whose cost? Also, I understand the work was done by an out-of-town contractor who is no longer working in the ACT. The cost to the individual clubs using that is enormous. Not only will the work have to be rectified, but what will happen to the clubs playing on that ground while that rectification process goes on?
At Kippax in Belconnen, again there is no subsoil drainage. I hear that the government is talking about ripping it up again to install subsoil drainage there as well. The anecdotal evidence we get from people using it is that it is an absolute mud pit. In the Kippax area, the oval is being flogged to death—again in the words of the individual sports using it—with schoolboys playing during the week and then it being torn up for the weekend games of the seniors. I understand the football club there locally contributed a large number of dollars to the oval, but it is often available for their use. I also understand that the AFL recommended subsoil drainage. The government went ahead without it. When there is no proper oversight, all of these issues can occur.
Let me move to Woden oval. The government spent over $7 million on this multipurpose facility. A new synthetic running track was installed to enable Little Athletics to host major meets at this venue. But no grandstand was planned for this facility, and portable seating was only upgraded after we raised this as a major oversight, along with the fact that there was no sunshade provided for athletics, which, of course, is a summer sport.
So a major venue for both athletics and football which could have been a showpiece is, in fact, a major blunder in terms of planning. While planned as a venue for major Little Athletics meetings and football matches that could host between 1,500 and 3,500 spectators, it has no grandstand to cater for the spectator numbers, just a few portable seats that can cater for around 400 spectators. What about toilet facilities? Spectators have access to three toilets—individual toilets, I might add. Multiple individuals cannot use them at the same time.
These are things that could have been, should have been, done better.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video