This week, the Vidkun Quisling award goes to Solomons Island PM Manasseh Sogavare for signing a security pact with China, against the wishes of 91 per cent of his population. While I’m at it, I was impressed with the latest ALP announcement that a Labor government will expand broadcasting services to the SW Pacific and set up a defence school in Australia for Pacific defence force and police personnel. These are good initiatives which will help counter China’s influence.
Back home, there have been a number of ideas and promises made about a new stadium and convention centre for Canberra.
Local aspirants for the Senate have been vocal on this issue. Kim Rubenstein makes the logical argument that there are more important priorities such as hospitals. David Pockock wants an all singing all dancing complex in Civic. Nice if you can afford it. Incumbent Zed Seselja has committed money to improve upkeep of the Bruce precinct and revamp the Canberra Capitals venue, plus money for an enhanced Erindale venue. Nothing from the ALP yet but as they have four out of the five available federal seats why would they bother.
Interestingly there was a proposal by the casino owners a few years ago to build a new stadium/convention centre near their venue and a new indoor pool. It was dependent on the casino getting up to 500 extra pokies (they would settle for 200) but also a slice of land in Glebe Park to build some upmarket units. Promising perhaps, but for whatever reason, Messrs Barr and Rattenbury decided against it.
Before the last local election when I was running for the Belco Party, I had a briefing from several federal public servants who I knew well. They told me the Federal Government would basically do a joint venture with the ACT and the private sector to completely revamp the Bruce precinct into a world class sporting and business hub, including an effectively new stadium and a convention centre. The cost to the local ACT government was, if I recall correctly, in the vicinity of $250 million – chicken feed compared to stage 2 of the tram. Mr Barr had repeatedly failed to come to the party on this proposal.
That scheme made a lot of sense and if the local government signed up, it could easily afford it as well as fixing our hospitals and health system provided it scrapped stage 2 of the tram.
I would urge all local federal members (including our three local Labor members) and all aspiring members to have a look at that proposal and pressure our ACT politicians to adopt it. It combines the best of both worlds. It upgrades and uses an existing facility which already has a huge amount of space to make it viable, and if Messrs Barr and Rattenbury can ditch stage 2 of the tram, we can have a new stadium/convention centre and a better hospital system.
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Canberra Daily.
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