25 July 2016

Federal agency for Gungahlin if we win: Seselja

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Gungahlin

A yet-to-be named Federal Government agency will move to the Gungahlin Town Centre if the Turnbull Coalition Government is re-elected, ACT Liberal Senator Zed Seselja has announced.

The agency chosen to be the first to operate from Gungahlin was likely to be one currently based in the Parliamentary area to avoid impacting on other town centres.

Senator Seselja said the move was an investment in the future of Gungahlin.

“With over 22,000 households now in the area, it’s important that we see these sorts of firm commitments from our Government representatives and I’m pleased to be delivering that today,” Senator Seselja said.

“An agency located in Gungahlin would help to grow and strengthen the existing community with greater demand for small businesses and facilities particularly during regular business hours.

“We know that the success of our local town centres is significantly impacted by the locations of Government Department offices, it’s how Canberra was designed. With Gungahlin’s expanding population the time is right for this kind of commitment.”

Senator Seselja said he had fought hard in recent years to ensure that decisions on major leases took into account local impacts, citing the Department of Immigration and Border Protection retaining its presence in Belconnen and a new building for the Department of Social Services in Tuggeranong as examples.

He was critical on ABC radio earlier this week of his government’s decision to move the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority from Canberra to Armidale prior to completion of a cost-benefit analysis. That call is the result of a push by Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, whose electorate of New England includes the regional centre of Armidale.

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Barron said :

Oh and to the person who mentioned ICON it is already in Mitchell. So hardly costly to extend up the road to the town centre. Actually wouldn’t be surprised if it is there already. DHS already have offices up there.

Finance says there is over 150,000km of ICON.
http://www.finance.gov.au/collaboration-services-skills/icon/

Not exactly sure how they measure that (200 cores running between Civic and Woden counts as 10km of ICON? or 2,000km of ICON? Probably the latter).

Either way, putting in an extra 50 x 3km to reach Gungahlin doesn’t seem like a big ask.

The ICON is proof that publicly-owned infrastructure can deliver efficiencies that the private sector can’t ever hope to match.

BellaK said :

rommeldog56 said :

Zed is promising something he knows will never happen! I read in an online article on the announcement the need for a favourable cost benefit analysis. The ICON network (optical fibre network connecting all departments used for internet) does not extend to Gungalhin. It would be extremely expensive to extend the ICON network and therefore there will never be a federal department based in Gungalhin.

Zed is just another pollie making empty “promises” to win over voters. After what Zed said about abortions, if you are going to vote Liberal, vote below the line and put Zed last!

I thought ICON was in charge of delivering water and supplying storm-water/sewage infrastructure.
btw, ICON are announcing another cost increase today, ironically just as all the water storage is almost 100% full.

Btw off topic here ICON water changes prices 1st July every year. I am guessing however you may have forgotten that last year the price of water actually went down.

BellaK said :

rommeldog56 said :

Zed is promising something he knows will never happen! I read in an online article on the announcement the need for a favourable cost benefit analysis. The ICON network (optical fibre network connecting all departments used for internet) does not extend to Gungalhin. It would be extremely expensive to extend the ICON network and therefore there will never be a federal department based in Gungalhin.

Zed is just another pollie making empty “promises” to win over voters. After what Zed said about abortions, if you are going to vote Liberal, vote below the line and put Zed last!

I thought ICON was in charge of delivering water and supplying storm-water/sewage infrastructure.
btw, ICON are announcing another cost increase today, ironically just as all the water storage is almost 100% full.

Maybe we can start storing the water in Gungahlin…

“Senator Seselja said he had fought hard….”

The only thing Seselja has worked hard on is rolling Humphries.

BellaK said :

rommeldog56 said :

Zed is promising something he knows will never happen! I read in an online article on the announcement the need for a favourable cost benefit analysis. The ICON network (optical fibre network connecting all departments used for internet) does not extend to Gungalhin. It would be extremely expensive to extend the ICON network and therefore there will never be a federal department based in Gungalhin.
Zed is just another pollie making empty “promises” to win over voters. After what Zed said about abortions, if you are going to vote Liberal, vote below the line and put Zed last!

I thought ICON was in charge of delivering water and supplying storm-water/sewage infrastructure.
btw, ICON are announcing another cost increase today, ironically just as all the water storage is almost 100% full.

That would be ICON water as opposed to Intra Government Communications Network which was created by DFAT to connect federal departments. Now run by finance. Ironically ICON had a lot of fibre under Northborne Ave.

Oh and to the person who mentioned ICON it is already in Mitchell. So hardly costly to extend up the road to the town centre. Actually wouldn’t be surprised if it is there already. DHS already have offices up there.

rommeldog56 said :

Zed is promising something he knows will never happen! I read in an online article on the announcement the need for a favourable cost benefit analysis. The ICON network (optical fibre network connecting all departments used for internet) does not extend to Gungalhin. It would be extremely expensive to extend the ICON network and therefore there will never be a federal department based in Gungalhin.

Zed is just another pollie making empty “promises” to win over voters. After what Zed said about abortions, if you are going to vote Liberal, vote below the line and put Zed last!

I thought ICON was in charge of delivering water and supplying storm-water/sewage infrastructure.
btw, ICON are announcing another cost increase today, ironically just as all the water storage is almost 100% full.

The federal government is currently going through a process called Project Tetris to consolidate their office space because they already have excess capacity. Do you think the Department of Finance is going to look kindly on a department building more office space in Gungalhin? I think not.

Zed is promising something he knows will never happen! I read in an online article on the announcement the need for a favourable cost benefit analysis. The ICON network (optical fibre network connecting all departments used for internet) does not extend to Gungalhin. It would be extremely expensive to extend the ICON network and therefore there will never be a federal department based in Gungalhin.

Zed is just another pollie making empty “promises” to win over voters. After what Zed said about abortions, if you are going to vote Liberal, vote below the line and put Zed last!

I thought there had been a plan for years to get a federal government office to set up in Gungahlin. How come all that is gone and it’s reset back to being a blue-sky election promise?

wildturkeycanoe said :

The lease on the Patent Office Woden runs out in a couple of years. Why not move them out there? Its about 1000 jobs

I’m all for jobs in Gungahlin but not at the detriment of Woden. I think it’s a baseless promise anyway, pork-barrelling to stave off the Greens.

wildturkeycanoe said :

The lease on the Patent Office Woden runs out in a couple of years. Why not move them out there? Its about 1000 jobs

The IPO has negligible “over the counter” contact with the public.
In fact, if you visit their current office in Woden you have to make a phone call for someone to come out and I am aware that if one tries to file documents in person there are substantial increases in the cost as opposed to doing it on-line.
A lot of their staff work from home, all over Australia. They could run their “head office” from a barn in the bush.

The lease on the Patent Office Woden runs out in a couple of years. Why not move them out there? Its about 1000 jobs

He refers to the 22,000 households in the area, but they’re not employed by the same government agency. Would he select the one with the most amount of Gungahlinites employed?

A certain level of hyprocaracy here. Zed complains about moving a department to Armidale for no reason other than political pork barrelling, yet here he is doing exactly the same. Distance and effect not quite the same of course but principle is very much the same.

Now if a depertment needed to move to new premises for what ever reason then yeah sure but if that were the case here said department would be known.

searcher348912:40 pm 22 Jun 16

Mm Zed shouldn’t be making promises that Turnbull will bank, he is a Junior Senator he might have had some pull with Tony Abbott but i doubt Malcolm will go along with it… we’ll see it’ll be a small agency most likely

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