When the government pledged $3.8 million for a capital works project in conjunction with the earlier decision to move Megalo Print Studio to the Fitters’ Workshop, they probably weren’t expecting the backlash they received.
The Standard Committee on Education, Training and Youth Affairs have just published a report about, as the title plainly states, ‘Future Use [...]

The Canberra Times is carrying allegations by Helen Moore, of the Australian National University Choral Society that government funded arts organisations are keeping quiet on the Fitters’ Workshop mess for fear of losing their funding.
Ms Moore told the multi-party committee that arts groups were afraid to speak out for fear of losing government funding.
”ANU Choral [...]

It’s a rare day you’ll read a bigger pile of gash than Elizabeth Farrely’s ode to the musical values of the contested Fitters’ Workshop in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning.
But in amongst the towering piles of fluff there are some nuggets.
For example I hadn’t realised that the distinctive early Canberra architecture had a common [...]

Megalo Print Studio and Gallery today expressed its concern at the ongoing campaign of unsubstantiated accusations of favouritism by MLA Vicki Dunne over the organisation’s proposed relocation to the Fitters Workshop in Kingston.
In the latest attack on the organisation’s reputation, Ms Dunne has accused the ACT Government of providing special treatment for visual arts organisations [...]

The Liberals’ Vicki Dunne has the stomach turning news that her FOI digging has shown that the Labor Government has been waiving fees for union friends while charging full freight for groups which vex them:
The ACT Labor Government has waived union and visual arts user’s fees for use of the Fitters’ Workshop, but not [...]

The Greens’ Caroline Le Couteur is screaming blue murder over some interesting maneuvers in the ongoing saga of the war upon the print makers.
On 14 November, the Government created a regulation to exempt a precinct of Kingston Foreshore from 3rd party appeals. This area includes the Kingston Arts Precinct, where the Fitters’ Workshop is located. [...]

Minister for the Arts, Joy Burchis seething after the Liberals and Greens joined forces in the Assembly to stymie the long planned handover of the Kingston Fitters’ Workshop to Megalo Print Studio.
Ms Burch said it was appalling the Greens and Liberals colluded today to suspend work indefinitely on the Fitters? Workshop for Megalo to move [...]

The Greens Caroline Le Couteur is most displeased by Andrew Barr’s announcement on the consultation surrounding the Kingston Arts Precinct.
Particularly she really wants to re-open the use of the twice coveted Fitter’s Workshop.
“This consultation is disrespectful to the community. If the Government has made up its mind it should not waste the community’s time [...]

Imagine you’d signed off on a lease to use a property, and then a bunch of jokers turn up, decide they like your place too, and demand to veto where you put your furniture just so they can use it five days a year.
That’s basically where the Megalo Printers are with the old Fitters Workshop [...]

The ring of impropriety sounds a little too loudly in Don Aitkin’s cries to create yet another space dedicated to an elite art in Canberra (Canberra Times 12 May). Aitkin is chairman of the Cultural Facilities Corporation which manages the Canberra Theatre Centre and which I expect would manage the new ‘Playhouse at the Fitters Workshop’ following a similar model [...]

Congratulations to the Liberals’ Vicki Dunne for producing one of the least comprehensible openings to a media release I’ve seen amongst many thousands:
The diversity of public view on the future of the fitters’ workshop should be a neon signal to the Stanhope-Gallagher government that there should be a process of public consultation, according to Shadow [...]