15 October 2010

Images of Canberra - Gestapo ASIO Headquarters shooting up

| johnboy
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ASIO HQ under construction

GerryBuilt has sent in this wonderful picture of the burgeoning command centre for the secret police going up on Parkes Way.

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DeadlySchnauzer10:17 am 18 Oct 10

It doesn’t look too bad to me: http://www.asio.gov.au/About-ASIO/New-Central-Office.html

Admittedly that comes from ASIO themselves, but it certainly looks they are trying to avoid the “big fenced off block” look.

shadow boxer10:46 am 16 Oct 10

beh1972 said :

Would it be better if the building was for a Government department which was more warm and fuzzy, like AUSAID or Environment?

Somewhat, I still think there are better uses but at least those agencies interact with the general public and there would be accessible cafe’s and displays.

What we are getting is a big fenced off office block that has no particular requirement to be in that location.

I suppose the tourists can ogle the ASIO agents as they sweep into the compound.

OpenYourMind4:22 am 16 Oct 10

Let’s just keep an eye on the greenery between the lake and the new ASIO building. I suspect that in time some of the trees will be sacrificed to improve the view. I hope this won’t be the case.

Would it be better if the building was for a Government department which was more warm and fuzzy, like AUSAID or Environment?

Campbell Park as a location for more offices suffers the problem of being only accessible from one dual lane road connected to another dual lane road that already suffers from considerable congestion. These are problems the current location doesn’t suffer.

I really don’t understand why anyone other than people with houses nearby would oppose the location of this building. It’s being built over a carpark and an unloved grassed area next to a major road. There are literally thousands of grassed areas in Canberra that are more worthy of protection.

shadow boxer7:22 pm 15 Oct 10

I think you might need to do some research into burley griffins concept for lake burley griffin and more particularly constitution avenue.

It just seems a waste using prime land like that for a building that is off limits to tourists and locals.

No big deal though, might as well get used to it and the tourists will get a kick out of having asio watch them cycle or paddle boat around the lake. Should reinforce that bossy image Canbera has nicely.

shadow boxer said :

Sorry potential tourist spot, commuity asset…

I would have thought the national capital was meant more for the people than the secret police.

Yes, because that dusty strip of bland nothingness next to an extremely busy road had such great potential for….’tourism’, and was so heavily utilised as a community ‘asset’. Right-o.

“This parcel of land is now off limits to the community forever. What was wrong with putting it out near Bungendore next to the Defence facility.”

Everyone knows the Bungendore site was only chosen to pork barrel Eden-Monaro just before an election.

Following this logice, we should have every Fed department moved out to a regional town to appease the Campbell NIMBYs.

lol, you know what I mean.

No, I don’t really. The point of the national capital is, first and foremost, as a seat of federal government and its attendant agencies. If we didn’t need that, Canberra would not exist at all (a feature shared with only a few other capitals in the world). ASIO is part of the government and, much as it may surprise you, exists ultimately to serve the people of Australia and specifically their security (at least in theory – I’m not trying to start a debate about how effective they might be at that). So in that sense this building, Canberra, and the federal government are all meant entirely “for the people”. That’s not necessarily the same as “a place where people can have a picnic”, which seems to be what you mean by “meant for the people”.

shadow boxer1:57 pm 15 Oct 10

lol, you know what I mean.

Is it just me or do the security agencies seem to be awash with cash and looking for things to spend it on ?

shadow boxer said :

Sorry potential tourist spot, commuity asset…

I would have thought the national capital was meant more for the people than the secret police.

ASIO are people too you know.

shadow boxer1:15 pm 15 Oct 10

Sorry potential tourist spot, commuity asset…

I would have thought the national capital was meant more for the people than the secret police.

shadow boxer said :

Imagine putting a building of this nature in such a prime tourist spot and community asset.

This parcel of land is now off limits to the community forever. What was wrong with putting it out near Bungendore next to the Defence facility.

. . . or next to the Campbell Park Offices which is a Defence facility where the Department already owns a large parcel of land. Campbell Park was instituted by the Whitlam government in 1973 and was supposed to be Australia’s Pentagon. The Fraser government scrapped the project in 1976 after just two of the projected five buildings were completed.

DeadlySchnauzer11:46 am 15 Oct 10

“prime tourist spot”? “community asset”??

It’s been put on the site of an old dirt car park in a grassy clearing with existing office buildings on one side and Canberra’s busiest road on the other side. It has had no impact on access to the lake (unless you enjoy nipping across parkes way on foot rather than taking the blundells cottage underpass) and is likely to encourage the development of cafe and other retail assets in the immediate area.

Its probably had an adverse impact on residential housing in the immediate vicinity, but hopefully the government sees the light and rezones those areas to medium density so owners can sell out for a mega profit (as happened in turner and braddon with similar developments).

shadow boxer said :

What was wrong with putting it out near Bungendore next to the Defence facility.

Bungendore isn’t visible from Parliament House, so ASIO would suffer ‘out of sight, out of mind’ problems.
Now they can play games of “Give us a massive building, we’ll improve so that someday we actually deserve it. No really, we promise.”

Well, in fairness, the point of the national capital is to be a place for things like this. And the Parliamentary Triangle area is kind of meant to be where they, amongst other things, go – that’s why the NCA have planning control over it. And ultimately it’s an office block where lots of people work, so the major drawbacks of putting it miles out of town should be pretty obvious.

And, honestly, that big area of grass was not and has never met any sensible definition of a “prime tourist spot”. More of a “paddock without sheep”. Potentially a prime tourist spot with the right development? Perhaps. But it’s not like they’ve plonked it right on top of Commonwealth Park or something.

shadow boxer said :

Imagine putting a building of this nature in such a prime tourist spot and community asset.

This parcel of land is now off limits to the community forever. What was wrong with putting it out near Bungendore next to the Defence facility.

Because then it would not have been able to connect to the secret bunker under the lake.

Nice photo BTW. I’ve been looking at those cranes for months thinking they would make a nice night photo.

shadow boxer10:15 am 15 Oct 10

Imagine putting a building of this nature in such a prime tourist spot and community asset.

This parcel of land is now off limits to the community forever. What was wrong with putting it out near Bungendore next to the Defence facility.

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