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 Arts Minister, Vicki Dunne.
“Whilst the government is right on track with its plan to incorporate the fitters’ workshop into the Kingston Foreshores art precinct, we have once again turned down the road of public confusion and lack of consultation,” said Mrs Dunne.
If you haven’t been keeping up, the “Kingston Foreshores art precinct” is apparently the bus depot markets and the glassworks.
Somewhere down there is an old workshop used by fitters.
Someone in the burgeoning ACT arts bureaucracy decided it would be a good space to give over to a group of print makers.
If we’re going to hand over government assets for people to run their arts businesses then this is par for the course.
But then it all got sticky when the composer Peter Sculthorpe decided he had a better idea. This from Vicki:
- “My question is, has Jon Stanhope listened to people like Peter Sculthorpe, Australia’s patriarch of music-making, who says the fitters’ workshop has the best acoustics for classical music in Australia. That’s a big call, but it comes from someone whose views simply cannot be ignored.
Vicki wants a wider section of the arts sector consulted about how these assets are disbursed.
One suspects broad agreement in the arts community on the carve up of assets will be reached around the time we drive our flying cars to Kingston to see the first maglev train pull into the station.
One would also like to know why only the arts groups get to divvy up the goodies?
In any event, we’d rather see someone make a decision and follow it through than have to watch the luvvies fight over it interminably.