No 'comprehensive business case' yet for gallery

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5247 Dale WakefieldBy ERWIN CHLANDA
 
A spokeswoman for Braitling MLA Dale Wakefield (pictured) has admitted that the government still does not have “a comprehensive business case for the National Aboriginal Art Gallery”.
 
Plans are “well underway for a comprehensive business case [including] an analysis of the economic and social impact and benefits of the gallery, as well as a comprehensive feasibility study.
 
“It is anticipated that the business case will be completed by the end of November 2018,” says the spokeswoman in response to questions from the Alice Springs News Online.
 
She says: “The local project team has met face-to-face with hundreds of locals and held over 100 meetings with local and national stakeholders with all feedback recorded.
 
“The majority of people engaged through this engagement process are positive about the Anzac Hill Precinct site, especially after learning more about the project.”
 
It is not clear how the people engaged were able to form an opinion in the absence of a “business case” and we are now asking the spokeswoman whether the respondents will be re-contacted when the details are to hand in November.
 
Meanwhile Ms Wakefield says in a media statement that local sporting groups have also “come forward to show their support for the Anzac Hill Precinct“.
 
The government will invest in a new facility for the two rugby codes now using the ANZAC Oval.
 
“The local project team has engaged with sporting groups, fitness user groups and sports organisations that currently use the oval [including]  Masters Games and community groups that use the oval to do lunchtime personal training,” says Ms Wakefield.
 
 
 

5 COMMENTS

  1. It is good to hear that long after deciding this is a good idea, the government is examining the business case for the proposal.
    This process is the same as their “consultation”:-
    1: Make up your mind first on the basis of your gut feeling.
    2: Go out and try to persuade people who are being consulted about your decision when really you are telling them what a wonderful decsion you have made on their behalf and there there is no way you are going to change it.
    3: Avoid making any rigorous analysis of the pros and cons of the other options, or even your preferred one.
    Welcome to business as usual in the NT.
    It doesn’t seem to matter which party is in power, the process is the same.
    The idea of gathering evidence, then looking at it dispaasionately with a transparent process and coming to a decsion which is supported by it (AKA “evidence-based public policy”) seems to be too radical for any government to support.
    And they say we get the government we deserve … oh dear!
    And of course the biggest irony in this whole schemozzle is that this “National INDIGENOUS Art Gallery” proposal is being developed without the involvement, let alone the approval, of the traditional owners of the proposed site.

  2. @ Alex Hope (Posted August 11, 2018 at 11:01 am): You have summarised perfectly the situation as regards both the National Indigenous Art Gallery and the standard of government in the NT generally.
    And it is not just the NT Government that is looking incredibly foolish on the subject of the NIAG but also a range of business groups, sporting bodies and some media that have become ensnared in this trap of their own making.
    It is two years this month since the Gunner Government was swept into power, when voters took the opportunity with a vengeance to wipe the slate clean of the previous disastrous CLP regime.
    Who remembers the new CM, hand on heart earnestly declaring a new and better standard of government for all Territorians?
    Clearly – yet again – voters across the NT have been betrayed.
    Adjectives that immediately spring to my mind to describe the current government are: Incompetent, deceitful, dishonest, bumbling, unprofessional, amateur, insincere, devious, underhand, and – worst of all – hypocritical.
    And that’s just being polite!

  3. @ Alex Nelson, Posted August 12, 2018 at 8:56 am: Maybe the time has come to copy the Chinese: The Mandate of Heaven = The right to rule and the right of rebellion.
    It is a old Chinese political and religious doctrine used since ancient times to justify the rule of the King or Emperor of China.
    According to this belief, heaven which embodies the natural order and will of the universe—bestows the mandate on a just ruler.
    “The people are of supreme importance in a nation, the spirits of the land and grain are the next; the ruler is the least. That is why he who gains the confidence of the multitudinous people will be Emperor (ruler)… ” — Mencius
    Throughout Chinese history, times of poverty and natural disasters were often taken as signs that heaven considered the incumbent ruler unjust and thus in need of replacement.
    “Democracy is the speculation, that the stupidity of the masses will be less dangerous than the irresponsibility of the elites”.

  4. I think that whether the art gallery is eventually built somewhere in Alice or, as seems more and more likely, in Adelaide, the whole exercise will go down as a textbook study in how NOT to progress a major project.
    I don’t know what this means for the Gunner government, but the longer he pushes it, the more the fable of Br’er Rabbit and the Tar Baby spring to mind.

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