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Gallery? Museum? We've finally got to get it right.

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COMMENT by ALEX NELSON

This week marks the 34th anniversary of the official opening of the Commonwealth's Jock Nelson Centre in August 1991.

This is the splendid Commonwealth building I suggested ought to be re-purposed as the permanent home of the Museum of Central Australia during my presentation at the Friends of the Strehlow Research Centre Symposium in April 2018.

Located in the CBD of Alice Springs, it's a perfect venue as a possible major cultural attraction in the heart of the town.

I put forward my suggestion as an alternative to the NT Gunner Labor Government's announcement of the Anzac Precinct as its site for the National Aboriginal Art Gallery (NAAG, now ATSIAGA) in late 2017, which I instantly knew would prove disastrously contentious in Alice Springs. And so it has come to pass.

I've lived in Alice Springs my entire life (62 years) and am widely recognised locally for my knowledge of this region's contemporary history and politics.

Since the beginning of 'responsible' NT self-government in 1978, I've observed closely the sequence of major projects intended to galvanise the regional and NT economy, the majority of them during the long reign of the Country Liberal Party late last century and none of which have come close to meeting the expectations touted for them.

Yet no project was so woefully mishandled as the NAAG/ATSIAGA has been in the past eight years. Given the chronic incompetence and ineptitude characterising the previous NT Labor government's mismanagement of the ATSIAGA, I can only assume the Commonwealth's financial contribution towards this ill-conceived project has been offered in ignorance of the reality of the actual situation pertaining to this project.

If that's the case, it demonstrates very poor due diligence on the part of the Commonwealth.

The Gunner Government's decision to proceed with the NAAG/ATSIAGA on the site of the former Anzac Hill High School in late 2017, partially overlapping Anzac Oval, overrode the NAAG Steering Committee's recommendation for the gallery to be built at the Alice Springs Desert Park on the west side of the town. (It's worth noting the Desert Park is one of the major projects of the former CLP government of late last century).

This decision led to the demolition of the old high school in late 2019, a perfectly good building of high heritage value, at a cost in excess of $2.5m.
By March 2023, the Fyles Labor Government completed the compulsory acquisition of Anzac Oval from the Alice Springs Town Council for a reported $3.66 million.

On 6 September 2023, I attended a Tourism Central Australia general meeting at the Alice Springs Desert Park which featured then Minister for Tourism and Hospitality, Nicole Manison; also, the Co-Director of the National Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sera Bray, who gave a presentation "on the progress of the project."

It was during this presentation that I first learned the NT Government had shifted the footprint of the Art Gallery entirely onto Anzac Oval and completely off the site of the former Anzac Hill High School.

Following the CLP's landslide election victory a year ago, new Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro declared the ATSIAGA would not be built on Anzac Oval, and the site of the Art Gallery would be shifted entirely onto the Anzac Oval car park, adjacent to the oval's south side and directly opposite its original proposed location at the former Anzac Hill High School.

This means that well over $6m was expended by the NT Government for no useful purpose at all. It perplexes me that this raises no questions or scrutiny by the mainstream media, notably the ABC, let alone any government authority – we just seem to accept this situation as a normal part of governance and administration in the Northern Territory.

I don't know if this cost is included in the $11m expended on the ATSIAGA to date (as stated on ABC radio by Bill Yan, Minister for Logistics and Infrastructure) or is in addition to it.

It hardly needs saying that a significant part of the collapse of Labor's support in Alice Springs was due in no small measure to the arrogant, high-handed manner in which that government conducted itself over the mishandling of the ATSIAGA project.

The former NT Labor government's shabby performance for the ATSIAGA was characterised by deceit, dishonesty and surreptition.

The new CLP government's relocation and redesign of the ATSIAGA is simply compounding the error. It has been widely panned; and at least I'm aware your ministry has significant concerns about the much-reduced design and re-siting of the ATSIAGA on the Anzac Oval car park.

I urge the following: tThat the Commonwealth withdraws its offer of financial support for the ATSIAGA; that a commission of enquiry is initiated into all aspects of the mishandling of the NAAG/ATSIAGA, with oversight by a commissioner appointed from outside the NT's jurisdiction; that the Commonwealth redirects its support towards an Indigenous cultural centre in the Desert Knowledge Precinct, as per the wishes of senior Indigenous custodians of Mparntwe / Alice Springs; and the Commonwealth lends its support for the re-purposing of the Jock Nelson Centre in Hartley Street as a permanent showpiece base for the Museum of Central Australia.