City joins push to keep Powerhouse

By Joe Bourke

Lord Mayor Clover Moore and the majority of City of Sydney councillors have joined the fight against the planned relocation of the Powerhouse Museum to Parramatta.

Clr Moore moved a mayoral minute at last week’s council meeting condemning the Baird government’s plan, saying decisions about metropolitan Sydney’s cultural life should not be made by “pitting region against region”.

“The decision to move the Powerhouse has been made without public consultation, without a completed business case, without a specific site being identified, and without a detailed current cultural strategy for western Sydney,” she said at the meeting.

Independent councillor Angela Vithoulkas said she was confused by the decision to “interfere with something that has made us leaders in the field”.

“It feels like we are a big lego board and they look at a piece and say ‘we’ll just move that over there’,” Clr Vithoulkas said.

Liberal councillor Christine Forster was the only councillor against the mayoral minute, and called the government’s decision a “big picture plan”. She told City Hub  the Ultimo area needed the urban renewal which could be brought on by the move.

“Certainly as I look around that part of the city, I think it could well be much better activated if there were perhaps more residents, perhaps some retail – who knows?” Clr Forster said.

“That’s all for the future if indeed the move goes ahead, but it’s not a well activated part of the city at the moment.”

Clr Forster also challenged Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s “parochial” outlook on the issue, and said before rejecting the plan she wanted to wait for the business case promised by the government.

“At the end of the day, the state government has said that they’re going to put 10 million dollars into a business case,” she said.

“I just wasn’t prepared to go along with outright rejection of the idea, which is what the Lord Mayor was seeking, given [this is] before the business case was prepared, and given that I do very strongly believe that the City of Sydney has the responsibility to be the capital for everybody, not just the inner city residents.”

Clr Moore said she strongly supported cultural growth in western Sydney, but didn’t believe this was the way to do it.

“Rather than giving western Sydney residents iconic new cultural facilities that they can regard as their own, the state government proposal would destroy a distinctive and valued inner city cultural institution and transfer the remnants west,” she said.

The city’s involvement with the movement comes after a great deal of community action against the museum’s relocation, including a forum at the Ultimo Community Centre, featuring speeches from historian Shirley Fitzgerald, Greens MP Jamie Parker and City Hub publisher Lawrence Gibbons.

At the forum, Ms Fitzgerald brought Ultimo’s history as a “centre for technical education” to the fore, highlighting its heavy involvement with the industry since the late 1800s.
1893 saw the introduction of the Technological, Industrial and Sanitary Museum of New South Wales to Ultimo, and since then it has remained a hub for technical education, with TAFE, UTS, the ABC building and others within its parameters.

Ms Fitzgerald argued that the Powerhouse has great historical significance in Ultimo, and therefore belongs there rather than in western Sydney.

“This part of Ultimo continues to be an entwined place with its university, the headquarters of the ABC and what the economists call an ‘industry hub’ for the new economy – high tech industries in communications and computers, digital and data storage,” Ms Fitzgerald said.

“It is where it is because this is a perfect place for it to be. It belongs in Ultimo. Not just in the old part of Sydney. In Ultimo.”

In the recommendations following the mayoral minute, Clr Moore suggested an assessment be conducted of the museum’s heritage status.

Research into the “economic and tourism significance” of the Powerhouse Museum was also tabled.

This significance was a major issue brought up by Mr Gibbons during his speech. He said that if the Powerhouse were to leave Ultimo, visitors would have one less reason to come, affecting local businesses substantially.

“Today if you look at the government’s official website, Sydney.com, Ultimo does not exist on the map. Chinatown borders Glebe and Darling Harbour is an isolated fiefdom. In the real world, the Powerhouse sits at the gateway between Darling Harbour and Ultimo,” he said.

“By relocating the Powerhouse, one more draw bridge connecting Ultimo to Darling Harbour and Chinatown will be pulled up – and Ultimo will be all the more isolated.”