Alice Springs national art gallery plans scrapped after government rift

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Northern Territory government has cancelled plans to build a National Aboriginal Art Gallery in Alice Springs after Canberra ignored an ultimatum to approve the project. It's understood the territory government will now have to repay the 16-million dollars they've received from the Commonwealth.

Transcript

00:00It would have looked like this, but nine years and about $16 million later, the dream is

00:09over.

00:10I'll be formally writing to Catherine King today and advising her that the Pinocchio

00:16ROCOP government are not going to continue with the Atsiaga project in Alice Springs.

00:22The Federal Infrastructure Minister, who last week received an ultimatum from Mr Yan to

00:27commit to funding, telling the ABC she won't take the blame.

00:32The decision has now been made by the Northern Territory Government that they're not willing

00:35to wait, not interested in trying to seek some resolution on some of those issues, not

00:41prepared to do that and they've now withdrawn the money.

00:43I think that is what they were trying to pressure me into doing last week.

00:47Traders in the main drag, not happy.

00:50It would have meant everything.

00:52We know we have a small CBD, a gallery in the CBD would have really lifted the space up.

00:57It would have encouraged more businesses to start and obviously more foot traffic.

01:00I feel that's going to actually have a negative impact on tourism in Alice Springs and also

01:05the fact that it would have been a very awesome facility to have in the town.

01:10But not everyone is upset.

01:12The original concept was to build the gallery at Desert Knowledge Centre, proposed by Luritra

01:17Warramungu man Owen Cole and the late Kumanjai Ferber.

01:22Mr Cole says their vision was butchered and he's now glad it won't happen.

01:26I'm just delighted that it's fallen over now and it gives the Labor Party, the Federal

01:33Labor Party the opportunity to go back to Kumanjai Ferber's wishes to see a National Indigenous

01:41Art and Culture Centre be located on Desert People Centre land.

01:46Back to square one.

01:47Back to square one.

01:48Back to square one.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended