It's been a while since I posted an update about the future of Boggo Road, mostly because we are still in the 'waiting and seeing' phase. As far as we know, the developers from Leighton Properties haven't yet put their proposal for the management of the old gaol forward to the Dept of Public Works. Or maybe they have? Whatever the answer, the timing could not be worse given the dramatic change in the Queensland political scenery. Or maybe it couldn't be better? Let me explain...
The planning process for this proposalcommenced back in October 2011 and it was due to be handed in around about now, but of course during this time we have seen the election of a Liberal National Party government in Queensland. What does this mean for Boggo Road?
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To begin with, we are currently in the midst of a now-predictable stage of the political cycle, in which the new government does its best to make the previous government seem as bad as possible. Despite Australia having a very strong economy (perhaps the best in the world), a sense of Greek-like financial crisis has been drummed up, a crisis that of course only the new government can save us from with some pretty radical spending cuts. This process is underway right now and the cuts have been harsh and many. I personally know of a terminally-ill father who has lost access to disability transport funding, and a teacher aide for special needs children who lost her job. There would be hundreds of other cases so far, and frankly it is hard to see Boggo Road being on any spending priority list in this climate.
To be fair, much of the blame for the lack of action at Boggo Road since 2005 can be sheeted home to the previous Labor government, whose economic rationalist tendencies led to a lack of investment in the museum, despite the tourism and social capital benefits of doing so. On the plus side, they never knocked it down. There again, this is the third belt-tightening crisis of recent years, so the Bligh government probably felt it had a reasonable excuse not to invest in the gaol. There was the Global Financial Crisis circa 2008 and then the floods of 2011 that left the state with a massive repair bill, and now this change-of-government cycle.
The irony of all this is that while we are constantly being told how wasteful the previous government was, we couldn't get that government to spend a cent at Boggo Road! A little bit of that much-vaunted waste would have been more than welcome.
Despite all this doom-and-gloom, there is actually great opportunity for new premier Campbell Newman to be seen to 'get the job done' with Boggo Road and kickstart the eventual shift to self-sufficiency with some government investment. I have heard that Mr Newman has a genuine respect for the value of heritage, so fingers crossed he will make that investment. The decision-makers know full well that the gaol will NOT create jobs, so the future of the museum component of this historical site clearly lies in a volunteer-based staffing model overseen by a professionally-run not-for-profit organisation, such as the National Trust of Queensland.
So, in short, we in the Boggo Road Gaol Historical Society have long been planning for a 2013 reopening for Boggo Road, but the funding goalposts could be moved at any time now and there is real potential for the whole saga to be dragged out even longer. On the other hand, its a chance for a new government to solve a lingering problem.
CROSS RIVER RAIL UPDATE
The other great unknown is of course the will-they won't-they Cross River Rail project, which was proposed by the Bligh government and canned by the then-Opposition. A scaled-back version has now got the go-ahead, pending serious investment from the Federal government, who of course have their own cost-costing agenda. This project could be years away from commencement, and as it involves the excavation of an underground station adjacent to the gaol and Ecoscience Precinct we can only guess what impact that would have on redevelopment plans and access to the gaol.
The planning process for this proposalcommenced back in October 2011 and it was due to be handed in around about now, but of course during this time we have seen the election of a Liberal National Party government in Queensland. What does this mean for Boggo Road?
To begin with, we are currently in the midst of a now-predictable stage of the political cycle, in which the new government does its best to make the previous government seem as bad as possible. Despite Australia having a very strong economy (perhaps the best in the world), a sense of Greek-like financial crisis has been drummed up, a crisis that of course only the new government can save us from with some pretty radical spending cuts. This process is underway right now and the cuts have been harsh and many. I personally know of a terminally-ill father who has lost access to disability transport funding, and a teacher aide for special needs children who lost her job. There would be hundreds of other cases so far, and frankly it is hard to see Boggo Road being on any spending priority list in this climate.
To be fair, much of the blame for the lack of action at Boggo Road since 2005 can be sheeted home to the previous Labor government, whose economic rationalist tendencies led to a lack of investment in the museum, despite the tourism and social capital benefits of doing so. On the plus side, they never knocked it down. There again, this is the third belt-tightening crisis of recent years, so the Bligh government probably felt it had a reasonable excuse not to invest in the gaol. There was the Global Financial Crisis circa 2008 and then the floods of 2011 that left the state with a massive repair bill, and now this change-of-government cycle.
The irony of all this is that while we are constantly being told how wasteful the previous government was, we couldn't get that government to spend a cent at Boggo Road! A little bit of that much-vaunted waste would have been more than welcome.
Despite all this doom-and-gloom, there is actually great opportunity for new premier Campbell Newman to be seen to 'get the job done' with Boggo Road and kickstart the eventual shift to self-sufficiency with some government investment. I have heard that Mr Newman has a genuine respect for the value of heritage, so fingers crossed he will make that investment. The decision-makers know full well that the gaol will NOT create jobs, so the future of the museum component of this historical site clearly lies in a volunteer-based staffing model overseen by a professionally-run not-for-profit organisation, such as the National Trust of Queensland.
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| The saviour of Boggo Road? |
So, in short, we in the Boggo Road Gaol Historical Society have long been planning for a 2013 reopening for Boggo Road, but the funding goalposts could be moved at any time now and there is real potential for the whole saga to be dragged out even longer. On the other hand, its a chance for a new government to solve a lingering problem.
CROSS RIVER RAIL UPDATE
The other great unknown is of course the will-they won't-they Cross River Rail project, which was proposed by the Bligh government and canned by the then-Opposition. A scaled-back version has now got the go-ahead, pending serious investment from the Federal government, who of course have their own cost-costing agenda. This project could be years away from commencement, and as it involves the excavation of an underground station adjacent to the gaol and Ecoscience Precinct we can only guess what impact that would have on redevelopment plans and access to the gaol.
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| The proposed Boggo Road station (see here), which according to this picture will be full of ghosts. |
