City’s deal or no deal

WE HAVE been writing about a convention centre for this city for a long time.

No one expected it to be an overnight sensation. Rome, after all, wasn’t built in a day.

But few could have expected its path to fruition to be as twisted as it continues to be today.

The Geelong council under the leadership of Mayor Bruce Harwood has been on the side of the angels on this project — standing by the importance of the initiative for this city.

But there’s not a lot anyone can do, including the council, until the Federal Government commits funding to its own City Deal process.

Since Malcolm Turnbull announced Geelong would be a city that gets a City Deal the State Government has tipped in its $153.2 million share of the federal-state cooperative deal which the state sees as going toward a convention centre, a Shipwreck Coast masterplan and some CBD revitalisation.

The feds were widely expected to match this for Geelong in the last federal budget but it did not happen.

In recent weeks we have of course had the complicating factor of the federal Liberal spill and the deposing of Mr Turnbull as PM. Now every infrastructure project Turnbull had signed off on, due to be announced before the election, has been leaked.

The list of projects is worth $7.6 billion and it is largely targeted at winnable or retainable marginal seats like Corangamite.

It has been leaked, according to the recipient of the leak, “amid leadership payback”.

That’s quite the fly in the ointment for our new PM, Mr Morrison, and takes the shine off what would be a series of big announcements.

Yesterday Mr Morrison and Corangamite MP Sarah Henderson were refusing to confirm that the subjects of the leak were true — but, notably, they also were not denying them. We hope, for the sake of our city, the $150 million for Geelong comes through and that it is for a convention centre locals can use — rather than, for instance, something for tourists two hours’ drive away from our city.