IT’S A DEAL
PM to sign agreement to accelerate Hobart transformation UTAS $400m STEM centre key part of funding promise Macquarie Point Antarctic precinct and public transport options on table
AN agreement to turbocharge the ongoing transformation of Hobart will be signed by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Premier Will Hodgman today.
The leaders will agree to accelerate a Hobart City Deal that will drive the $400 million push for a STEM centre in the CBD and the $2 billion redevelopment of Macquarie Point. The deal will also promise an assessment of opportunities for a light rail system, Derwent ferries and busways.
PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Premier Will Hodgman will sign an agreement today to accelerate a Hobart City Deal centred on a $400 million University of Tasmania STEM centre in the CBD.
The agreement comes just over a year after Mr Turnbull told the Mercury of his plan to negotiate a City Deal with Hobart which could facilitate a light rail system and modern public transport network.
A final City Deal is expected to include funds towards a $2 billion redevelopment of Macquarie Point and transport options.
“There is no doubt that Hobart is undergoing significant growth and development and a City Deal will help guide and sustain that development well into the future and ensure that Hobart’s livability is not compromised,” Mr Turnbull will say.
“The City Deal will provide the focus needed to ensure that the Commonwealth, State and local governments are all working together to ensure the Greater Hobart area benefits from the city’s transition.
“There is a unique opportunity around the future of Macquarie Point, especially in relation to tourism and development as an Antarctic Precinct and this agreement will explore the best way to deliver that.”
A City Deal overseen by Cities Minister Paul Fletcher would include a Greater Hobart Transport Vision which could encompass transport solutions for the city, including busways, a light rail network from the city to Glenorchy and cross-Derwent ferries.
The agreement will result in options being explored for a new Science, Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM) centre for Hobart.
Negotiations on developing the STEM centre would be modelled on the co-operative approach of the federal, state and local government and university and private sector in the $400 million relocation of the UTAS Launceston campus closer to the CBD.
A Hobart City Deal would be the fourth in Australia under the Government’s Smart Cities plan, which includes a $100 million deal with Townsville, $300 million with Launceston and another in Western Sydney.
Many of the issues to be examined in the City Deal process have been canvassed in the Mercury’s Tasmania 2022 series of articles in the past fortnight. The STEM centre has been accepted by Infrastructure Australia as a project of priority.
“Hobart is one of Australia’s premiere science cities, with among the highest rates of scientists per capita in the country,” the PM says.
“Advanced manufacturing and engineering is one of Tasmania’s competitive advantages, with the state at the cutting edge in a number of niche areas, from defence industry manufacturing to the development of pioneering boat building.”
Premier Will Hodgman says improving research and education is a key way that the Commonwealth and State Government could help build Tasmania’s future.
University of Tasmania Acting Vice-Chancellor Professor Mike Calford said the positive impact of developing research-intensive facilities in the city heart was well understood.
“The University of Tasmania, in partnership with government, has invested about $300 million in Hobart in the past decade, including the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Science and the Medical Science Precinct,” Prof Calford said.
“This has attracted an additional 2000 domestic and international students, new research funding of $20 million each year and generated a total 540 new university and indirect jobs.
“Similarly, the new STEM precinct will deliver profound economic and research impact for Tasmania and, perhaps more importantly, it will be the anchor for a statewide innovation network which will deliver jobs and new industries in the decades ahead.
“The evidence of economic renewal which comes with increasing university teaching, research and accommodation is apparent already in Burnie, Launceston and Hobart.
“This project, along with the new $97 million Hedburg cultural and performing arts centre [next to the Theatre Royal], will drive that to new levels.”
Prof Calford said an innovative funding model for the STEM centre was being developed.
When Mr Turnbull visited Hobart in November 2016 he told the Mercury of his vision for improved amenity, livability and housing affordability for the state’s capital.
“We’re very open, in fact enthusiastic, about talking about it. We are taking a very different approach to previous governments, both Coalition and Labor,’’ Mr Turnbull said. “My view is we need to have ‘City Deals’ like we do with Launceston – and we could readily do one with Hobart.”
Mr Turnbull said a City Deal for Hobart would help co-ordinate all investment and deliver a fully integrated outcome for the city.
“We work out what we want to achieve and that is going to be about improved amenity, livability, housing affordability and improved access to jobs, education and recreation,” he said. “The investment in urban infrastructure that makes a city more liveable is not a luxury. Cities are economic assets. It attracts tourism, it attracts businesses to establish here.’’
The City Deal comes against a political background in which the Hodgman Government is seeking to retain a parliamentary majority after the March state election, while the Turnbull Government lost all three of its House of Representative seats in Tasmania in the July 2016 election.
AN announcement from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that a Hobart City Deal is being progressed is good news for Tasmania. deal promises to co-ordinate action on the capital’s most pressing needs. Putting an agreement in concrete form makes it a priority.
And the fact that it would stay in place whoever wins government means putting it outside the turbulent election cycle and at a certain distance from the heated politicking of campaigns. It would come under one federal minister, Cities Minister Paul Fletcher, hopefully cutting out the paperwork and red tape complications that can bedevil projects when several ministers are involved.
A deal covers many of the issues tackled by the Mercury’s Tassie 2022 campaign, from transport to tourism and sensible development. It would concentrate on three major issues. The Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, or STEM, centre for Hobart’s CBD would be one of them. A single point of co-ordination for such a massive project would be welcome. STEM would elevate the importance of education for Tasmania, train people in the hi-tech skills the whole of Australia increasingly needs, and attract more students as part of the state’s valuable education industry.
A deal could also take on the ramifications of a major new building in central Hobart, including traffic.
Transport is another of the planks. As the Tassie 2022 campaign showed, it is one of our readers’ major bugbears.