Can we have a close look at the new Bay Pavilion 350 seat theatre. In March 2018 Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Bega MP Andrew Constance announced the funding of $18 million for the pool and $8 million for the arts centre. That's right, $8 million for a 350 seat arts centre. In a town where we already had two under utilised auditoriums at the Soldiers Club and Catalina Country Club. But just like the new gymnasium Council decided it was going to go into competition with local businesses and steal away any possible tours and performances to their new white elephant. $8 million for a new hall with 350 seats that nobody needs. There is no local performance group who need the space. Bay Theatre Players have their own place already. Why would they move to somewhere that is going to hire out at $700 per day? The Batemans Bay Performance and Exhibition Centre Working Group Inc (Perfex) were on the Sunset Committee. "To bring to completion the construction of a centre for the performing and visual arts, to meet the current and future needs of the Batemans Bay Community" What are these current and future needs that justifies an $8 million hall? Keep in mind that the panel that assessed the grant application had it at Number 76 in September 2018 but it came in at Number 1 instead. Something damn fishy about that. As it turned out it was fishy. And porky. Independent assessors praised Bega Valley Regional Gallery's application for $3 million to fund its renovations as part of the NSW Government's $47 million Regional Cultural Fund.
There were more than 150 eligible applications for funding as part of the scheme.
Documents obtained by the ABC under freedom of information laws reveal the Bega project was overlooked in favour of an $8 million investment to help build the Mackay Park Aquatic, Arts and Cultural Centre in nearby Batemans Bay.
Deputy Premier John Barilaro and then-arts minister Don Harwin signed off on the Regional Cultural Fund grants in late 2018, seven months after the $8 million grant for the new arts centre in Batemans Bay was announced.
When it was finally revealed that the grant was tied to pork-barrelling the community began to realise that the $8 million had not been awarded fairly. The $8 million grant for the Batemans Bay 350 seat theatre was a “captain’s call”. It was a nice little pork chop gift that came with no business case and no conditions. The questions remain. Did Gladys, Andrew and the Mayor know in March 2018 that it was a pork chop when they announced the grant success in Batemans Bay, a full six months before applications opened? $8 million is a lot of money. As is the $5.5m gun club grant that will be a central feature of ICAC’s public hearings next week. As it was a “captain’s call” there was no cost-benefit analysis carried out on the Bay Pavilion Arts Centre as was done on the Bega Regional Gallery application that gained the Number 1 position by the grant panel, only to be overturned by the poorly rated Eurobodalla project at position No 76. But it was all too late. The grant had the kiss of approval that came with a gloss sheen of pork fat. In mid-2017 the NSW Government granted the gun club, ACTA, $5.5m to build a giant new club house and 1000-person convention centre at its premises, on the outskirts of Wagga Wagga,
In April 2017 the NSW Department of Industry conducted a “cost-benefit analysis” on the Wagga Wagga gun club grant application.
It failed the test.
The proposal “didn’t deliver enough value for taxpayers” and it was “highly unlikely that the conference facility will attract significant numbers of international and interstate visitors to NSW”, the department found.
Then, in July 2017, the proposal was assessed again, and this time it came back as meeting the criteria.
This makes one wonder what machinations went on behind the scenes to secure $8 million for an Arts Centre in Batemans Bay that has no demand, no users and no business case other than the projection by a consultant that the centre will have 12 productions a year with 38,000 patrons paying an average of $33 per ticket to events that will need to each sell out six nights running yet still bring an annual $300,000 loss per year.
“The community knows what the community knows” says Liz Innes. But the community is beginning to know a whole lot more to be revealed in good time.
