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Looking at the ‘Powerhouse
Museum Issue’ from the outside is somewhat instructive. The institution is a
public cultural institution with a vast Community of Ownership and Interest (COI). It seems that on one hand every effort is being exerted
to effect change for some opaque, or questionable, ‘benefit’. On the other change is being resisted
in order to maintain pretty much the status quo.
Instead of delivering on its
‘operational purpose’ the Powerhouse Museum as an institution, albeit from afar, shows many of the symptoms of
what seems to be an identity crisis. The standout symptom being the brand new
Strategic Plan, very fresh (2017!), slick, sharp and zappy as it is, it is nonetheless, and for whatever reason,
‘purposeless’.
This 'rudderlessness' flags a major, and all too common, organisational governance weakness. The organisation is aspirational yes, but worryingly it appears to be purposeless nonetheless. What are the costs and implications of that?
It is reasonable to expect to assess 'purpose' objectively and with the expectation of consistency. Conversely, 'aspirations' – missions, visions, values etc. – are by their nature subjective and variable.
A rather poignant metaphor here speaks of the recent experience of a
group of young people who, against good advice, ventured onto a frozen lake. Once on the lake, they were exuberant about their advice being so, so wrong as
they skated about in gay abandon. In their excitement they gathered for a ‘selfie and the ice', and the ice did give way under them all as it was warned that it might. Albeit that they survived, the dangers they exposed all kinds of emergency workers to, and bystanders similarly, is alarming to say the very least – and that's to say nothing about the dangers they flippantly exposed themselves to.
Retrospectively, the
purposelessness, and the inherent dangers in the behaviours of this group of people is at the very least instructive.
In the absence of an 'articulated objective purpose' we might imagine all kinds of things that just might fit
‘the moment’. Likewise, the absence of an articulated purpose allows 'the interrogated' some kind of theoretic escape from 'difficult explanations' in the context of objective rationalism - hence perhaps the invocation of the opaque protocol of 'Cabinet-in-confidence' etc.
Thinking locally, and reading
this SMH story, at such times one goes looking for something, a metaphor, like a “Sydharb” – to help you make sense of the extraordinary numbers being bandied about.
“Two billion
dollars to move an institution 20 Kilomtres”, just how does one get a handle on
that? Fortunately the City of Launceston has an annual budget of $100million –
a rather handy metaphoric unit … one old offshore city, for one year, for one kilometre.
So, it seems that when applied to moving the
Powerhouse Museum just one kilometre is equal to Launceston’s annual budget. To
get it the full 20Ks, as a minimum it will be, all things being equal, the cost
of running Launceston for 20 years – heading towards a generation.
Interestingly, 'Launceston's cost' includes the cost of running the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QVMAG). And the QVMAG is claimed to be Australia's “largest and most important Regional Museum and Art
Gallery”. Now all that’s a tad worrying when you really get down to it.
Even more worrying is the lack
of transparency in regard to where all this ‘public money’ is going and to
achieve ‘just what purpose’ exactly? The NSW Government’s opacity gives rise to all
kinds of unwelcomed and uncomfortable questions. Then there is the so-called
“trick down effects”! However, there is the nasty suspicion that the ’fiscal
trickling’, democratically speaking, not to mention accountability, might well be
going somewhere else other than down – sideways, upwards perhaps every which
way.
• Who is looking, and how hard, at
any of this anywhere nearly close enough in regard to ‘public expenditure’?
• Who looking at what in the context of the 'purposefulness' of what is being advocated for this cultural institution – and on the behalf of whom?
The NSW Upper House Inquiry that’s currently in progress, it seems, on the evidence thus far, is getting a
lot of evidence(?) presented to it that essentially boils down to advocacy for the
status quo. However this is the 21st Century and things need to
change but perhaps not in ways that put ridiculous amounts of ‘public money’
into the coffers of who knows who.
Let the buzzwords be
“accountability and transparency”. Now that works in Launceston as well as it
does in Sydney because this ‘money’ is not being teleported in from Mars, or
somewhere of the like, it is ‘public money’ … ‘our money’ … 'the people's cultural investment' ... not ‘the government’s money’!
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Powerhouse Museum could cost almost $2 billion to move 20 kilometres to Parramatta ... CLICK HERE
The cost of moving the Powerhouse Museum
to Parramatta could blow out to almost $2 billion – 10 times the estimated sale price of the museum's Ultimo site.
Secrecy surrounds the NSW government's
controversial plan for the Powerhouse, but a parliamentary inquiry was told
last week that construction of a new museum would cost up to $800 million.
Lindsay Sharpe, a former director of the
Powerhouse from 1978 to 1988, later told Fairfax Media: "What can safely
be said is that there will probably not be much change left from $1.5 billion
and it might go as high as $2 billion, in 2024 dollars."
The cost of relocating the Powerhouse
also involves the purchase of land on the Parramatta River, which has been valued at $150 million, and moving the museum's vast
collection, including its priceless Boulton and Watt steam engine.
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Opponents of the relocation have long warned that moving the museum, which has more
than 500,000 items in its collection, will cost far more than the $150-$200
million value of the Ultimo site.
Mr Sharpe, who opposes the museum move,
said inflation and "brand damage" would also contribute to the
project's final cost, which he estimated at almost $2 billion - four times the $450-$500 million price tag suggested to the
museum's board of trustees in 2015.
A spokeswoman for Arts Minister Don
Harwin did not dispute the $2 billion price tag to move the museum. "[W]e
are carefully considering all aspects of moving the new museum, and
negotiations are progressing as expected," the spokeswoman said
Architects, accountants and consultants
called to the inquiry, chaired by Robert Borsak of the Shooters, Fishers and
Farmers Party, declined to answer questions about the project, citing secrecy
requirements.
At one point, Graham Brooke, a partner
at financial firm KPMG, told the inquiry: "I am going to sound a bit like
a broken record and a boring old accountant, but the contents of the
preliminary business case are, I am advised, Cabinet in Confidence."
This was despite Mr Borsak's remarks
that information, even about private commercial dealings, could not be withheld
from the upper house on the basis of secrecy clauses in statutes and contracts.
The proposed site of the Powerhouse
Museum in Parramatta has several drawbacks, architect Joe Agius has told a
parliamentary inquiry. Photo: Louise Kennerley
"In relation to cabinet
confidentiality the Legislative Council's view … is that the committee is
entitled to information or documents except those that disclose the actual
deliberations of Cabinet."
Architect Joe Agius told the inquiry he
had carried out work on the basis that the construction of the new museum would
cost between $600 million to $800 million.
"We are not building a nuclear
reactor or a defence facility; We are relocating a museum": NSW Greens MP
David Shoebridge. Photo: Max Mason-Hubers
Mr Agius identified several drawbacks
with the proposed riverfront site, including the risk of flooding that he said
would increase construction costs.
He said heritage buildings on the site
were a constraint but could be "positively incorporated into a future
facility".
Secrecy surrounds the NSW government's
controversial plan to move the Powerhouse Museum to Parramatta, which could
cost up to $2 billion. Photo: Powerhouse Museum
"There is a high-rise residential
that has recently been constructed on the western side of the site that
potentially represents a constraint," he said.
Mr Agius said the movement of vehicles
in and out of the site "is difficult".
"I think the design of the loading
and servicing arrangement for the museum would need to be very carefully
considered on that site as well," he said.
The museum's director, Dolla Merrillees, told the inquiry a negative campaign
against the relocation of the Powerhouse, rebadged as the Museum of Applied
Arts and Sciences, had made it more difficult to attract sponsors.
Asked by Labor's Walt Secord if there
had been talk of scrapping the museum move, Ms Merrillees said: "Not to my
knowledge."
MAAS's director, new museum project,
Michael Parry blamed "the negative portrayal in the media" for
fostering confusion about whether the Powerhouse was still open.
Peter Root, whose firm assessed the cost
of moving the museum's collection, said he could not guarantee the priceless
Boulton and Watt steam engine would not be harmed if it was moved.
He said he was not aware of a risk
analysis for relocating iconic objects in the collection.
Mr Root suggested a list of iconic
objects that would be displayed at the new museum might also be kept secret
because it was "cabinet in confidence".
This prompted Greens MP David Shoebridge
to ask: "Was it explained to you what the purpose of such secrecy
is?".
"We are not building a nuclear
reactor or a defence facility; we are relocating a museum. Have you met this
level of secrecy before?".
Mr Root said yes. But heritage
consultant and former Powerhouse trustee Kylie Winkworth said the Museum of
London had been planned and designed with transparency and the public's
involvement in the new museum's design and its exhibits.
"Contrary to the evidence it is
highly unusual to plan a museum in total secrecy since a museum is ultimately a
community organisation which must be owned and supported by the
community," she said.
The
final business case is expected to be considered by the NSW government by the
end of March.
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