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An ambitious $316.5 million Indigenous cultural precinct in Canberra appears to have stalled, nearly two years after Scott Morrison announced it, with a recommended design for the project languishing in Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney\u2019s office for six months.<\/p>\n
The cultural precinct, known as Ngurra, which means \u201chome\u201d, \u201ccountry\u201d or \u201cplace of belonging\u201d, was announced in January 2022. Morrison, the then prime minister, described it at the time as a world-class facility that would contribute to Australia\u2019s \u201ccontinuing journey of reconciliation\u201d.<\/p>\n
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The precinct would sit in Canberra\u2019s parliamentary triangle.<\/span><\/p>\n The building would become a home for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), located on Canberra\u2019s Acton Peninsula, as well as a resting place for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders\u2019 ancestral remains and a learning centre.<\/p>\n Morrison\u2019s intervention to shore up support for the institution is based on his belief that the capital must recognise the many aspects of this country\u2019s story, and comes just weeks after voters rejected the Indigenous Voice to parliament, which he opposed.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the War Memorial and many other places of honour, to our political, cultural and judicial institutions that feature significantly on our capital\u2019s landscape, together they form a built memory of our nation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cUntil Ngurra is built within the parliamentary triangle, the built memory of our country will be incomplete\u201d.<\/p>\n Former prime minister Scott Morrison.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Rhett Wyman<\/cite><\/p>\n Morrison said his government had fully funded Ngurra in December 2021 and formally announced it in the 2022-23 budget, but \u201c18 months after the election, it does not appear to have been taken up as a priority for the new government\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI sincerely hope this changes. Governments should be bigger than orphaning a worthy project simply because they did not initiate it.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesperson for AIATSIS said stage one and two of the architectural design competition for Ngurra had been completed and a recommendation for the design concept was \u201cwith government for consideration\u201d. The facility still has an intended opening date of 2028.<\/p>\n \u201cAIATSIS provided advice to the minister\u2019s office in late May 2023. Meetings and conversations are ongoing with a view to finalising the design competition,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n The proposed location for Ngurra, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural precinct, on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.<\/span><\/p>\n The new centre was the culmination of a years-long campaign from AIATSIS and would be built on Commonwealth Place, between Old Parliament House and the Australian War Memorial. It would join other national institutions in the parliamentary triangle, including the National Gallery, Library and Archives.<\/p>\n About $8.4 million of the $316.5 cost of the project was allocated in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 budgets, with the rest of the funding allocated and placed in the \u201cdecisions taken but not yet announced\u201d section of the budget papers.<\/p>\n Burney\u2019s office declined to answer questions about whether Ngurra would proceed, whether a winning design had been selected, when the winner would be announced and when the first sod on the project would be turned.<\/p>\n Instead, it referred to a recent exchange between Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and the Coalition\u2019s Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price during a Senate estimates hearing, in which Price asked for an update on the project, including its timing and whether the cost of it had blown out.<\/p>\n Gallagher said the government \u201cwill be doing a bit more work on the expected cost for the project, subject to finalisation of the design competition and updating for some of the increases in costs that we have seen\u201d.<\/p>\n Price said Burney needed to clearly explain \u201cwhy this has gone so wrong and how much it will actually cost\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe process was clearly defined yet somehow it has been bungled and no one knows what\u2019s going on. This sits squarely with the minister, it\u2019s time she takes some responsibility and sorts it out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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