Scitech needs a ‘forever home’, are its days at City West numbered?

Federal Labor has committed $100 million to upgrade Scitech, effectively ensuring the iconic STEM institution’s exit from under the City West flashing dome.

WA Science and Innovation Minister Stephen Dawson said planning was already happening to find Scitech a new ‘forever home’.

Scitech’s days at City West are numbered.

“We want to make sure that Scitech has a forever home, and so the announcement today that the Albanese government will help find a new home to the tune of $100 million really will set us on a great path,” he said.

“We’ve recognised that this facility, albeit much loved, is nearing the end of its life, and so we want to give Scitech a new home so we’re working with Scitech on what that might look like.

“The planning phase is happening at the moment.”

Dawson said the funding injection would mean the government could “set our dreams high”.

Federal Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic was in Perth to announce the funding at Scitech with Dawson.

Dawson would not say how much state funding would be provided to the project, while Husic said it was up to them to work out.

When asked why the facility couldn’t stay in City West, Dawson said the lease would be up at the centre in a few years and the future of the privately owned site was uncertain.

“It’s always been planned that there would be a redevelopment that would take place here, and it’s privately owned, so it could mean there’s high rises, or could mean there’s accommodation here in the future,” he said.

“So we’re getting to the end of the lease, and it’s really important that, given the importance of this institution, that we have a forever home for Scitech.

“So this money today will enable us to continue the planning and get on with getting a new home.”

He said the government was looking at the potential to possibly build or repurpose an existing building.

They said they hadn’t landed on exactly where it might be, but it needed to be central and close to train stations.

The WA Museum cost $400 million to build before COVID and the Ukraine war stoked inflation in the construction sector.

While the new Scitech will be a smaller facility than the museum, government sources accept the new facility will cost much more than $100 million.

Husic said the money would be able to be used by the state government as it sees fit.

He said the social value of Scitech was massive.

“The social value of Scitech is around $455 million in what it’s been able to contribute through the work that it does here, particularly in terms of getting people from WA to think about science, technology and engineering careers, then putting that to work in the economy,” he said.

“Don’t think of it as bricks and mortar. Think of it as an investment in minds. That’s the big thing.”

Scitech opened in the 1980s at roughly the same time as the Questacon science facility in Canberra which has become a hotspot for east coast school students to visit.

Husic said Questacon had benefited from federal funding injections, and it was important to invest in Scitech too.

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