Northern Territory Art Gallery scrapped by CLP as call goes out for ideas to fill space
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Northern Territory
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The CLP has opened an expressions of interest process to kill off a Darwin CBD art gallery development it doesn’t want.
Treasurer Bill Yan and Arts Minister Jinson Charls announced on Thursday the government would put the Northern Territory Art Gallery project - also known as the State Square gallery - up for community review.
Mr Charls said the EOI process would see the development opened up for other uses, although what they may be is still to be determined.
“We have come to this decision as we want to have the most innovative options for Territorians, and we want to go out nationally and internationally to see whether there is any opportunities for the Territory to have something its never had before,” Mr Charls said.
“That’s the reason why we’re doing an EOI, and it will be open for anyone to come up with a bid on how they want to repurpose that proposed building and what they want to do with it from there.”
Mr Charls said he had spoken with a representative at the Museum and Art Gallery NT (MAGNT) board on Wednesday to advise them they too could lodge an EOI.
“We look forward to working with them and with the other arts industry members.”
Mr Charls said during a recent visit to Melbourne he had been impressed by The Lume, billed as the world’s largest digital art gallery.
“That was really an excellent one to visit. We want to make sure we are leaving it open.”
In Opposition, the CLP had raised doubts about the processes used to launch the gallery development process and the then Labor government’s failure to prepare a business case – but stopped short of saying it would ever scrap the gallery.
Mr Charls defended the CLP’s failure to consult on the decision and to flag a possible change before last year’s August election.
“When it comes to the election announcement, we were not aware of the budget blowout, but this is a project that has grown more than three times, which clearly shows there was no clear planning, there was no clear business case and there was no clear information on how they want to run this.
Aside from The Lume, the Government had no other suggestions about how the space should be used.
When it won office in 2016, the Labor government went gaga for galleries, announcing the State Square development as well as new ones to be built in Larrakeyah and Alice Springs.
Then Chief Minister Michael Gunner eventually reacted to the public condemnation and scrapped the Larrakeyah gallery plan.
Within weeks of August’s win, the CLP announced it would suspend work on the National Aboriginal Art Gallery pending an alternative location to Anzac Oval.
Today’s announcement means all three of Labor’s art gallery proposals have been scrapped or placed under review under the CLP.
And the CLP wasted no time confirming the change, removing access to the gallery project’s information page from the NT Government website.
A ‘404 Page Not Found’ message now displays when the link is clicked.
Mr Yan revealed during the budget process that the Darwin gallery had blown-out from $47m to $143m.
Mr Charls indicated a private-public partnership could be possible to take the project forward.
Opposition Leader Selena Uibo said the decision pointed to the CLP’s economic management.
“It shows the CLP have no clue when it comes to development, when it comes to investing in the Territory’s economy and when it comes to rebuilding Territory lifestyle, which they promised they would do,” Ms Uibo said.
“It is very clear there would be no private proponents who would look at taking on such a large scale investment at this late stage.”
The gallery was due for completion at the end of 2026.
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Originally published as Northern Territory Art Gallery scrapped by CLP as call goes out for ideas to fill space
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