Western Sydney leaders hit out at Labor Powerhouse Museum pledge

Business leaders fear western Sydney will continue the decades-long wait for major cultural infrastructure after NSW Labor announced it would keep the Powerhouse Museum in Ultimo if it wins the March election.

The Berejiklian Government is committed to building a Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS) in Parramatta.

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Business leaders fear western Sydney will continue the decades-long wait for major cultural infrastructure after NSW Labor announced it would keep the Powerhouse Museum in Ultimo if it wins the March election.

Western Sydney Business Chamber director David Borger said “empty promises” for cultural centres in the west date back to the 1950s as he accused the inner city of “hijacking” the arts sector.

“We’ve had many decades of waiting for cultural infrastructure. In the meantime, governments have spent billions of dollars in Sydney CBD,” Mr Borger said.

The dark side of successive governments has seen the west miss out on a major cultural attraction, former Labor Western Sydney Minister David Borger says.

“Almost half of Sydney lives in western Sydney and almost none of the money is spent here. It’s an outrage that people in Parramatta pay their share of taxes and receive very little in return in a cultural sense.

“It does seem like the inner city has hijacked the arts portfolio.”

Opposition leader Michael Daley has revealed that under a Labor government, a billion-dollar plan to move the Powerhouse Museum to western Sydney would be scrapped.

Instead, Labor would spend $500 million on building a “world-class cultural institution” at Parramatta, he said.

In what he described as his first major announcement of the election campaign, Mr Daley also committed to setting up a $100 million Western Sydney Arts and Culture fund and continue the $100 million Riverside Theatre redevelopment.

Additionally, he said Labor would “protect” the Willowgrove and St George’s Terrace sites in Parramatta to “ensure they are not sold off to property developers”.

The historic St George’s Terrace in Parramatta would be protected under Labor’s plan for a $500m cultural institution in the west.

“The government’s budgeted $650 million just to move the Powerhouse. The money that will be saved from not moving the Powerhouse will be put into western Sydney,” he said.

The Maroubra MP says the proposal for a cultural centre in Parramatta would be put out for community consultation.

It’s caused major concerns that the west will miss out again on a signature cultural attraction.

“We’ve just had 13 years of proposals that haven’t gone anywhere, and even further back to the 1950s when Parramatta first started a campaign for an art gallery at the time Manly set one up,” said Mr Borger, a former minister in the Rees and Keneally Labor governments.

“There has been plenty of community consultation. It just feels like we’re back at square one.”

Western Sydney Business Chamber director David Borger.

Parramatta Lord Mayor Andrew Wilson.

Cr Wilson agreed, saying: “My reaction to this is, why are the children of western Sydney worth less than the children of Ultimo?

“While I’m happy to see the Labor Party in the game again, making a commitment for a substantial investment in the west, I’m not so happy that they are putting this on the never, never by dragging it out through more community consultation.

“It’s going to be many years under this promise for the first sod to be turned on the project. What’s there to consult? We’ve been through this process before.”