NSW Premier Mike Baird dismisses proposal to move State Parliament from Sydney CBD to Parramatta

MOVE the NSW Parliament from Sydney to Parramatta? Seriously? Some people think the idea has merit but the Premier’s not one of them.

NSW Premier Mike Baird has rejected talk of moving the state parliament just hours after Lucy Turnbull said consideration should be given to uprooting the seat of government from Macquarie St in the CBD to Parramatta in the city’s west.

While even enthusiastic supporters of the plan have admitted to news.com.au that the idea is “out there”.

In a speech on Wednesday night, Greater Sydney Commission chief commissioner Lucy Turnbull said moving the NSW Parliament to Parramatta could be feasible within a decade.

“What could be more logical that having our government right in the heart of the city where most of the population is based,” said Ms Turnbull delivering the Daily Telegraph’s annual Bradfield Oration.

Lucy Turnbull speaking at the Bradfield Oration where she said consideration should be given to moving the NSW Parliament to Parramatta. Picture: Jonathan Ng

“A new parliament in the Central City for Parramatta by the mid-2020s could be a game changer for Sydney.”

She laid out a vision of Sydney containing three cities. The current CBD — that includes Australia’s largest financial centre and sights such as the Opera House — would be known as the “Eastern City”. A “Western City” would be based close to the proposed Badgerys Creek airport while between to the two would be the “Central City” also known as “GPOP” or “Greater Parramatta Olympic Park”.

Parramatta lies in the centre of the Greater Sydney urban area and is both the city and state’s second largest central business district. Some are touting it as becoming Australia’s fourth largest CBD within 20 years overtaking Perth and Adelaide.

Parramatta is already NSW’s second largest CBD and one of Australia’s largest outside of capital CBDs.

The suburb already plays host to a clutch of NSW Government departments which have moved out from the traditional CBD.

“Who knows? In five to seven years the idea of moving the all of the state government, including parliament, from the Eastern City to the Central City might be irrefutably logical,” said Ms Turnbull.

But the NSW Premier didn’t seem to be singing from the same song sheet rejecting on Thursday morning that any consideration was being given to moving Australia’s first parliament from the historic centre of Sydney.

Convict huts line High Street, now George Street, Parramatta, viewed from the gates of Government House in an illustration from 1805. Picture: Sydney Living Museums

“The matter has not been discussed,” a spokesman for Mr Baird told news.com.au. “There are no plans to move Parliament from Macquarie Street.”

Indeed, this month the government released a set of proposals to revitalise Macquarie St and its string of important civc institutions that also includes the State Library, Sydney Hospital and the Mint.

The current NSW Parliament House is the oldest in Australia, being constructed in 1816 with a modern extension added in the 1970s overlooking the Domain.

Sydney shock jock Alan Jones also laid into the plans calling them “nonsense” and saying the government had more pressing issues than moving Parliament House.

“Don’t start talking about three cities, we haven’t even got one. We are a laughing stock,” he told his 2GB breakfast showing audience calling out the controversial lockout laws.

“The centre of the city is a morgue, people no longer go there. You’ve just got to look at Kings Cross.

“We’re carrying on as if we belong in another world.”

But the idea has its supporters, most fervently in Parramatta itself.

Due to the NSW Government’s enforced council mergers, Parramatta is without a Lord Mayor until late next year. But talking to news.com.au, City of Parramatta council interim General Manager Greg Dyer said they were ready to take on the role as the state capital.

The current NSW Parliament House, on Sydney’s Macquarie St, pictured in 1870.

“It’s a visionary out there kind of idea but it’s important symbolically (because) of the importance Parramatta will need to play in the future of a global city.”

Mr Dyer said Parramatta had “history on its side” housing Australia’s oldest Government House, its role as one of the country’s oldest government centres, a thriving community, a “centrality” within the greater Sydney area and positive economic growth.

“There’s a lot happening in Parramatta and it represents what that future looks like,” he said.

With Sydney Water, the NSW Police Force and much of the justice department already in Parramatta, Mr Dyer said, “there is a lot of logic behind the vision Lucy Turnbull has presented.”

The NSW Government is only recently released a proposal to set to breathe new life into Macquarie Street where the State Parliament is located.

But while Parramatta might be the centre of Sydney it is by no means the centre of NSW. If a “Central City” is the overwhelming aim for a new parliament building shouldn’t it be moved to, say, Dubbo, in the state’s central West?

“Let’s have a bidding process and see which city gets across the line,” Mr Dyer said.

Mr Dyer admitted the prospect of Parramatta hosting Parliament was still some way off, but he was bullish about whether it could be done.

He even revealed to news.com.au city bosses had workshopped a few new locations for a parliament building.

“I can think of three or four places,” he said.

“If they find the will, we’ll find the place”.

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