Plan to relocate Powerhouse Museum makes ‘no sense’

Labor says property deals are the real driving force behind the planned move.

A design for the Powerhouse Museum in Parramatta, in Sydney’s west.

Contentious plans to move Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum from the CBD to Parramatta in the city’s west have been slammed by a parliamentary inquiry that has called out the “staggering” lack of detail and analysis to support a project that could cost $1.2 billion.

The move was announced in 2015 by then premier Mike Baird and is backed by his successor Gladys Berejiklian, but the inquiry report claims to have uncovered no explanation for it.

After an inquiry lasting 2½ years, the final report released yesterday says the committee found it “extremely challenging … to ascertain what the true driving forces and reasons behind this policy decision are”.

The scheme was based on “poor planning and advice, a flawed business case and insufficient community consultation”, says inquiry chairman Robert Borsak of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party.

Arts Minister Don Harwin says Parramatta will gain a “world-class museum with an amazing planetarium”.

But Labor arts spokesman Walt Secord leapt on the report, claiming the government had done property deals and that developers would be building skyscrapers atop the Parramatta museum and on the existing Ultimo site.

The inquiry heard evidence critical of Powerhouse management and of the governing Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences Trust, including an anonymous witness who described drunk museum staff at a fundraising gala last year that cost more than $388,000.

The report recommends that the government not proceed with the move, and instead restores the Ultimo museum and builds another “world-class cultural institution” at Parramatta.

Experts had told the inquiry the Powerhouse was a renowned urban renewal project that had transformed a former power station into a showcase of applied arts and sciences. Built to last a century or more, the Powerhouse and its collections would instead be dismantled after just 30 years.

The Powerhouse Museum Alliance, which opposes the move, says the Parramatta ­museum will be smaller than that at Ultimo.

“This is the only museum development project anywhere in the world where the new museum will be half the size of the existing ­(museum), with collection facilities that are demonstrably inferior to what the museum already owns, and all for a cost of at least $1.2 billion,” according to alliance member Kylie Winkworth.