When I was Member for Brindabella, a common refrain from Tuggeranong locals was that they felt left out of the infrastructure projects taking place around Canberra, hence the reference to the 2004 Shannon Noll song What About Me?, which goes on to say, “It isn’t fair”, and that’s exactly how many Brindabella voters feel.
I spoke to Greens MLA Laura Nuttall recently about what she hears when she speaks to locals around the electorate and you can listen to the Bite-sized politics podcast to hear her views.
I was always of the opinion that Tuggeranong needed a bit of a destination project: a facility that would bring people from all over Canberra down south, and while they were here, they might get coffee from local cafes, get petrol, or grab a meal. For many of us, the proposed new ice sports facility would hopefully perform that role. However, I, for one, am becoming increasingly sceptical that Tuggeranong will ever see it built.
The ice sports community first raised the need for a new facility around 2015. It became an ACT Labor election commitment in 2020, with plans for two international standard ice sheets for various ice sports, dedicated curling sheets and an indoor rock-climbing facility with capacity for up to 3600 spectators.
The developer selected by the government has argued that the $16.2 million in funding was not sufficient. The developers have further argued for a change of location, which, at this point, the government has ruled out. The timeline for completion is quite unclear and has been for a number of years. I remember asking about this in past Estimates Hearings and it seems we are no further along. I have been gone from the Assembly for well over a year and there has been little progress to report.
We also have promised road infrastructure projects that seem to take forever, the duplication of Athllon Drive between Drakeford Drive and Sulwood Drive being just one example: promised for years, but very little actual progress. The biggest changes I have noticed have been a succession of great big signs near the Sulwood/Athllon roundabout telling me that duplication is coming.
Of course, in Tuggeranong, we also have our beautiful lake, which sadly suffers badly from blue-green algae, and despite millions in government spending, it does not seem to be improving in terms of water quality.
To be fair, there have been some improvements in the foreshore paths over the past few years, as well as work done on the Tuggeranong Town Park playground, and the lengthy closure of Sulwood Drive to re-pave. But the courtyard area linking the lake to South.Point (will always be Hyperdome in my mind) remains a bit of a hot concrete wasteland, with the need for quite large, established trees to provide a bit of shade. And more frequent weeding of the garden beds around the area wouldn’t go astray either.
