SPORTING VENUES MANAGEMENT BILL
Page: 1613
Bills introduced and read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr IEMMA (Lakemba—Minister for Public Works and Services, Minister for Sport and Recreation, and Minister Assisting the Premier on Citizenship) [5.08 p.m.]: I move:
That these bills be now read a second time.
The people of New South Wales—indeed the whole of Australia—benefited greatly from the wonderfully successful Sydney Olympic and Paralympic Games. These two cognate bills make arrangements for the future management of part of that benefit, because they concern some of the venues constructed or improved for those great sporting celebrations. Members will recall that the Sydney Olympic Park Authority was established in July last year to manage not only the magnificent venues at Sydney Olympic Park but also 400 hectares of open space at Homebush Bay—a new regional park for western Sydney. The new authority is also managing the future commercial and residential development of Sydney Olympic Park.
These two bills deal with former Olympic venues outside Sydney Olympic Park and Darling Harbour. They make arrangements for the ongoing ownership and management of the Sydney International Regatta Centre and Whitewater Stadium at Penrith Lakes, the Dunc Gray Velodrome at Bankstown, the Sydney International Equestrian Centre at Horsley Park, the Ryde Aquatic Leisure Centre and the Blacktown Olympic Centre, as well as the Sydney International Shooting Centre at Cecil Park. In addition, the Olympic Co-ordination Authority Dissolution Bill provides for the closure of the last of the special-purpose entities—three statutory authorities and a company—which were established to organise and manage the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games held just over 18 months ago. So while the two bills each deal with the future management of Olympic venues, in other respects they are different, and I will deal with them separately.
I will address first the provisions of the Sporting Venues Management Bill. This bill has three main objects, which are set out in the explanatory note. The most wide-reaching object is to incorporate the Minister for Sport and Recreation as a corporation sole with the title "Minister administering the Sporting Venues Management Act 2002". The bill gives the new corporation the power to manage and develop any land specified in schedule 1 to the bill. In the bill presented to the House, the only land specified in schedule 1 is the Sydney International Shooting Centre, but clause 8 of the bill provides for amendment to schedule 1 by proclamation from time to time. There is an important distinction between the land specified in schedule 1 to the bill and other land which may be held by the Minister representing the Crown. The powers of management and development conferred by the bill apply only to the land specified in schedule 1 and held by the newly established corporation.
The bill permits the appointment of rangers to assist in the care, control and management of the lands held by the new corporation. The powers of rangers will be specified in regulations to be made prior to the establishment of the corporation on 30 June, and will be similar to the powers conferred on rangers under recent legislation, including the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority Regulation and the Sydney Olympic Park Regulation, as well as the by-laws that apply to the Sydney Cricket Ground and the Sydney Football Stadium, which is now named the Aussie Stadium. From 1 July the new corporation will own the Sydney International Shooting Centre, a venue where Australia won four medals, three Olympic medals including one gold and one Paralympic gold medal. Like other important venues administered by the Sport and Recreation portfolio, including the Sydney Cricket Ground, the Sydney Football Stadium or the Aussie Stadium, and the State Sports Centre, the Sydney International Shooting Centre will be overseen by a trust.
However, as clause 2 of the bill indicates, it is not proposed to establish the trust on 1 July. The reason is that the Cecil Park Clay Target Club was granted a 15-year lease of most of the site in 1991. The club agreed with the Olympic Co-ordination Authority before development of the Olympic venue that the club would continue to have its lease after the Olympic and Paralympic Games were concluded. The bill honours this commitment and confirms a continuing lease of the property that has been transferred to the new corporation on the same terms as the 1991 lease. The Department of Sport and Recreation will commence negotiations with the club. As soon as a new lease is negotiated with the club, part 3 of the new Act will be proclaimed and in this way the Sydney International Shooting Centre Trust will be established.
The trust will consist of nine trustees. They will include representatives of the New South Wales Amateur Pistol Club, the Federation of Hunting Clubs, the New South Wales Small Bore and Air Rifle Association and the Cecil Park Clay Target Club, as well as a representative of local government, a trustee with commercial and business management skills, and an independent chairperson. The new trust will have six months to enter into a management agreement for the shooting centre to be operated by an appropriate venue operator. One possible operator is a committee of the trust itself. The new corporation, as site owner with the statutory responsibility for management and development, will also need to be a party to the management agreement. So the Sporting Venues Management Bill provides an ongoing structure for the management and development of key sporting venues in the sport and recreation portfolio, and also provides for the establishment of the Sydney International Shooting Centre Trust, with appropriate powers for the centre's ongoing management.
The proposals for the Sydney International Shooting Centre, and for the establishment of the trust, owe much to the contribution of the Hon. John Tingle MLC. I want to record and acknowledge that contribution to the House. Under the Olympic Co-ordination Authority Dissolution Bill, the Government's interests in a number of other Olympic venues revert or transfer to the sport and recreation portfolio. These are the Dunc Gray Velodrome, the Sydney International Equestrian Centre, the Ryde Aquatic Leisure Centre and the Blacktown Olympic Centre. These venues are all operated by way of arrangements through local government entities.
I turn now to the cognate bill, the Olympic Co-ordination Authority Dissolution Bill. The Olympic Co-ordination Authority [OCA] was established on 30 June 1995. The Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games [SOCOG] had been established under the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games Act 1993 after the Olympic Games for the year 2000 were awarded to Sydney. When the Minister for the Olympics, Michael Knight, introduced the Olympic Co-ordination Authority Bill seven years ago, he said that the OCA's function would be to build the theatre and SOCOG's function would be to stage the show. The OCA was an extraordinarily successful builder and organiser. The OCA completed its construction program at Sydney Olympic Park on time, on budget, and to environmental standards which have set new levels of world's best practice. In less than three years the railway was designed and built, and the first major development at Sydney Olympic Park—the Sydney Showground—was opened in time for the Easter Show in 1998.
The OCA not only ran the building program for the magnificent venues at Sydney Olympic Park; it supervised the development of the Olympic Village, which has now become the new suburb of Newington. It undertook extensive site remediation work and, under the Sydney Olympic Park Authority, a major regional park is being completed for the benefit of the people of Western Sydney and the people of New South Wales. Just as important, the OCA organised the citywide celebrations that were such a huge success during the Games when six Olympic live sites allowed hundreds of thousands of people to enjoy the city’s streets and open spaces. The OCA also sponsored the establishment of the Olympic Roads and Transport Authority [ORTA], which was responsible for the massive public transport effort during the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Since the Games held their closing ceremonies in October 2000, the structures built to operate the Games have been wound down as efficiently as the Games themselves.
Other host cities have not been so fortunate. It is notorious that Montreal was still paying for its Olympic Games decades later. The cost of Sydney's Games were met as they arose, and on 11 April this year the Treasurer tabled in Parliament a report on the contribution by the New South Wales Government to the Sydney 2000 Games. There is no long-term funding burden left for New South Wales taxpayers. To take another example, completion of the winding down of the Atlanta Games has taken years. In contrast, Sydney was able to dissolve the Sydney Paralympic Organising Committee on 1 January last year, and the ORTA was dissolved on 31 May 2001. Then on 31 October last year, SOCOG was dissolved and its assets and liabilities were transferred to the OCA, as were the assets and liabilities of the Sydney Paralympic Organising Committee [SPOC] and the ORTA. The Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games Act itself was not repealed: that is to be effected by clause 13 of the bill now before the House.
The Olympic Co-ordination Authority Dissolution Bill comes to the House at a time when there are few remaining assets or liabilities of any of the Olympic organisations. The most significant transfer of assets, as I have already reminded the House, was to the new Sydney Olympic Park Authority on 1 July 2001. The major assets still held by the OCA are the other Olympic venues, and between them the cognate bills transfer most of these to the new corporation constituted by the Minister administering the Sporting Venues Management Act 2002. The Government's interests in venues such as the Dunc Gray Velodrome, the Sydney International Equestrian Centre and the Blacktown Olympic Centre are transferred to the Sport and Recreation portfolio. In addition, clause 6 transfers the OCA's management arrangements for the Sydney International Regatta Centre and the Whitewater Stadium at Penrith Lakes to the Minister administering the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979. This has been done to enable their inclusion in a comprehensive plan for the area, while safeguarding the important role they play as sport venues. This is not a transfer of land ownership, as the Penrith Lakes site has been held by that ministerial corporation throughout the Olympic Games period.
I will briefly summarise the effect of the other provisions of the Olympic Co-ordination Authority Dissolution Bill. Clause 11 of the bill transfers the planning administration for the new suburb at Newington to the same statutory structure as applies to other development in the State. The clause makes transitional provisions for the special planning regime for the Olympic Village and for Newington, which since 1995 has been operated by the OCA and then by SOPA, but is now to terminate. The OCA staff who have been working at Penrith Lakes are transferred to the Department of Planning. Other staff are transferred to the Premier's Department. The total number of staff involved in these transfers is 10. Some specified contractual assets and obligations of the OCA are transferred to the portfolio of the Treasurer. This involves about $2.1 million in debtors and $600,000 in creditors.
A number of insurance claims may still remain to be settled at 30 June. The only significant litigation is an appeal from a Supreme Court decision in favour of Mr Peter Zhu. The appeal should be heard in the second half of 2002. All known liabilities, actual and contingent, are adequately covered by the OCA's remaining funds. Finally, the Olympic Co-ordination Authority Dissolution Bill not only dissolves the OCA but also repeals its establishing Act, and also the SOCOG Act, with effect on and from 1 July. Thereafter the Treasurer will be entitled to enforce any residual entitlements arising from the Olympic or Paralympic Games and held by any of the organisations now dissolved, and any claim relating to the conduct of the Games may be brought against the Treasurer. These are residual provisions only, as it is clearly not appropriate to frustrate any claim that might otherwise be brought—but the Government is not aware of any such claims.
The residual transferee of the OCA entitlements is the Sydney Olympic Park Authority. Clause 6 (2) refers specifically to the Olympic Media Village site at Lidcombe, which is subject to a contract of sale, and also specifically to Olympic and Paralympic intellectual property and records. The result of this second provision is that the SOPA will be the Olympic point of contact within New South Wales and the New South Wales Government for Olympic matters. Members will be aware that SOPA maintains the web sites which are widely used by the public and in particular by schoolchildren to obtain information about Sydney's Olympic and Paralympic Games.
So these two bills complete a significant chapter in public administration in New South Wales. An integrated administrative structure was built rapidly, operated successfully, and dismantled quickly. The legislation necessary to provide the framework of public administration for the Games involved not only the legislation establishing the three authorities SOCOG, OCA and ORTA, but the Homebush Bay Operations Act, the Olympic Arrangements Act and the Sydney 2000 Games Administration Act as well as the Sydney Olympic Park Authority Act and these two bills. The task has been successfully completed and I commend to the House the Sporting Venues Management Bill and the Olympic Co-ordination Authority Dissolution Bill.
Debate adjourned on motion by Mr Maguire.
Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Mills): Order! It being after 5.15 p.m., business is interrupted for the taking of private members' statements.