It would have been with mixed feelings that Andrew Barr learned of Cricket Australia's decision to stage a Test cricket match at Manuka Oval in 2018-19. For as the sports-loving, pro-development Chief Minister made clear on Wednesday, the necessity for Manuka Oval to be free of construction activity at that time means serious consideration of the unsolicited redevelopment proposal for the oval put by GWS-Grocon will be delayed for three years.
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If Mr Barr has said little publicly about GWS's controversial plans for Manuka Oval, previous public comments of his about Manuka's future coincide closely with that of GWS. As such it's difficult to imagine the Chief Minister harbouring any great reservations. Certainly, he and his government have been maintaining a "doors wide open policy" with GWS.
CA's decision to schedule a Test match here cannot have been a complete surprise to Mr Barr. As he himself noted on Wednesday, the government has been "working towards [a Canberra Test match] for a number of years". In 2015, however, when the government signed a four-year deal with CA to facilitate the staging of more international cricket in the ACT, a Test still seemed some way off. Now, apparently as a result of government-funded improvements at Manuka costing about $16 million (and the promise of more to come between now and 2018-19), CA has rewarded the Territory with a Test, though at the expense of Hobart's Bellerive oval, where Tests have been played intermittently since 1989.
The cost to the government of bringing a Test cricket match to the ACT is not entirely clear, as Mr Barr declined last year to disclose how much the four-year deal was worth, citing commercial sensitivity. "We needed to make an upfront payment, but we get a revenue stream back to us," Mr Barr said at the time. "There is a strong incentive for us to get a full house and that minimises the cost and, presuming we get a reasonable flow through the concession outlets and the like, then the cost to taxpayers is fairly limited."
When added to the $16 million spent on improvement, and the $23 million paid to GWS over 10 years to play four games a year at Manuka, the all-up costs of Mr Barr's sporting ambitions may be approaching $50 million or more, which gives greater meaning to the term "fairly limited".
There are undoubtedly benefits for the Territory in the partnerships the government has struck with GWS and Cricket Australia. But with little apparent monitoring of the economic effects, it's hard to know whether ratepayers are getting value for money. This applies to the unsolicited GWS-Grocon proposal in spades.
Canberrans, particularly inner-south residents concerned about how the heritage-listed Manuka pool may be affected by nearby large-scale developments, are therefore likely to welcome the delay in considering the GWS offer. With the imperative for a quick decision now removed, discussion of the proposal's merits and disadvantages can now take place in clearer air.
