The ABC was given the site decades ago for nothing for the purposes of broadcasting. It was a worthy, community cause and the Government at the time thought they should get the lease. The long-term aim was to put the ABC’s national headquarters there and to house radio and television reporting teams for Parliament and the national capital. Some of those aims have changed. The ABC has substantial studios at Parliament and will never bring its headquarters here. Further, it has dropped its local television news, so it no longer requires a spacious TV studio at Northbourne Avenue.
Thus the ABC has come up with the idea that a developer could come in and use part of the site for commercial purposes or medium-density housing and on the rest of the site build the ABC a shiny new radio studio for nothing. The Uniting Church did the same thing in the 1980s on a Civic site it had been given for nothing decades before. The old church in town was knocked over. Two-thirds of the site went to commercial offices and the church got a shiny new place of worship and some new offices for itself.
The practice must stop. The ABC was given the site for broadcasting, not for commercial development. If the site is too big, the ABC should hand it back and ask for a smaller, more suitable site elsewhere. The ACT community can understand the ABC’s difficulty. It has a huge site and buildings which cost $300,000 a year to maintain. A smaller site would cost half that to maintain.
The ACT can accommodate the ABC. It can compensate it for the loss of its buildings on the site and compensate it for the loss of its broadcasting lease by giving it another one elsewhere. Perhaps the compensation would be about $500,000. Then the vacant site would be auctioned publicly with a new lease-purpose clause for commercial use. It would fetch some $8 million.
Why should the ABC get that $8 million? That is what they are asking. The reason the ABC will do the ACT a good service is that by raising the matter, it will highlight some of the defects in the administration of the leasehold system in the ACT. Despite rigorous public analysis in this newspaper and elsewhere about the Uniting Church’s windfall, the abuse of the leasehold system has continued. Now, however, with the ABC seeking to abuse the leasehold system, the abuses might stop because the ABC, unlike the Uniting Church, is not seen in Canberra as an especially worth cause.
It is an extraordinary cheek for the ABC to seek to cream about $8 million from the ACT community by allowing developers on to its site, and to give as one of its reasons for doing so the redundancy of the television studio that used to beam a news service to that community.
That cheek will be picked up by Canberra’s MLAs who have all expressed their concern at the chopping of the ABC television news. It may be the right deed for the wrong reason, but if the planning and leasing authorities in the ACT say “”No” to the ABC, it will set an excellent precedent.
The ABC’s lease requires the ABC “”to use the premises only for the purpose of broadcasting studios and associated activities and that the gross floor area of the building shall not exceed 3400 square metres” and if the ABC breaches that the Territory can resume the lease.
That is what the ABC agreed to originally, and the agreement was renewed in 1992. The ABC has no right to use part of the site or sell part of the site for other things. The profit for that change of land use properly lies with the ACT community. If the ACT Government gives it to the ABC, any future screams about budgetary problems will be seen as humbug.
Community groups given cheap leases and others given leases for single residences should not reap the windfall from changed land uses. The windfall properly belongs to the community.
John Langmore’s objection to the ABC proposal on the ground that one day the site will be used fully by the ABC is a little romantic. The site is a good one for redevelopment because it is a gateway to the city. The ACT should have redevelopment and should have a vigorous private sector doing it. But it should be done after bidding on equal terms at public auction for redevelopment sites. Let us hope that the ABC’s unmeritorious proposal causes sufficient outrage for the ACT Government to reinstitute a proper leasehold system that will ensure it.