Keating said the state government was right to develop a multipurpose cultural space at the Cutaway in line with his own pitch to senior cabinet ministers in mid-2020,and labelled complaints from a local Aboriginal Land Council as “arrogant”.
“The harbour has no guardian and its protection is paramount,” Keating told theHerald,referencing his vision for the western section of the harbour as an idealised marine landscape.
“Had I not turned up,the Sydney property industry,in an avalanche of greed,would have turned the container wharf into Gotham – a build-out denying ordinary members of the public any open space for their quiet enjoyment,” Keating said,referring to the over-developed,grim fictional city from the Batman comics.
TheHerald that the former prime minister made a presentation to then-premier Gladys Berejiklian and other senior ministers for the future of the Cutaway,inspired in part by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
Once-internal documents show that within weeks of that meeting,the premier’s office instructed Infrastructure NSW to develop a design “consistent with the Paul Keating concept”,prompting a shift away from developing a dedicated Indigenous facility at the Cutaway.
However,Keating was adamant that he was not aware of internal departmental work to develop the dedicated Indigenous facility,and insisted the government had made no determination on its future when he spoke with Berejiklian and Dominic Perrottet when he was treasurer.
“It was but a twinkle in the eye of bureaucrats in Create NSW,acting mainly for self-appointed Aboriginal people and some Aboriginal organisations,” Keating said in a letter to theHerald.
“The Barangaroo Headland,which,exclusively,was my own landscape conception,was vigorously opposed by the Sydney Aboriginal community.
“Now,the Headland is supposedly ‘theirs’ and I’m the supposed villain denying them the space underneath it.”
An unsigned and undated letter between Berejiklian and then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull contained in the documents obtained by theHerald shows the then-premier urging him to back the Indigenous cultural centre at Barangaroo.
Keating,once chair of the Barangaroo design review panel and a driving force in the area’s development,said the government had made the right decision,and the Cutaway’s flexibility would allow for Aboriginal cultural displays,presentations and uses.
Emails contained within a trove of documents handed to NSW parliament show senior bureaucrats were deeply disappointed that the government opted against the dedicated cultural space,which had been developed over years.
A senior Create NSW project manager declared the original vision for Buruk “truly dead in the water” and labelled the shift “so disappointing”.
Responding to that email being obtained and published,Keating said:“Some bureaucrat in Create NSW writes an email saying an alternative flexible use museum space is ‘so disappointing’ and theHerald goes into apoplexy. We are then enjoined to reach for our handkerchiefs.”
The internal government documents prompted criticism of Keating’s involvement from Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council chief executive Nathan Moran,who said the former prime minister’s ideas should have had no status in the development.
Keating said Moran’s comments were arrogant,and that the reason his own views on the Cutaway’s future were relevant was because he had created it.
Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said that Barangaroo continued to “anger and disappoint”.
“The government should have honoured their promise of an Indigenous cultural centre,” she said.
“It should also commit to providing a public open space at Barangaroo Central. Given the dramatic increase in population,parkland similar to the Domain is needed on our western harbour foreshore.”
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