The mistake was made – in all innocence – back in the 1970s. That at least is how Peter Evans, the president of Newcastle’s Show Committee, sees it. According to Mr Evans, it was in the 1970s that the Newcastle Agricultural, Horticultural and Industrial Association was incorporated. “That’s when the committee should have ensured that title in the Showground was transferred to the new incorporated body,” he said. “Instead, it was left as it had been since 1905, vested in the trustees.” That, in Mr Evans’ view, left the door open for a future State Government to take control of the property, which it duly did in 2008, transferring the site into the hands of one of its own Sydney-based bodies, Venues NSW.
Since then, according to Mr Evans, the Newcastle association and Show committee have been sidelined and the ground’s facilities have suffered attrition, demolition and neglect, presumably paving the way for the government to redevelop the site and its surrounds as part of its Broadmeadow plan.
An examination of this plan seems to reveal that what will remain, after much of the Showground is built on, probably won’t be big enough to host future Shows. And the parts earmarked for “preservation” in the published plan are subject only to “local” heritage listing, which makes it easy to wonder how long the preservation would stand up. Local heritage listing, unlike state or national level, has often proven in the past to be of extremely limited value in keeping listed items safe from development.
It is argued, of course, that the Showground is under-used. It might be countered that, if the local committee had more say in the site it might be used more often and more extensively. As things stand, Mr Evans said the local community no longer had much input at all. Indeed, Mr Evans was surprised when I told him that the Showground, according to the website of Venues NSW, is managed – along with the Entertainment Centre – by the Los Angeles-based firm ASM Global.
“Once the Government took over the Showground we were left with nothing more than the right to hold the Show there. On facilities that the people of this city had built!” Mr Evans said. This interesting article from The Newcastle Sun in 1922 gives a good outline of the origins of the Show and the Showground.
According to Mr Evans it was, ironically, the “win” of the entertainment centre that proved to be a poison chalice. “George Keegan got the centre for us when he was an Independent Member for Newcastle. It was very much a temporary type of facility and, unfortunately, it was very hard to make it profitable. That’s how Venues NSW got a foot in the door, in an effort to make it profitable, but from then on we have been squeezed out, bit by bit. ” Mr Evans said that when he took over as president the association had no funds to pay for the next Show, so he went, cap in hand, to businesspeople across the city, asking for loans and donations to get the event back up and running. “Also when I took over I was promised permission to run three fund-raising events a year, but Venues NSW withdrew that before I could act on it,” he said.
Water through some buildings during the Pasha Bulker storm in 2007 was used as a pretext to demolish those buildings, even though it was the first and only time it had happened, he asserted. The committee made a tactical blunder when it drew attention to asbestos roofing on the old horse stables. “We had the money to fix it and we should have done that. By making a noise about it we provided a reason for them to get rid of more buildings,” he said. “In the end Venues NSW wouldn’t let us fix it. The Brambles building is shut and I see this as part of the process of piecemeal demolition that’s been taking place over the eight years I’ve been in this role. This year they closed the administration building for a new roof, right at the time when we needed the building for Show planning.”
Mr Evans said that Venues NSW had taken over Showground parking. “We suggested they raise the fee from $2 to $3 and give us the dollar difference,” he said. “They said no, then quietly did it and kept the whole $3 for themselves. When we found out they had $700,000 from parking fees we asked for a share. They agreed, but then dragged their heels in paying what they’d agreed to. They’ve put offices into our space, reducing our facilities yet again. They are charging Newcastle City Council thousands of dollars a year to store the Maritime Museum collection in Showground facilities and of course they are keeping all that money for themselves.”
The Show is a million-dollar enterprise, with big expenses and big risks. With permission to run fund-raising events withdrawn, the Show Association struggles to make ends meet. “What upsets me is that this is a facility built over many years by community effort. The Show even today depends on volunteers. It’s all being taken away and I think it’s a terrible shame. It’s a big loss to Newcastle,” Mr Evans said.
I followed the instructions on Venues NSW’s website and asked for an interview to discuss Mr Evans’s assertions. So far I’ve received no reply.
Mr Evans wrote to the chairman of Venues NSW, David Gallop, on March 3, outlining his fears for the Showground’s future and asking Mr Gallop for a face-to-face meeting “at Newcastle Showground so that our Board can put to you our case for the transfer of the Showground back to our Association”. “We are presently packing up after a very successful Show which, other than during the two worlds wars, has been held on our Showground every year since 1902,” Mr Evans wrote.
“The Newcastle Community has shown that it wants title back to our Showground without delay and in this regard we have drafted an amendment to the Sporting Venues Authorities Act 2008 to enable Parliament to enact appropriate and simple legislation to return ownership of our Showground to the Association,” he wrote.
Mr Gallop replied on March 12, dismissing Mr Evans’s characterisation of Venues NSW, writing that the organisation’s local staff were proud of their contributions to the annual Show and also of their “significant ongoing support for the . . . Newcastle Agricultural, Horticultural and Industrial Association”. “To describe them as outsiders from Sydney is incorrect,” he added. Mr Gallop wrote that Venues NSW controlled five sporting and entertainment precincts in Central and Western Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong, with Penrith Stadium soon to join the portfolio: “We take our custodianship of these important public facilities, Hunter Park included, seriously,” wrote.
According to Mr Gallop, part of Venues NSW’s charter is to “establish, maintain and improve our lands, facilities and their surrounding precincts at our cost so that we can continue to host events. This is precisely what we do in Newcastle where revenue earned at the Showground and Entertainment Centre is used to partially subsidise the ongoing maintenance and operation of the facilities, including the upkeep of the offices and facilities that Venues NSW provides to the Association at no charge.”
Mr Gallop added that “Venues NSW has a strong record in protecting and preserving the heritage and legacy of NSW’s sporting and entertainment facilities”.
Mr Evans is asking Newcastle and Hunter people to sign the petition the Association has prepared, urging the Government to return the Showground to local control before it is rezoned and developed in ways that might make it difficult or impossible to hold future Shows on the site.
If you want to sign the petition, follow this link.
