A CADRE of councillors wants Perth City Council to have some representation on the Project Control Group of the Multiplex Consortium that is building and will be running the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Under the contract the consortium has with the WA Government, providing its finance package is approved, it must set up a Project Control Group that will have at least two Government representatives.
The group will govern
the construction of the centre.
Government’s representation on that group may increase beyond the two members depending on the phase of the project.
Whether other consortium partner members, such as Accor Asia Pacific, KPMG or Ogden IFC are added to the group will be at Multiplex’s discretion. So too will any Perth City Council representation.
Councillor Bert Tudori said council should have at least two seats on any controlling board over the convention centre.
“If I’m still on council after the elections I’ll be pushing for two seats on the consortium board,” Mr Tudori said.
“We’re paying about 12.5 per cent of the total cost of the centre. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
“Here we are committing $45 million to the centre and we don’t know what’s going on.”
Mr Tudori’s council cohorts Lisa Scaffidi and Janet Davidson are both in favour of council receiving a seat on the consortium board.
While Mr Tudori could lose his council seat in the May 5 election, neither Mrs Scaffidi nor Mrs Davidson is up for re-election.
Mrs Davidson said she would push for greater council involvement in the convention centre and any possible seats on the consortium.
“I think we should have a seat for the amount of money we’ve put into the project,” she said.
“We have three seats on the Perth Theatre Trust board and we didn’t put in anywhere nearly as much money as we did for the convention centre.”
Mrs Scaffidi said it was certainly the state of play to get a seat on the board when an organisation put that much equity into a project.
