The time has come for the Minns Government to come clean and declare if it is breaking a key election promise to keep the original Powerhouse Museum, according to the union representing Powerhouse workers and grassroots community groups.
The Public Service Association has learned the government plans to quietly close the Powerhouse Museum this Sunday, despite refusing to release any plan to refurbish the site or to redeploy staff to other roles.
Powerhouse workers are deeply concerned that the government may have a secret plan to gut the function of the Powerhouse Museum, much as the former Liberal Government originally intended.
Powerhouse Museum workers will stop work and rally out the front of the museum this Thursday the 1st of February unless they receive the Refurbishment Plan for the museum and the Change Management Plan outlining their immediate working future by close of business today.
“Ever since they were elected, the government’s position on the Powerhouse has smelt fishy and now that stench is overwhelming,” said PSA General Secretary Stewart Little.
“Chris Minns repeatedly promised to save and refurbish the iconic Powerhouse Museum site before the election. Now we see the plan was apparently to close the museum and leave the whole thing a mystery.
“We are deeply concerned that Lisa Havilah, the CEO the Liberals appointed to oversee the destruction of the Powerhouse, has kept her job. Our members are reasonably concluding that the reason Minister John Graham can’t show us the refurbishment plan for the museum is because he knows the community will be outraged.
“Workers at the site have been promised a copy of the ‘Change Management Plan’, telling them where they will be working over the next few years, and that hasn’t been provided either.
“If the Minns Government thinks it can quietly close the museum this Sunday and get away with it, well I can tell them we are determined to sound the alarm.
“There are priceless artefacts at the Powerhouse that can’t be safely transported. If the Powerhouse site is not preserved as a museum they will be permanently lost to the people of New South Wales.
“The Premier made an election promise just last year to preserve and refurbish the site and we intend to hold him to that.”
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