Wyllie Group’s Melissa Karlson furious at Roger Cook over $1.6 billion price-tag of axed PCEC project

One of the architects behind the abandoned plan to revamp Perth’s maligned convention centre and river forefront has accused the Premier and Treasurer of going back on their word — and wasting millions of dollars on it. The decision to shelve the project, hailed by Roger Cook as a “bold vision” 22 months ago, has been blamed on a potential $1.6 billion price-tag. Joint leaseholders of the site, Brookfield and Wyllie Group, claim the upfront cost to taxpayers was much lower and had offered a staged approach. Wyllie Group managing director Melissa Karlson is furious the Government’s withdrawal has left plans for mining giant Rio Tinto to be an anchor tenant in limbo. “There’s no way in the world I would have stuck my neck out, and gone and chased the biggest anchor tenant in a decade in the country, if I didn’t think I had the Government behind me,” Ms Karlson said. “It was $450 million in enabling works, including the bus station, moving roads off the riverfront, freeing up the riverfront . . . and creating the infrastructure to get on with building a billion dollars of commercial real estate for Rio Tinto’s new home and a new convention centre.” Ms Karlson hit back at the Premier’s claim he had to prioritise health funding ahead of the project. “Functioning government should be able to walk and chew gum,” Ms Karlson said. And she rejected Mr Cook’s insistence there was never a financial guarantee. “That sounds pretty weak when, when I know that there was two letters addressed to Rio Tinto from the Treasurer’s office,” she said. “And that a meeting was held between the CEO of Rio Tinto and the Premier, asking them to partner with the State on this very important project.” More than $33 million of taxpayers money has already been spent on a project definition plan, but Mr Cook denied that was a waste of taxpayer funds, despite declaring negotiations over. “That knowledge base will inform further works and inform further investigations into how we can continue to expand our hospitality and convention sector.” Tourism Council chief executive Evan Hall claimed the price of lost business would be much higher than the project, and urged the Government to reconsider. “We’ll lose out on $180 million in delegate expenditure (per year) for the next 25 years,” he said. “What you need is infrastructure that earns the revenue. That’s the real cost to the WA economy, and our health sector is missing out on that 180 million in in additional revenue each year as a result of putting off the decision.” Neither the PCEC project or the new health plans were fully costed in this year’s Budget, but the Treasurer insisted she couldn’t find the money for both. And argued the convention centre project was too hard, right now. “The disruption in relation to road and rail around around that centre. And also, looking at building capacity, this is bringing in a lot of activity onto the market,” Treasurer Rita Saffioti said. “We believe that if you’ve got limited building activity, you’ve got to direct it to health.” Rio Tinto is now back to the drawing board for a new Perth headquarters. “Like any large organisation, we review our office space requirements from time to time,” a Rio Tinto spokeswoman said. “Any potential future decisions will be made in the best interests of our business and our people.” Ms Karlson said alternative options would be considered for the PCEC, but wasn’t hopeful there is one for the current site. “I’m pretty exhausted. It’s deal fatigue like I’ve never known,” she said. “It’s disappointing. It’s devastating. I thought I had worked closely enough with Government to have deserved a lot more respect.”