Geelong_Indy_2012-11-16

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Connecting people and communities

Friday, 16 November, 2012 Page 1

Geelong

Friday, 16 November, 2012

Connecting people and communities

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Convention centre

Scarred but healing with royal commission

Mayor’s ‘rethink site’ call

By NOEL MURPHY

By JOHN VAN KLAVEREN

SCARRED FOR LIFE: Chris Pianto shows where he shot himself.

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THE SITE for Geelong’s proposed convention centre could be reviewed, according to Mayor Keith Fagg. Cr Fagg said the newly elected council would like to consider alternatives to the Eastern Park site. He also wanted to establish a high-level central activities area taskforce to consider the convention centre alongside city centre revitalisation projects, such as Vision II. “Council has not yet received a full briefing on the convention centre proposal or its business case,” Cr Fagg said. “We’re looking forward to seeing the business case and we would like to see a convention centre in Geelong because it would generate hundreds of jobs and create a flow -on economic effect. “It will certainly bring in activity but we want to make sure it’s in the most appropriate location, as close as possible to existing accommodation, shopping and service facilities.” The previous council chose the Hearne Pde foreshore site, below Eastern Park, after a lengthy process eliminated five alternative sites as unavailable or unsuitable, including Deakin University’s waterfront campus car park. Cr Fagg said developer Laurence Elms’ proposal for a $1 bil-

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lion project combining the convention centre with residential and marina components had “generated a lot of feeling both ways”. “We want to respect all views but we’d like to think the business modelling and thought he brought to the idea could be used in conjunction with the city. “However, this will be a State Government-level project so it needs the Planning Minister involved. “We want to see where we can get best outcome for Geelong while respecting views and the reservations about Eastern Park being used in this way.” Cr Fagg said it was early in the process but his proposed taskforce could bring together various aspects of all proposals affecting the city centre. “The taskforce could take all these thoughts and tighten it up and focus in more on the intentional area,” Cr Fagg said. “The planners are telling us it’s too broad at the moment. We need to narrow the size of the CBD so we can bring in more people and highdensity living. “We want a walkable city that’s easy to reach and with access to parking.” Mr Elms is set to meet Planning Minister Mathew Guy after state MP David O’Brien called for the meeting earlier this week.

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THE broad, livid scar across Chris Pianto’s thigh speaks volumes of a child sex abuse horror story that only quarter of a century later is at last coming under the scrutiny of a royal commission. At age 27, Mr Pianto was so desperate to expose the abuses he’d suffered at the hands of a St Joseph’s College Catholic teacher - and so frustrated at his foiled attempts to do so - that he shot a bullet through his leg. It left a gaping wound, like a terrible shark bite, that put him in hospital with dozens of stitches. But it was, for many victims, a critical turning point in their lives – and the start of a decades-long campaign to bring the church’s litany of child sex abuses into the public eye. “I didn’t realise what would come out of shooting myself,’’ he told the Independent this week after Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced a royal commission. “It was just the desperate act of a dumb kid with nowhere else to turn. “I thought ‘F… it, I’ll shock the s...t out of everyone’.’’ Stark photographs in the media showing Mr Pianto’s torn leg turned the heat up on the church. A raft of complaints then emerged, reflecting what has been described as systemic abuse of hundreds of children. Mr Pianto said investigators rejected his complaints without corroborating evidence and the Christian Brothers told him he was “fantasising”. “I was desperate to expose the offender and the church. I thought I was only kid in the world who went through that s..t but since then thousands of victims have been coming out around the world. “I hope other victims come forward. We’re not the guilty ones, we’ve got to shake off that guilt.’’

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