Transcript ABC 666 Ross Solly with Taimus Werner-Gibbings MLA (Brindabella)

8 September 2026

ABC 666 Ross Solly Breakfast 8 Sept 2026

Interview with Taimus Werner-Gibbings MLA (Brindabella)

Solly: There’s a lot happening. And you are having your say this morning, big time. And I’ll get to some of those texts in just a moment. And we’ll talk to Taimus Werner-Gibbings, one of the Labor MLAs in Brindabella. And it’s fair to say he was seething, seething yesterday when he heard the news that his own government had pulled the plug on the Tuggeranong ice rink. “Taimus’ word of giving to all of you of how much anger and disappointment there is out there about this decision” is Quinn from Monash. “The ACT government has been promising the Athlon Drive duplication 14 years ago and still nothing.” And Craig says “there are nine athletes from Canberra representing Australia at the upcoming World Broomball Championships in Canada this November. What is the future for their sport? In the ACT, if there’s no ice rink, especially if the Phillip rink is not up to standard, the ACT Labor government can go back on their promises because the people of Canberra keep voting them back into power. It’s time for a change of government.”

Well, Taimus Werner-Gibbings is still in his first term in the Legislative Assembly, and my goodness me, he’s had a sandwich delivered to him that I’m sure he doesn’t want to bite into. Taimus Werner-Gibbings, good morning to you.

Werner-Gibbings: G’day, Ross. How are you?

Solly: Well, I’m okay, but I could feel the heat coming off your email yesterday. You’re obviously unimpressed, Taimus.

Werner-Gibbings: Look, if this is what Budget responsibility is, and physical sustainability looks like, then it’s a tough one to take when it’s something that you really care about. Yeah. So when the decision came through, that hurts a lot of people. You know, the ice sports community particularly have been really focused on what this arena would mean for their sports. And then also the community of Tuggeranong having a venue that would, that would bring people in on a weekend, you know, thousands of people coming in and then ideally going out into Ankatell Street and adding a bit of crack and popple to the to the community town centre. So, yeah.

Solly: And this was promised to the community. Three elections, Taimus. You may, in fact, you may well have got elected off the back of this promise.

Werner-Gibbings: Well, not the first two times. I have a photo of myself in 2016. We were looking at potential plans. Much younger. It was possible. I mean, Labor has a plan for Tuggeranong, and we identified there’s sort of 67 specific commitments in that plan that we took to the 2024 election. Yeah. I think we’re at the top of it, really. That is an iconic venue, you know, the reason I’ve just discussed. And it not being there creates a big hole. However, like, there were... There are in that plan, those commitments, there are only nine remaining that are unfunded or undelivered. So there is a lot of activity that’s gone through alongside or during the conversations about the ice rink over the past two years. And it’s going to be spent on Erindale Leisure Centre, upgrading that, and Erindale shops, Chisholm shops, the therapy pool. There’s a lot in there.

Solly: Okay, which is great, but this is the headline one. This is the headline one that you’ve taken to three elections. You promised that, now yesterday your minister walks away from it. Were you surprised? A hand on your heart, Taimus Werner-Gibbings. Were you surprised, or were you just waiting for the day that this was going to happen? Because, I mean, there seemed to be a lot of people who knew that this was never going to stack up.

Werner-Gibbings: I mean, you read what the developers were talking about when they, sort of over the past, what, 12 months, they’re talking about different locations, or why don’t we just do it here, or here’s … that seemed to be a fairly strong flag that they weren’t interested in doing it in Tuggeranong but this is where we have committed the money, $16.265 million.  Here is the piece of land we would like to see. We will support an ice rink with those developers in the Tuggeranong Town Centre. The developers seem to be going, yeah, but how about, or not, or, and I don’t know what the new plan was, but they obviously asked for more, like twice as much money. And I don’t think what they were offering to build was twice as big. So you can feel it happening, but the ACT government’s commitment to what they wanted didn’t seem to change as far as I could tell.

Solly: Well, yeah, except, you know, they’ve now let the developer walk away from it by walking away from it themselves. I mean, when you said yesterday you were angry, who are you angry most at? Are you angry at your colleagues, Taimus Werner-Gibbings, or are you angry at the proponents, or is there a bit of both there?

Werner-Gibbings: Look, if the government said, “we’re going to spend ... the developers have asked for $50 million and we’re going to build one ice sheet”, which is completely different to what the initial commitment for money was and sort of the initial size of the facility, I would have said, great. That’s fine by me. But I can understand when the EOI was for a first-class, dual sheets, you know, competition-standard venue. I can understand why people who have had to make the decisions about how much money the government should be putting in start to go “this is not what the commitment and the discussions are about”. I don’t get that, but that’s … not my focus.

Solly: When did you first learn that the government was going to ... because apparently Yvette Berry was very close to making the announcement before she lost the portfolio, and then it was handballed on to Chris Steel, obviously. When did you first become aware?

Werner-Gibbings: I got the letter, the formal letter, yesterday morning.

Solly: That’s the first you knew? That’s the first you were told that this wasn’t going to go ahead?

Werner-Gibbings: The first, you get formal, you hear things, you wait for the confirmation.

Solly: So, when was the first time that a minister, be it Yvette Berry or Chris Steel, came to you and said “Taimus, I know you’re a Member down there, I know that things are tough, but when they’re going to walk away from the ice rink”. Werner-Gibbings: The Minister was telling me that he had a difficult decision to make and he was talking to the developers and he was talking to the ice sports people, but I don’t, like, I’m talking to the ice sports people.

Solly: But he never told you that, he didn’t tell you before yesterday that the government was going to go through with this?

Werner-Gibbings: I wait for the formal indication about this is what they know, this is what they’re doing, and that means that this is what I have to say and how I have to go and communicate with people in the electorate.

Solly: OK, but even informally, like, he didn’t pick up the phone and say, “Taimus, brace yourself, mate, because I’ve got a sandwich coming your way that you’re not going to like the look of”. He never picked up the phone or came to your office just around the corner there in the Assembly and said “we’re bailing out of this”?

Werner-Gibbings: We had the conversations and he said this is the thing that he was looking at and it was looking like it was a tough decision. … (I said) “it’s really important because this is why it will mean so much. If you can find any way of making the financial case work where the directorate can get to a position where it is able to support a reduced facility at slightly more money, then people in Tuggeranong will be really appreciative”.

Solly: OK. You must be a bit peeved, eh? I mean, you must be... As the local Member down there, and given that you did it tough last time to win, there’s a few people on the text line already this morning saying you and Caitlin Tough are going to find it very hard next election. You must be a bit peeved, surely, that he hasn’t sort of had a sit-down with you and a you know, maybe even buy ... bloody hell, if I was the minister, I’d be buying you lunch to cushion the blow a little bit. You must be a bit peeved, are you, Taimus? You seem to have been a bit blindsided by this.

Werner-Gibbings: Look, control what you can control, Ross. I’m very, very, very disappointed, but it’s not going to help right now. This is what I need to do. There is still the plan for Tuggeranong. And then the other, like, the flip side, it’s not a silver lining, but the minister said that the $16 million that was going to be spent on the ice rink is going to be spent on community sports infrastructure in Tuggeranong. And that is an unprecedented opportunity to improve and upgrade the community.

Solly: For sure the problem is now though your government has a trust issue with the people because they don’t trust your government anymore.

Werner-Gibbings: The Tuggeranong Plan, the commitments in the Tuggeranong Plan, they have all, 90 of them, have been funded or have been delivered. So this is one big thing that’s a real extreme disappointment. Most of them, by the end of the electoral term, will be in place. And then we have $16 million to do a huge amount of stuff. That will go a very long way. More people in Tuggeranong are going to benefit from this money. Solly: You don’t reckon that next election that Mark Parton and Deb Morris and Laura Nuttall are not going to be out there waving posters around with big pictures of an ice rink sitting there.

Werner-Gibbings: I mean, if they make a commitment, if the Liberal Party makes a commitment to $50 million to put down the ice rink, then fair play to them. They didn’t support the ice rink in the first place.

Solly: Well, because maybe they crunched the numbers and realised it was a nonsense ... I mean, was it a nonsense promise.

Werner-Gibbings: They seem very disappointed that it’s not going ahead. It wasn’t a nonsense promise.

Solly: I mean, was it ever possible? Was it ever feasible? I mean, there doesn’t seem to be many people who think that it could ever have been done for the money they were talking about and the site and everything.  It was just a pretty useless waste of time, wasn’t it? Werner-Gibbings: No. Like, for the people who play at the ice rink, the Ice Sports Federation in the ACT, it would have been a state-of-the-art extraordinary facility for the people of Tuggeranong, for the Tuggeranong town centre. It would have been a brilliant way of a venue to bring people to Tuggeranong, and it would have made a huge difference. So, no, I disagree.

Solly: All right. I have to tell you, on the text line, Taimus, there’s a lot of people who are very upset and disappointed … and they’re saying you’ve lost their vote. Your party’s lost their vote. They feel let down and they feel Tuggeranong’s been let down by this government. I appreciate your time this morning, Taimus Werner-Gibbings, thank you.Werner-Gibbings: Thank you. Cheers, Ross.

Solly: “The next local elections, and Steel is a disaster. He’s not had a single successful project,” says R (on the text line).