By Alesha Capone
The chairman of the consortium seeking to build a $31 billion education city in Werribee says he still hopes to go ahead with the plan.
Bill Zheng said the Australian Education City (AEC) group planned to appeal a Supreme Court decision which last month ruled the state government did not have to divulge why it pulled the pin on an Expressions of Interest process for the project.
“We are not asking for money or compensation, we are basically asking for an opportunity for the state to reconsider its decision,” Mr Zheng told Star Weekly.
“We are still committed, we can still make it work – we are happy to work with the state on what they want.
“In fact, we are asking for the opportunity to still be in the project.”
In 2015, the AEC, a consortium of Australian and Chinese entities, was selected as the preferred bidder to develop more than 400 hectares of the East Werribee Employment Precinct.
The AEC proposed to build a commercial, educational, retail and mixed-use site including a university, research centre, secondary school, indigenous community centre and heritage park. The education city would also have been home to 70,000 people.
However, last year the state government decided not to proceed with the Expressions of Interest process for the site and has refused to reveal why.
The AEC went to the Supreme Court in February seeking a declaration that the decision to end the tender process was invalid, or an order quashing the decision.
It also sought orders which would compel the state government to provide reasons for ending the process.
On May 20, Supreme Court Associate Justice Melissa Daly dismissed the AEC’s summons.
Associate Justice Daly said there were “negligible prospects” of the state government being able to produce further information “which would cause me to alter my view that AEC’s claims in this proceeding have no real prospects of success”.
Mr Zheng said the AEC’s 40-plus shareholders wanted to know the state government’s reasons for ending the East Werribee tender process.
He said it would be possible to build the education city at a different site to East Werribee, or possibly elsewhere in Victoria, New South Wales or Queensland.
He is also working with Wyndham council to find another suitable site for the education city if the state government backed the idea.
