Elitist? Seriously? Exhortations to excellence aren’t elitist . Critiquing some popular art event is no more elitist than training people to swim fast or kick a decent goal. I’ll tell you what is elitist, though. Grabbing every damn thing for the wealthy and powerful. That’s elitist – and it’s destroying Sydney.

Illustration: Dionne Gain

You might think the Berejiklianistas are trashing inner and northern Sydney and you’d be right. They are. But spare a thought for the west. In particular, pity Parramatta. Supporters may call the Powerhouse move a “victory” for western Sydney but honestly, with victories like this you don’t need defeats.

First, Parramatta’s beautiful old hospital site is slated for an epidemic-size rash of resi-towers. Then comes WestConnex, the new umbilical connection with the east, adding to Parramatta’s already disproportionate smog burden and imposing commute-charges that the Greens calculate will need to be $26 each way, just to break even.

Next, the Berejiklianistas close Parramatta’s much-loved public pool for a stadium that quarantines swathes of parkland to benefit huge commercial interests – then grab yet more park, and more public millions, to rebuild the pool.

As former NSW premier Mike Baird appears before a parliamentary committee looking into the move, Gladys Berejiklian says "why shouldn't western Sydney have iconic institutions?"

Then, the coup de grace. Even before the parliamentary inquiry was complete or the business case available, and despite immense public outcry, they decide to move Sydney’s dusty and under-visited Powerhouse Museum to Parramatta, allowing hectares in Ultimo to be “divested” for still more resi-towers. That’s elitist, yes. It’s also blindingly condescending.

Did I say move? Calling the Powerhouse fiasco a “move” makes it sound simple, a timely and elegant rebalancing of the cultural scales. In fact it’s a billion-dollar knock down-rebuild that involves relocating hundreds of tonnes of priceless objects, selling off still more prime public land for mega-development and demolishing significant heritage buildings. What it’s moving, in short, is a great dollop of wealth from public to private.

The so-called “business case” documents, which finally appeared this week, reveal even more bad news – which is why it took the threatened parliamentary expulsion of Minister Don Harwin to force the government’s release. Now we see that the new, improved Powerhouse (or MAAS, if we must call it that) will destroy its lovely riverbank site by fronting the river with a seven-metre-high wall of basement offices and car-parking; destroy eight listed heritage buildings and a possible archaeological site along Phillip Street; flog part of the Ultimo site - and still charge planetarium visitors $34 entry. Try that with a family of six.

It’s bizarre that the Libs are still perceived as good economic managers. I’m no economist, but I know that just being heartless doesn’t make you good with money. I’ll never be rich because money never gets to the top of my “interesting” list - so I have a very simple regime. Live within your means, pay off your card every month and don’t spend capital on Weetbix. Like, ever.

But these guys, with enough pudgy, pin-striped financial reports to fill the National Library, flog everything in sight, sell our electricity grid and many of our national treasures to “foreign interests”, recast all public housing as development sites and ease the commercialisation of Crown Land (currently 42 per cent of the state) - and still can’t deliver anything either on time or on budget.

The fabulous Anzac Parade figs, if you recall, were whopped down not for the light rail itself but for the temporary road diversion that allowed them to squeeze the time frame by a few months. Yet here we are, looking at a delay of a year and huge cost blowouts – before we even consider court settlements.

The felling of a Moreton Bay fig tree on Anzac Parade for the light rail line. Janie Barrett

All of this was foreseeable. The government’s own Auditor-General Margaret Crawford warned back in 2016 that Transport for NSW “did not effectively plan and procure the CBD and South East Light Rail (CSELR) project to achieve best value for money” and that most of the (then) more than half-billion dollar blowout was “due to mispricings and omissions in the business case”. Just as with the stadiums fiasco, where DAs are lodged before the parliamentary inquiry is complete; and with WestConnex, where throughout contracts have been let and decisions taken absent a proper business case. Same story, different names. Slow learners’ club, much?

A state government media release of the proposed design of the new Powerhouse Museum planned for Parramatta.

The Powerhouse will occupy a site currently owned by Parramatta Council, to be purchased by the state for an undisclosed sum (figure redacted). The heritage buildings, bought by the council with this (no doubt) in mind, will be demolished and part of the site sold-on for a super-tower. The council supports the scheme. Well, it would. Um, conflict of interest, anyone?

Sadly, too, the heritage buildings are really rather good. There’s the pretty 1870s Italianate villa Willow Grove, with its mature garden and trees, its spiked cast-iron railings and veranda, its double-height window bay, red-striped roof and elaborately carved sandstone gateposts. There’s also St George’s Terrace, from 1881, a complete row of seven terrace houses, slightly bastardised around the openings but nothing that a little TLC wouldn’t fix. Both are listed on Schedule 5 as fine examples of the ancient fabric of our second-oldest settlement.

Yet the “business case” says both must go. Why? To provide “access” to the site from council’s other billion-plus redevelopment behind the Town Hall at Parramatta Square. But that’s not really true. There’s a good 30 metres between the two buildings, access enough for any museum. What they mean is these charming heritage buildings must go to make way for the brash new super-tower.

Parramatta's Willow Grove is a fine example of the ancient fabric of our second-oldest settlement. Supplied

When former premier Mike Baird was grilled in the Upper House inquiry into museums and galleries last month it became very clear that the decision on the Powerhouse was taken first, and then the business case was constructed to justify it. If that justification demands flogging two major pieces of prime public land for a nasty private view-grabbing tower, demolishing eight 140-year old heritage-listed houses in public ownership then yes, elitist is precisely the word.

Twitter @emfarrelly