Property owner Harvey Ball is halfway through the conversion of the former 58-room motel and conference centre into 20 units for affordable accommodation for the aged and the home base for what he is calling “A Forum for a Fairer Australia”.

He chose the name “Tara” as it was the seat of ancient kings in Ireland who stood up to the invasion by the English and it was this spirit of dissent and standing up to the powerful that he admired. 

Both the redeveloped motel complex and his forum were going to be his legacy to the nation. He said he was born into a poor family in Sydney but was able to work his way up with a military career and then as an auctioneer.

“I’m old and in ill health so I thought if I am going to do something, I better get on with it,” Mr Ball said. “When the cards of life are dealt, some people get dealt kings and jacks, while others get two and threes.

“At the end of the day, it's about not being judgemental and for those with kings and jacks to give something back to the two and threes.”

The motel hit the news last year when the former owners the LaSallian Brothers offered the facility to Premier Mike Baird to house Syrian refugees. Mr Ball then moved in to purchase the complex, initially with a plan to make it available to poverty-bound single mothers.

But he said he has since realised aged residents had a much greater need and it was the elderly with little or no money that he hoped he could provide accommodation for at an affordable rate. 

He has been joining rooms to make larger suites with kitchens and laundries, and in the future hope to offer low cost accommodation for self-sufficient aged people, not ready or financially able to move into a nursing home. 

The restaurant/conference centre was near-new being rebuilt in 2003 after destruction by fire in 1999 and this building will be the home of the Forum for a Fairer Australia as well as restaurant for low-cost meals going forward, he said.

The single-level house/meeting room fronting Farncombe Street was converted subject to approved plans not long ago and is going to be occupied by the Illawarra Disability Trust as a day centre.

This leaves the chapel, which was also converted subject to approved plans not long ago, but which he wants to knock down and replace with a four-storey plus rooftop signature building for Narooma. He is in contact with council regards this portion of redevelopment.

The ground level would comprise port cochere, foyer, lounge, indoor heated solar pool.  The next two levels would be each house three or four one-bedroom luxury apartments. 

“The building would marginally exceed the 10m current limit but not the philosophy of the shire in Batemans Bay and even part of Narooma,” he said. “Being on the crest of the hill on the highway it would be a beautiful signature sight and site.”

He said his conversion of 44 other en-suite rooms into 20 suites would thereby lower the intensity of use of the site and intensity of use of council's headworks.

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In parallel to his motel redevelopment, Mr Ball has been working on the first draft of “An Australia Plan” for his Forum for a Fairer Australia, which has the mission statement of “Advance Australia Fairer”.

“The Forum for a Fairer Australia will not dictate what people should think, rather give a vehicle for people as the current political system is not working,” he said.

He was making a sign with the basic creed of the “Advance Australia Fairer” that he planned to place on the side of the conference centre where the LaSallian name once stood.

He said he hoped the speakers at an event at Tara would launch the “Australia Plan” and subsequent debate.