Mr BAYLEY – Minister, I agree with Mr Shelton on this, that TMAG was the state’s leading organisation. That’s one thing we agree on, Mr Shelton. I’m really interested to explore the TMAG critical operating risks issue. You flagged earlier the leaking roofs and the like. I had the pleasure of going to TMAG last Friday, the Hobart current and an artist talk. If I may let me pass you a couple of snaps that I took. As I walked out the door, literally a bucket on the floor catching drips and the plaster of the roof is coming in. Can you talk us through the TMAG critical operating risks budget line item, what is that covering? When it comes to things like leaking roofs, and I am informed that Rosny is far worse, indeed, than TMAG in the city in terms of – and these are facilities that are holding our state collection.
Can you talk us through the critical risks? Is that dealing with this kind of issue and, if not, what is the ask of TMAG to address these issues?
Ms OGILVIE – It’s a good question. Mary is here, so we it’s an important question. We might ask Mary to come to the table.
Mr STEWART – Perhaps I can start while Mary’s coming, through you, minister. The infrastructure issues that you’ve raised, Mr Bayley, are critically important, but they have been addressed through some budget allocation which is actually separate to the critical operating risks that you mentioned.
Mr BAYLEY – In this Budget or the 2024‑25 Budget you mentioned before?
Mr STEWART – The previous Budget, yes. This is more about addressing the issues that both the department and the board of trustees – and a shout‑out to the board of trustees while I’m here they do an amazing job –
Ms OGILVIE – They do.
Mr STEWART – on behalf of you, minister, of course. The department has been doing some work with the board of trustees, and Mary and her team, to identify what we need to do to get TMAG on a sustainable footing as a more modern, contemporary offering as a museum. Some of those things are around systems, around the online presence of the collection, so it’s more about actually reforming TMAG’s operations rather than addressing some of the infrastructure risks, which is also being done, but through a separate budget allocation. I will let Mary give you a bit more detail.
Ms OGILVIE – We would like to hear from Mary. Thanks.
Ms MULCHAHY – Thank you for the question. For the last few years and quite a few years, TMAG has had an operating deficit so this funding will help us with that. As the minister and the deputy secretary mentioned, what we’re trying to do is create some efficiencies and move TMAG to a more sustainable footing. That’s the operating risks that are funded through this Budget. The two previous allocations of capital works, so the 2023‑24 received four years’ worth of funding, $2 million, and that’s particularly for building and building maintenance. For example, at the moment we’re currently in a tender process around the sandstone on the Customs House building.
One of the challenges we have with really old buildings – and the bucket that you saw – is that often water comes out where it hasn’t gone in. Literally, since I’ve started, we’ve been trying to work out where that particular leak actually happened. That’s actually part of the challenge with it: trying to work out where the ingress of the water is coming in, because it isn’t always where it comes out. There’s quite a bit of work that’s being done over a long period of time: similar thing happening at Rosny. It’s a membrane roof and it’s really difficult; it acts like a sponge so where the water comes out isn’t necessarily where it goes in. It’s not quick fixes, I guess.
Mr BAYLEY – With the $2 million over four years, what was the budget submission of TMAG to address these capital issues at the end of the day?
Ms MULCHAHY – When we were given the funding in 2023‑24, we basically highlighted – so we’ve got a strategic asset maintenance plan which was developed in 2019 and that outlines where the risks are around the building and the maintenance, so it triages or prioritises where that funding would go. On the basis of that, recognising and identifying where some of these challenges are, particularly around things like the leaks at Rosny, that budget submission went through and we were successful in that $2 million. Then the following year we received another $2 million over four years, which is around asset maintenance. There’s a bit of overlap with the building, but it’s potentially things like what we need to do in order to keep the collection safe that’s not just building and maintenance. That’s what that bucket of money is for.
CHAIR – Mr Bayley, through the minister too, please.
Mr BAYLEY – Sure, sorry through you, minister.
Ms OGILVIE – Yes, very quickly, we have to qualify something we said, just so it’s correct.
Mr JACOBI – I want to clarify the comment I made earlier about the Launceston staff mood. I wanted to be clear that there were two stages, or two components, to that. Originally, there was a proposal to move the staff from the city to our Prospect/Mount Pleasant facility site. Again, they were consulted extensively on that proposal, but the decision was not to proceed with that. That then led to a reconfiguration of the existing St John’s offices which again they were consulted on and has now been completed.
Ms OGILVIE – Thank you.
Mr BAYLEY – Thank you, minister. Through you, while we have Ms Mulchahy at the table, I have a question about, I guess, justice for Aboriginal people. Obviously TMAG issued a profound apology four or so years ago, that was very welcome, and has returned numerous human remains. I would like to ask whether, what has been returned in terms of human remains, is the extent of the human remains that are in the TMAG collection, and whether there are any outstanding requests for other cultural items? Obviously, human remains is not a cultural item, and there would be a request for that, but other cultural items held in the TMAG collection, and if there are outstanding requests, which I understand there are, what is the hold up in returning those items?
Ms OGILVIE – Thank you. Mary is the right person to answer this, but I will give you a couple of words before we hand to Mary. Coming into this portfolio, this is one of the areas I did a deep dive into straight away, knowing its importance, and of course, also appreciating that the repatriation of human remains globally is a major challenge for all museums. Mary will speak to that as well. I want to make sure people understand we’ve been working on it, and we are trying and endeavouring to do the right thing and to work collaboratively. Thank you, Mary.
Ms MULCHAHY – Thank you, minister. TMAG has repatriated about a third of all human remains that were in the collection. The remainder are really difficult: a lot of them, the provenance is very hard to determine. For example, our First Peoples art and culture teams are working really closely with the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre in working on the human remains to understand where they came from. We have to be really clear on the provenance of them before we can hand them back. I believe we handed back three sets of human remains in the last two years. What’s left in the collection is incredibly difficult. There isn’t a lot of information with it, but we’ve got that really close collaboration. We’re working with the community.
The outstanding request at the moment is for repatriation of the Greens Creek petroglyph. We’ve been working with the Aboriginal Land Council; we’ve been talking to Aboriginal Heritage Tasmania in trying to understand what we need to do to repatriate that; the board is absolutely supportive of it. Part of the challenge has been whether or not we need to do a full consultation in the way we did for the Preminghana petroglyphs.
Just before the election was called, those conversations with those groups and with our Tasmanian Aboriginal Advisory Council, they believe that the consultation we’ve done with those representatives of community was probably enough, but then the election was called, so we actually need to go back and re-engage with that.
Our understanding is that we probably need to put the permit in to actually request the repatriation of the petrograph back. It’s quite challenging because it’s quite a small piece and it doesn’t come from Aboriginal land, so it can be picked up and easily moved.
Mr BAYLEY – Not like the Preminghana ones, yes.
Ms MULCAHY – It’s not as easy as giving those really – no, not like the really big couple‑of‑tonne ones, right? It’s quite a complicated – it’s complicated anyway, but it’s extra complicated because they are they’re so small. We also have another petroglyph from Sundown Point which we’d also like to give back to community, and that’s part of those conversations. We only identified that a couple of years ago.
Mr BAYLEY – What about the smaller cultural items, like the made items, for example, the necklaces, the spears, the woven baskets and the like?
Ms MULCHAHY – To my knowledge we haven’t had any requests for repatriation of those. Some members of community believe that if TMAG gave back everything that’s in the collection, that wouldn’t be appropriate either. It’s a complex conversation with community about what would be appropriate.
Mr BAYLEY – The Aboriginal community itself is looking to establish a cultural centre and a keeping place, and you need an appropriate facility to take these kinds of things on board and some of the rules around institutions. I implore you, minister, to keep working hard in that space.
Ms OGILVIE – Yes. I was going to mention that. Well, we are, and I just thought one last bit, Mary, that I think is very helpful, perhaps, to know is around international repatriations. That also is very important. Could you perhaps sketch that out?
Ms MULCHAHY – There’s a couple of things: the federal government funds all the state museums around repatriation and so we get some funding every year. That’s internally within Australia. So that funds some of the work around the repatriation of human remains, for example, back to the Aboriginal community in Tasmania, but also cultural belongings we’ve got from other Aboriginal communities around Australia. Again, it’s really complex and often communities come here, visit, go home and then we need to work out how to return them to them.
Internationally it becomes even more complicated. We’ve been working with museums overseas. We had the exhibition taypani milaythina-tu: Return to Country, and we got objects back on loan, initially for two years, which is the constraint around the protection of cultural objects on loan: there was a two‑year limit. We’ve got an unprecedented extension of that for another two years so community could spend time with them. The idea was to work with the community, for them to ask for those objects to be repatriated back, because it’s not the role of TMAG to ask for that, it’s for community to ask that. We have repatriated material back, particularly to New Zealand. Where those opportunities arise, and we were asked, the board is very supportive
CHAIR – The time for scrutiny has expired.
