Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, I only intend to make a few brief remarks on the Historic Cultural Heritage Amendment Bill 2024. Our spokesperson for historic cultural heritage is our member for Bass, Cecily Rosol MP, who took this bill through the House of Assembly indicating our support.
That said, I did have the privilege of holding the Greens shadow heritage portfolio responsibility for many years. Like many people in this place, I am very passionate about the protection and appreciation of our European cultural heritage, as well as our Aboriginal cultural heritage. The Aboriginal cultural heritage that belongs to the palawa people, in contrast to the protections we extend to European cultural heritage, are manifestly inadequately protected. There is a framework in place, indeed, which denies palawa recognition of ownership of their cultural heritage, and facilitates development over Aboriginal cultural heritage.
We still have not seen a proper piece of legislation more than what we have been presented with through this government, which was to tart up the obnoxious and offensive relics act of 1974. We still await that Aboriginal cultural heritage legislation, which we trust will be fully consulted with Tasmanian Aboriginal people, and recognise and respect their ownership of their heritage, and their right to have a much greater, decisive say in how their heritage is treated and managed.
Of course, as Tasmanians, we all recognise that, in terms of our European cultural heritage, it is unarguable that we are the richest jurisdiction in the country. It is part of who we are. It is part of our identity – and that identity, in some ways, is the story of a place that changes quite slowly. As someone who grew up in Joh Bjelke‑Petersen’s Queensland, I watched what he did to places like the Bellevue Hotel, where he brought in the Deen Brothers in the dead of night with the wrecking ball and destroyed one of the most beautiful wrought‑iron wedding cake‑looking colonial buildings in Brisbane. He did the same thing with the gorgeous Art Deco building Cloudland, up near Bowen Hills. I have always appreciated that this place has much greater respect and indeed reverence for its historic cultural heritage.
Some of the places that are on the State Heritage Register are just magnificent. The Treasury Building, which none of us should ever forget the former Treasurer wanted to put on the market to develop, and luckily, very strong public opposition to that prevented that from happening.
I do not want to give people, ‘oh well, this is my view of what historic cultural heritage is’. It is layered and it has context. So a place which is now on the register like the Goods Shed, down at Macquarie Point, to some people just looks like a tin shed. It is, in large part, a tin shed. However, it has a really significant part – as I am sure you would appreciate, Mr President, as a lover of trains and rail – in the development of this city – its trading, the shipment of goods into and out of the city of Hobart. The Goods Shed has historical context as part of the layers of history. In and around Evans Street, we have the Henry Jones IXL building – extraordinary.
We are very fortunate that we escaped some of the predations of developers in the ’70s and ’80s. Who knows what could have happened to the Henry Jones building? We do remember, though, that there was a plan in the early 1970s to knock down the Salamanca buildings and put a bypass in from Battery Point. Thank heavens there was a group of locals and a broader community who stopped that from happening, but they are narrow escapes. Down at Evans Street we have a rich historical site, which of course is what makes the plan to put a massive stadium in there even more problematic, and I do refer members to the heritage report, which has been lodged as part of the Project of State Significance documentation, because that report makes it really clear that there are significant risks to historic cultural heritage.
Ms Forrest – From both an Aboriginal and a European point of view.
Ms O’CONNOR – Absolutely. Thank you, Member for Murchison, and while we are on that subject, we should remind ourselves of the disgrace of a government that worked with the Aboriginal community, made a promise for a Truth and Reconciliation Park as a centrepiece of the redeveloped Macquarie Point site, and that conversation was ongoing, there was a Mona vision that contributed into that, a whole lot of publicly funded master planning that went into it and Tasmanian Aboriginal people found out at the same time as the people of Tasmania on the front page of the Mercury, that promise they made would be snatched away and there would be no centrepiece Truth and Reconciliation Park on a site of very significant cultural value to Tasmanian Aboriginal people. In fact in the latest plan, the Palawa have been relegated to the sunless side of the stadium over on a corner of Evans Street as part of what risks being quite gimmicky, to have a cultural storytelling entrance to a football stadium, you just have to be very careful when you are thinking to do something like that, particularly after you snatch away the promise of something really special that could have provided a real opportunity for all Tasmanians to understand our deeper history that goes back tens of thousands of years. The history of violent dispossession and the struggle for recognition and survival of Tasmanian Aboriginal people, but anyway, so much of that now is history.
Of course there are some places on the Tasmanian Heritage Register that we might wonder why, but of course they have an important part in our story, too, and one of them is the Wrest Point Casino, which is probably the ugliest construction of scale in Tasmania; it’s a very subjective thing, isn’t it Mr President? At the time in 1971 to when it was being built, it was unlike any other building in the country. It was certainly the country’s first casino but again despite the fact that from where I live I have to look at it every day when I’m home and when it tarts itself up at night in green, I grate my teeth.
Ms Forrest – In green, I thought you would like that.
Ms O’CONNOR – They tart up the casino in green. I mean, for heaven’s sake, red suits it better. It is the heart of darkness after all – for a lot of people who have lost a lot of money. That is all I will say. We can have a different view on that but that said, you would have to acknowledge that in terms of the fabric and the layers of our city and our history, the Wrest Point Casino has a very notable place and that is why it is on the Tasmanian Heritage Register.
Some members will remember going back to 2014 after the Liberals came to office, the then Heritage minister Matthew Groom went through a process, which we found out about before it was formally known, of stripping about a third of the properties out of the Tasmanian Heritage Register. I am slightly pulling numbers out of my ageing brain here. Honestly, every day it gets a little bit older. The register had a bit over 5000 properties on it from around the island, and the process of removals removed close to 1500 properties from the state Heritage Register. The argument was that those properties would be the responsibility of local governments through their local heritage registers.
One of the issues with the legislation, the act we are amending today, is that there is no capacity, when you look at the criteria for listing on the register, to protect things like streetscapes, for example. You particularly see them in Launceston, which is the most beautiful heritage‑rich city. It is unlike any other city or town in the whole country. All through Launceston are these extraordinary streetscapes, intact beautiful little Georgian or Edwardian homes. However, the act itself cannot protect a streetscape.
Therefore, it is interesting that there is a provision in here that allows the heritage council to examine works on a single property that may affect the heritage values of a place. The example cited by the Leader of Government Business was in relation to terrace houses in a street of terrace houses. That is quite a good reform.
I note the incredible work of the people at Heritage Tasmania, who quietly go about being the guardians in our government agencies of heritage on this island and support the work of the Tasmanian Heritage Council. I am thankful for the expertise inside Heritage Tasmania. It is under-resourced. It is, in part, because we have had such a robust process through Heritage Tasmania that we have strong heritage protections on the island. There is a deep appreciation amongst the broader community of what we are custodians of in terms of our European cultural heritage.
I note that the amendments enable the heritage council to examine works where they have already commenced on a heritage-listed property. On one level, you could see that as rewarding bad behaviour because we should not be encouraging any developer to begin works on a heritage-listed property before those works have been approved. However, I recognise there has been a silence within the act that prevented the heritage council from taking any action or investigating when works have already commenced.
The bill gives the heritage council more capacity to undertake broader impacts. It enables the council to give notice to the owner of a registered place to take or stop action without being limited to allow more than 30 days before the action is undertaken. This is important. If you are going to make these sort of decisions, you need to have the time to properly consider them, examine all the evidence and make an informed decision.
I note the changes to the application form for heritage works by the replacing of the words ‘certificate of exemption’ with ‘minor works approval’.
It is somewhat concerning that while we are providing longer periods for the heritage council to react in this legislation, and a significantly longer period to consider the inclusion of a place on the state heritage register, we are actually shrinking the amount of time an ordinary person can make an objection or a submission relating to a permanent entry on the Tasmanian Heritage Register from 60 days to 30 days to improve administrative processing time. It is a bit tipped one way where we are providing a change from 120 days to 180 days for the heritage council to make a determination on a permanent entry to the state register, giving them more time to give notice to the owner of a registered place to take or stop action. However, we are restricting the amount of time the everyday person has to feed into an assessment of a place’s potential inclusion on the Tasmanian Heritage Register.
I would appreciate if the Leader of Government Business could explain why the weighting is so much more in favour of the heritage council’s administrative processes than making sure every opportunity is available for people who are passionate about, or want to potentially stop, the inclusion of a place on the heritage register.
Mr President, I am just winding up. This law will not become law until the Governor signs and gives royal assent, as the President said. We are comfortable supporting this legislation. I do not propose any amendments. With those few comments, I look forward to hearing what other members have to say.
