Spark and Cannon Transcript of Proceedings
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SPARK AND CANNON Telephone: Adelaide (08) 8212 3699 TRANSCRIPT Hobart (03) 6224 2499 Melbourne (03) 9670 6989 OF PROCEEDINGS Perth (08) 9325 4577 Sydney (02) 9211 4077 _______________________________________________________________ PRODUCTIVITY COMMISSION INQUIRY INTO THE CONSERVATION OF AUSTRALIA'S HISTORIC BUILT HERITAGE PLACES DR N. BYRON, Presiding Commissioner MR T. HINTON, Commissioner TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS AT BRISBANE ON MONDAY, 25 JULY 2005, AT 9.03 AM 25/7/05 Heritage 1 he250705.doc DR BYRON: Welcome to the public hearings of the Productivity Commission's national inquiry into the conservation of Australia's historic heritage places. My name is Neil Byron and I'm the presiding Commissioner for this inquiry, and my fellow Commissioner is Tony Hinton. This inquiry stems from terms of reference that the Commission has received from the Australian Treasurer with the endorsement of all the state and territory governments. It covers the policy framework and the incentives in place to encourage the conservation of heritage places, including built heritage. We've already talked to a large number of different organisations and individuals with interests in heritage conservation in most of the states and territories, including some fascinating rural and regional visits - Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and here in Queensland. Submissions have been coming to the inquiry following the release of our issues paper about two months ago, and we now have about 25 submissions, all of which are on our web site. The purpose of these hearings is to provide an opportunity for any interested parties to discuss their submissions with the Commission and put their views on the public record. Following these hearings here today we'll be holding other hearings progressively over the next month in all states and territories. We are planning to produce a draft report for public comment about the beginning of December, and then there will be another round of hearings and opportunities for feedback, where we're looking for comments after people have had time to read and digest and think about our proposed recommendations. The Productivity Commission always tries to conduct our public hearings in a fairly informal manner but we do take a full transcript for the record, and so we can't really run them just like a public meeting because the transcription service won't know who's talking, but we always try and make an opportunity for anyone in the room who wants to come forward and put something on the record to come and do so. The transcripts will be put on the Commission's web site as soon as they've been checked for accuracy and will also be available to anybody through public libraries. To comply with Australian government occupational health and safety legislation, I have to inform everybody in the room that in the very, very unlikely event of an incident, the alarms will sound and we'll go out through the glass doors and assemble in the street out there. The other bit of housekeeping is that the toilets - if you just follow the carpets around to the left up that way. I think that's all the housekeeping I need to explain. So without any further ado I'd like to welcome, first, Mr Ian Evans. If you'd just like to come and take a seat anywhere you like, whenever you're comfortable. Thank you very much for the written submission which Tony and I have read very 25/7/05 Heritage 2 carefully. Thank you also very much for the book, which is both an excellent example of the sort of service that your company provides and I'm fascinated by the contents as well. MR EVANS: Thank you. DR BYRON: I enjoyed that very much. MR EVANS: Thank you. DR BYRON: If you could just introduce yourself for the transcript, summarise the main points that you want to emphasise out of your submission, and then we'd like to discuss that with you. MR EVANS: Okay. DR BYRON: Thank you. MR EVANS: My name is Ian Evans. I've been writing about old Australian houses and buildings and the conservation thereof for the past 25 years. Together with my wife Annie we own the Flannel Flower Press Pty Ltd, which specialises in books on the conservation of old houses and buildings throughout Australia. There will be many opportunities for a variety of organisations to address all of the issues covered in your issues paper. I don't propose to attempt to come to grips with most of them but the main thing I would like to say is the fact that I think we look at these state, federal and local heritage lists and I would submit that the vast majority of Australia's architectural heritage is not listed on these lists. There are a great many buildings which form the streetscape of our towns and cities throughout Australia which, if we were to lose them - and we are, through a gradual process of attrition - we would be much the poorer. I'm not talking about houses which perhaps have some important historic association, whether with a governor or some rich merchant of the nineteenth century. I'm talking about houses and cottages which belong to ordinary people and which are representative of the technology, taste and period in which they were built. I think the present system of heritage conservation throughout Australia is not working terribly well; that we're losing a lot of wonderful buildings through a gradual process of attrition. What I would like to suggest is a system perhaps modelled on the one in use in Britain, where they have a national heritage lottery. I would hesitate to suggest any system under which further taxation was imposed or in which we had to develop a whole new bureaucracy, but I would think that a national heritage lottery might have some advantages in the field of heritage conservation throughout Australia. Those are the two main points that I'd like to raise for the Commission. 25/7/05 Heritage 3 I. EVANS DR BYRON: Thank you very much. Yes, we've been talking to people as we go around the country. The same I guess three points keep coming up. How do we recognise what it is that's worth keeping, and who does that and according to what rules? Who's going to actually do the maintenance and stewardship and caring and nurturing of these places once we've recognised them? And the third point, which you've already made, how is it going to be paid for? MR EVANS: Yes. I think your second point, who's going to do it, lies in the fact that the vast majority of these buildings are in private ownership and in fact these people have been caring for these buildings and spending their money on these buildings for a very long time, with results that are highly variable, I might add. Some people do an excellent job; others are not so well informed. I think the way to go is not to suggest for a second that the government should impose stringent controls or requirements on these people but to provide incentives for them to acquire the knowledge, and perhaps some form of inducement in terms of a taxation rebate. I'll leave that to others to work out the details but I think they just need a little bit of incentive. They need the means to acquire the information, whether it's from the books we publish or other books, or from heritage advisers, and perhaps just the realisation that in going down in this path they will not only be doing the right thing by the buildings and their neighbourhood but there is a little financial reward at the end of the tunnel. DR BYRON: If I can start at the end, the question of how it might be funded, I guess you're aware that all the states collect a fair bit of tax revenue from existing gambling taxes and it occurred to me, reading your submission, that any state in Australia could today or tomorrow decide to divert 20 per cent, 25 per cent or whatever of that poker machine tax revenue, or whatever, to put it into a heritage fund if they wanted to. MR EVANS: Yes. DR BYRON: It seems to me the fact that none of them have tells us something. MR EVANS: They're always complaining about lack of funds. I don't know where all the GST money is going but it must be going somewhere and, you know, with what's been happening in the UK recently, a lot of available state funding is going to be poured into closed-circuit television and extra surveillance techniques, and so on and so forth. Nobody would argue against that but what I'm suggesting is a way in which people who are interested and involved in heritage might be provided with the opportunity to buy a ticket in a lottery and they know the money they've put in there is going to go towards heritage conservation. I think you would find that a great 25/7/05 Heritage 4 I. EVANS many people would support such a lottery which would be handled by an organisation perhaps independent, although linked with State Government authorities involved in heritage conservation, but would be an umbrella organisation which assisted in conservation throughout Australia rather than the existing situation under which we've got all the states doing their own thing, or nothing, for heritage. I just think that the present system is clearly not enough because I go around the country quite a lot and I see buildings falling down left, right and centre and I hear from heritage advisers and people involved in heritage, with whom I speak regularly, about lost causes and hopeless campaigns, which they feel impelled to undertake.