Having worked as a senior architect on many award winning public projects throughout , including GPO, international Airport, Southbank Post Expo Redevelopment, and one you would be quite familiar with, Empire Theatre Redevelopment in Toowoomba, I realize that for clarity, submissions are best if as brief and clear as possible. Apologies if this wanders a bit, but it is a complex issue for me.

1. The proposal for the new extension includes the demolition of the Australian Institute of Architects nationally award-winning Anzac Hall, by Denton Corker Marshall. Besides being unacceptable waste of public resources for a project that that has only just been completed, it is quite an insult to our architecture community, and others, to demolish what should be heritage listed work, and is an important and integral part of the War Memorial complex. Any new work should just be forced to work around it or dig underneath it.

2. Spending $500 million of taxpayer funds, at this time and at that place, is very problematic. It is ironic that with COVID 19, we are in the midst of the greatest pandemic since the Spanish Flu, which started during WW1. I think it is very important to spend money right now on important public cultural infrastructure, but that the spend be distributed throughout the nation. The idea that the Australian War Memorial having many satellite sites around Australia is not unreasonable. As you would realise, it is very expensive for Queenslanders to get to , so why not have, like say the Smithsonian Museum or The Imperial War Museum in the UK, dedicated satellite sites of the Australian War Memorial distributed throughout our nation?

3. For example, Oakey in Queensland has an old tin shed museum that houses very important pieces of the nation’s collection of historic aircraft including, Vietnam era Hueys, GAF Nomads and a Pilatus Porter and maybe a Blackhawk? (Have not been there for quite a while). Why not upgrade it, provided a suitable outdoor liturgical space for the Anzac Day etc, and an adjacent Reflection Space dedicated to both the deceased members killed on duty of those units, along with a Roll of Honour of all have served. This could be built for around $10m, and given Oakey’s problems with PFAF foam, it would be seen as a great gesture from the Commonwealth to support this community.

4. Another site worthy of consideration for a satellite location of the AWM is located near Gallipoli Barracks, Enoggera. This site would have the ability to display a large quantity of defence materiel in a spectacular setting. South East Queensland has so many historically important bases, and therefore so many veterans and serving members of the Defence Force resident there, all of whom have to jam into the very tiny Anzac Square in the Brisbane City on Anzac Day, to celebrate, commiserate and reflect.

5. There are sites and communities around the nation, many forgotten, that could benefit from having a War Memorial satellite facility being built and dedicated to all past and present members of the ADF and their families from those particular regions. Canberra does not deserve all of the attention, or economic stimulus, that would be generated by this current proposal. In spreading the spend, also ensure that small builders and smaller professional practices such as architects and engineers are engaged. Do not do a disastrous Rudd COLA scheme and give all the work to a giant like Lend Lease and have them absolutely ‘screw” consultants and subcontractors whilst merrily overcharging Government. That was a national disaster in project delivery.

SUMMARY The existing Australian War Memorial serves as an important focus for those that have served, and the community as a whole, but it is not the time to concentrate even more the Commonwealth’s funding for remembrance on that one site. Widen the scope of the Memorial’s functions and more widely distribute those functions as well.

Clearly the current location has run out of space. Walter Burley Griffin did not, I think, see the Memorial locus being a huge, ever expanding site in his masterplan for Canberra. (That ASIO, Defence Russell, the Australian War Memorial and Duntroon all coexist, side by side in Canberra as they do, certainly makes it more economical for spies, but I do not think that economy formed part of Burley Griffin’s thinking at the time. The direct line of site, and responsibility, from those who decide on wars at Parliament, and those who fight and suffer those wars at the Memorial, was a masterstroke of planning.)

The AWM’s role as a mausoleum and museum, also does not adequately, I think, accommodate the entire defence family needs, including in my case, provisioning of any memorial space for those families that have lost loved ones in training accidents. Training for battle is almost as dangerous and battle itself, and yet I feel that Defence and the Commonwealth almost blame my brother (and others in his circumstances) for being such a clot as to die in a training accident.

In my brother David’s case, there is way more to that story. However, as I was told by an assistant in the basement library, “the Memorial is only for those who have died on duty”. “In your brother’s case” he may as well have said, “it sweeps lives under the rug”, an attitude that I found quite distressing. It is no wonder there is such a problem with PTSD after service, and not just with personnel, but also with their families. Please save Anzac Hall and spread the spend (and the love).

Sincerely,

RICHARD GROVES

Richard Groves FAIA AIA.