Heritage - Our Past and our Future


Our cultural heritage must be accessible to all Australians.

It comprises the natural and cultural landscapes that we inhabit, the artifacts and objects created by Australians - the stories of our past - our history.

The Commonwealth recognises that our cultural landscape, movable cultural heritage and intangible cultural heritage are linked to each other and therefore require an integrated policy and management approach.

The objectives of the Commonwealth's heritage policies are to:

The Commonwealth will also ensure that new communication technologies will enable Australians to have access to cultural material which until now have been largely inaccessible.

It will enable us to experience our history and look to their future through multi-media applications which will offer interactive access to the nation's cultural collections and research facilities.

The Commonwealth appreciates the economic importance and potential of the heritage sector as an employment generator. The revitalisation of many regional areas has been based on a growing interest in our heritage by domestic and international tourists. The Government has supported the development of the skills associated with work in the heritage sector through the inclusion in employment programs such as Landcare and Environment Action Program (LEAP).

The Government will continue to support and to investigate further mechanisms to encourage employment and economic opportunities in the heritage sector, including conservation, building and tourism.

built heritage

Australia has many places which contribute to our strong sense of identity. Some are culturally significant to a single community or region and some to all Australians. A place may reflect different values to different parts of the community at the same time or decades later. Our changing and adapting landscape plays a key role in the evolution of the unique and special character of this nation.

Specifically in the area of built heritage, it is clear that many of our heritage buildings, if conserved, have greater economic, cultural and social value to their communities than if they are demolished. It is important that our built heritage is used in a sustainable way and is not degraded. This is particularly significant in regional areas where the restoration of heritage properties has positive benefits, of encouraging regional tourism and a sense of regional identity.

Sites which reflect our built heritage range from early convict buildings to immigrant hostels to contemporary urban environments. Responsibility for the preservation of these sites is divided among local, State and federal organisations with differing legislative and conservation practices.

The Commonwealth supports the development of uniform heritage legislation, criteria and definitions throughout Australia.

While there is currently legislation in all States and Territories (except Tasmania), the Commonwealth believes that it should be consistent and uniform.

Heritage legislation should achieve the following objectives:

This goal will be pursued through the Heritage Ministers' Council and other relevant inter-government forums.

Consistency in the criteria for registration of historic sites and agreed identification and assessment processes will also increase the level of usable information to national, State and Territory agencies and avoid administrative duplication.

The Commonwealth has obligations, under the World Heritage Convention, the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1983 and the Australian Heritage Commission Act 1975, to conserve places of cultural significance throughout the country on behalf of all Australians. It undertakes a leadership role in pursuing innovative programs which encourage creative and sensitive use of its own heritage buildings.

The Australian Heritage Commission is an independent statutory authority established under the Australian Heritage Commission Act 1975. Its purpose is to identify the national estate and to advise the Government on national estate conservation and presentation.

The national estate is defined as:

those places, being components of the natural environment of Australia, or the cultural environment of Australia, that have aesthetic, historic, scientific or social significance or other special value for future generations as well as for the present community.

The Commission's objectives are to :

commonwealth buildings and sites

The Commonwealth owns many outstanding public buildings including post offices, lighthouses, customs houses and coastal forts. The most significant of these places, such as the Sydney Opera House, Port Arthur, the Newcastle Customs House and Old Parliament House, are listed in the Register of the National Estate.

These buildings have far greater economic, cultural and social value to Australians if they are conserved and recycled to be relevant and useful to contemporary life than if they are demolished.

Through the co-ordinated management of its own heritage buildings the Commonwealth will provide leadership to the States and local government authorities.

As has already occurred with the Sydney and Hobart Customs Houses, the Commonwealth will develop partnerships with State Governments to ensure access for all Australians to their heritage.

customs houses

The Commonwealth Government has developed partnerships with a number of State Governments to preserve and utilise these important buildings for cultural and social purposes.

The Commonwealth has given the Hobart Customs House to the Tasmanian Government on a 60-year rent-free lease in exchange for a number of educational and heritage initiatives designed to preserve the building and benefit the community.

The Commonwealth has also committed $24 million to the refurbishment of the Sydney Customs House as part of a lease agreement with the Sydney City Council. The agreement ensures that at least 70 per cent of the building will be for public uses. This will include exhibition space managed by the National Museum of Australia for its own and other collaborative exhibitions appropriate to the building.

In order to develop further initiatives in this area and establish a cohesive strategy for the maintenance and use of Commonwealth heritage buildings, the Government will establish a Committee of Review to examine the management of Commonwealth- owned heritage properties and to better ensure their preservation.

The Australian Heritage Commission will provide technical and professional advice to a committee that will be made up of the principal heritage property owning agencies and key heritage experts. Amongst the measures to be considered by the committee will be:

The Review will also consider the disposal of Commonwealth buildings and the opportunities for the Commonwealth to influence both the character and quality of urban design and regional development by ensuring creative and sensitive use of its assets.

old parliament house

As with a wide range of Commonwealth-owned heritage buildings, the Government's refurbish-ment of Old Parliament House is based on the principles of preserving our cultural heritage and extending public access to heritage buildings.

Old Parliament House is a symbol of Australia's democratic traditions. As the cornerstone of our political system, it is of enormous significance to all Australians. Old Parliament House is the current location of the National Portrait Gallery, administered by the National Library. It also houses exhibition and education facilities operated by the Australian Archives and the National Museum of Australia. Responsibility for the management and refurbishment of Old Parliament House will be transferred to the Department of Communications and the Arts, both to achieve closer working relationships between the cultural institutions which use it and to ensure that the heritage values of the building is maintained. The Commonwealth will commence an extensive refurbishment program for Old Parliament House as a place for all Australians to celebrate our constitutional, political and social history and extend public access to this popular and nationally significant building.

Refurbishment will commence this year on the Member's Dining Room and King's Hall and further work in the Old Parliament House will continue in stages over the next several years, leading up to 2001. Old Parliament House will provide a focus for important national events, such as the Centenary of Federation in 2001, and for a range of cultural, ceremonial and commercial activities.

As a priority within this program, the National Film and Sound Archive will enhance the Old Parliament House's emphasis on political history and the history of Parliament, through the use of audio-visual displays, including ABC recordings of historical parliamentary debates playing in the parliament chambers. This will complement existing and planned exhibition activities at the House.

privately owned heritage buildings

The Commonwealth has also moved to support the conservation of heritage buildings not held in public hands. The Government's recent establishment of a Tax Incentive for Heritage Conservation will provide financial assistance for conservation to owners of heritage buildings through revenue foregone. There is a $9.5 million cap to the amount of conservation work which will be supported in a year. The rebate for approved work is 20 cents in the dollar.

Support for privately owned heritage buildings is also provided through the National Trust, which receives financial assistance from the Commonwealth for their national executive and State bodies.

urban design - our future heritage

The Commonwealth has an obligation to look to the heritage of the future in its role in urban and regional design. It is clear that urban design has a major impact on the quality of life in our towns, cities and suburbs. Cultural activities and enterprises, as well as physical design, affect the choices which people make in job and business location, retirement and travel.

In 1993, the Prime Minister announced the appointment of an Urban Design Taskforce chaired by John Mant to consider the impact of urban design and make recommendations to the Government. The Taskforce Report will be released shortly. It will concentrate on government structures, the law and the regulatory systems. It will promote innovative approaches, paying particular attention to design in areas of new urban development. It will also suggest measures by which governments can build on the positive relationship between good urban design and the potential for economic development.

In pursuing innovative programs in housing and urban design, such as Building Better Cities, the Commonwealth will provide leadership in urban and cultural development by encouraging creative, sensitive use of its heritage assets.

movable heritage

The Commonwealth will work with all levels of government to increase access to the collections which represent our diverse cultural heritage. The collections held in national, State, Territory and local museums, libraries and galleries give further meaning to Australia's history and to the place of each Australian in that history.

The major cultural institutions ensure that those things of national importance to our heritage are preserved for the benefit of all Australians.

These national institutions are responsive to changing attitudes and expectations within Australian society. Greater emphasis is being placed on ensuring that collections and exhibitions adequately represent the culture and values of diverse groups in our society. There is much more concentration on access, interpretation and education.

While the national cultural institutions each have different roles, they all have a responsibility to be leaders in their own fields. This is particularly relevant in the use of multimedia and broadband technology to improve access and understanding.

In addition to increasing access to collections, the national institutions will assist individuals and communities to preserve and present material of cultural significance in their original locations or regions. Programs such as the National Preservation Office's Community Cultural Heritage Grants Program and the National Museum of Australia's community outreach programs contribute positively to the ability of communities to document and present their own material.

As the main financial contributor to the Heritage Collections Committee, which consists of representatives of State and Territory Governments and the museum sector, the Commonwealth also supports the development of information networks on collections and national conservation standards.

gallery of aboriginal australia

The Commonwealth will work with the Government of the Australian Capital Territory to build a new facility on the East Basin Peninsula in Canberra to house a Gallery of Aboriginal Australia.

The Gallery will consist of a stand-alone building as well as outdoor display areas. In keeping with existing legislation, the Gallery will provide a national perspective on indigenous cultures, by focusing especially on contemporary heritage (urban and traditional) and its relationships to the land and sea. The Government hopes that the Gallery will be another step towards reconciliation.

There will be close consultation with peak bodies such as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) on the development of the site, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will be centrally involved in the management, interpretation and display of material in the Gallery.

australian institute of aboriginal and torres strait islander studies

The Institute was established under statute in 1989. Its purpose is to undertake and promote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies, to conduct and encourage research into indigenous culture, to train indigenous people as research workers, to establish and maintain a cultural resource collection on indigenous culture and to publish the results of indigenous studies.

The Institute holds priceless and irreplaceable collections of resource materials for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies. Many of these are held under the special custodial relationship which the Institute has with indigenous peoples. It is one of the most comprehensive collections of its type in the world.

The Institute has an active publications program, and recently published an Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture which is also available on CD-ROM. The Institute is also working in partnership with other Commonwealth heritage agencies, such as the National Museum of Australia in developing other CD-ROMs on indigenous cultural resources.

The Institute (AIATSIS) will be co-located on the Acton site in a new purpose-built site, with the Gallery which will provide a major exhibition, research and documentation centre in Canberra.

The Government believes that the Gallery of Aboriginal Australia should form part of the network of the National Museum, but considers it most appropriate that Aboriginal people themselves determine the precise nature of the relationship between those two institutions they wish to pursue.

The National Museum of Australia will continue to provide Australians with a range of static and travelling exhibitions and education programs including CD based multi-media and broadband services. The Museum aims to reach the majority of its users through audio-visual media, telecommunications technology, publications and the popular media.

The National Museum has also been developing interactive multi-media resources, electronic exhibitions and pilot information databases. It will provide national and worldwide access to information about Australia's cultural heritage to those other museums and individual users to which it is electronically linked. As a provider on INTERNET, the Museum will be accessible to 6 million computer users worldwide. It is connected both to the Canadian Heritage Information Network and the Smithsonian and other institutes.

For use in homes, schools, libraries and other museums, the National Museum is working on producing a range of CD-ROM projects including one on Australian Prime Ministers, a joint venture with the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and a Federation project with the Curriculum Corporation.

The Museum will also participate in the Australia on CD program.

national film and sound archive

The National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) preserves a priceless national collection of film and sound materials by and about Australians.

The Government will provide the Archive with funding to extend its accommodation and facilities and to refurbish its heritage-listed headquarters building.

This initiative will provide safe, secure and suitable facilities and accommodation for the NFSA, and improve access to its collection by television and film-makers, and by all Australians.

The NFSA will provide material for exhibition at Old Parliament House relating to political history and the history of Parliament. These exhibits will illustrate and enliven Australia's political and social history for the large number of visitors to the building.

our maritime heritage

The Australian National Maritime Museum is an important cultural institution which reflects Australia's maritime heritage and relationship with the sea.

The Commonwealth's Historic Shipwrecks Program, including the recent Shipwreck Amnesty, has been extremely successful in developing working partnerships between the Commonwealth and the States to preserve, document and interpret our maritime heritage.

The Western Australian Maritime Museum has international standing in the area of marine archeology, particularly through its work on pre-colonial and colonial wrecks in the waters adjacent to Western Australia, as well as the assistance it has provided to conservation of the Pandora and the Sirius. It also plays a significant role in the management and excavation of shipwrecks in South-East Asia, encouraging other national training and conservation programs.

The Government will assist the WA Maritime Museum to continue work on these projects of national significance, including collaborating with Queensland on the Pandora project, and will investigate the establishment of the Museum as a national centre of excellence in marine archeology.

In accordance with the Government's commitment to conserving objects in their original place, and, because it recognises the strong sense of regional identity often attached to objects, the Government will offer to return the yacht Australia II to the Fremantle community.

The yacht is owned by the National Museum of Australia and is currently on loan to the Australian National Maritime Museum where it has been viewed and enjoyed by many thousands of Australians.


australian national maritime museum

In 1985 the Commonwealth Government and the New South Wales Government jointly announced plans for the Commonwealth-owned National Maritime Museum to be built by the Commonwealth, on land provided by the State Government, at Darling Harbour, Sydney.

The Museum, established as a statutory authority in December 1990, has four core objectives:

Following a major evaluative review conducted during 1993-94, the Government has provided additional funding for exhibitions; interpretation of the Museum's key outdoor exhibit, the ex-Navy destroyer Vampire; and fleet maintenance. This extra funding combined with attention to priorities identified by the Government will provide a sound basis for the Museum's future development.

Increasingly the Museum's core and temporary exhibitions will be complemented by a range of user programs in regional Australia. The Museum is also seeking to establish a multi-tiered network of partnerships with kindred institutions, interested in the preservation and promotion of the nation's maritime heritage and history.

private support for cultural institutions

Museums and other heritage institutions have traditionally relied on support from individuals and, more recently, the corporate sector to extend their collections.

The Government has provided an incentive to contribute through the Taxation Incentives for the Arts Scheme (TIA), which operates under section 78(1)(aa) and related sections of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936, and encourages donations of significant cultural items to public libraries, museums and art galleries by offering donors a tax concession.

The Bequests Program, a Distinctly Australian initiative, was introduced as a supplement to the TIA Scheme to encourage private collectors to bequeath significant works and collections to the nation through tax benefits applied to their estates.

keeping our heritage at home

The Government fulfils its international obligations to protect movable cultural heritage through the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986. This controls the export of the most significant aspects of Australia's movable cultural heritage, and temporary import for exhibition purposes of outstanding items of other cultures. The legislation enables Australia to assist in returning the cultural property of other nations illegally imported into this country. The Act also emphasises the protection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage by ensuring that sacred and secret objects cannot be exported.

aboriginal and torres strait islander heritage cultural property

The Government will fully support indigenous people in their efforts to retain their material, intellectual and spiritual heritage.

In the context of indigenous culture, the safeguarding of custodial rights is essential. Over many years, cultural material belonging to indigenous people has been removed and placed in museums and private collections in Australia and overseas. The material often formed the basis of academic research and displays intended for non-Aboriginal people.

There is a conviction in Aboriginal communities that the process of returning material in accordance with their wishes should be completed. The return of this material and the rebuilding of connections between indigenous people and their land and cultural property is part of the reconciliation process. To assist, partnerships are being developed between the Commonwealth, institutions holding collections and relevant communities through the Return of Cultural Property Program.

Museums are involving Aboriginal communities to find the most appropriate treatment of the cultural property remaining in their custody. The Commonwealth gives a high priority to the development and promotion of training programs for the management, interpretation and display of cultural material in Aboriginal keeping places.

In order to improve the knowledge and appreciation of indigenous cultural property, and to provide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with access to information on material held in institutions, the Government will investigate the creation of a database of this material. Cultural mapping methodologies and information currently held by the institutions, including the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, will be used to make a comprehensive record of the material culture, history, beliefs, and languages of particular regions.

As part of this project and with the agreement of relevant communities, oral histories, genealogical data and photographic material will be copied onto CD-ROM or similar technologies and be accessible, where appropriate, to all Australians.

indigenous cultural heritage protection

Australian rock art sites are some of the most ancient and beautiful in the world. Unfortunately in many instances, sites have been degraded by uncontrolled public access.

Distinctly Australian introduced a pilot program to protect these sites by providing essential basic site management tools and a strategic plan for the management and use of sites. The Australian Heritage Commission will continue to work with communities and regional and State authorities to document and develop site management plans for Aboriginal cultural sites.

Through the Australian Nature Conservation Agency's Contract Employment Program for Aboriginals in Natural and Cultural Resource Management, support is also given for the employment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in natural and cultural heritage management. Relevant government and non-government agencies receive seeding grants for projects including site identification, interpretation and management.

intangible heritage

The Commonwealth believes it is important to preserve and present Australia's intangible cultural heritage - our heritage of ideas, values and language. This may be oral and family history; ritual and ceremony; folklife; popular culture; and other grass roots expressions of community identity, diversity and celebration. Organisations like the Australian Folk Trust, which receives Commonwealth government support, have played a key role in broadening our awareness of intangible cultural heritage.

For indigenous Australians, their relationships with the physical landscape, their sacred and ordinary possessions and their spiritual and intangible heritage are central to their culture. The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies has played a crucial role in recording and preserving this intangible heritage.

The identification and documentation of the social, religious and political traditions of Australia, which include indigenous and multicultural experiences, are important. They enable the community to explore and re-interpret the values and beliefs which constitute contemporary social life. This is particularly important in the lead-up to the Centenary of Federation in the year 2001. Celebration of occasions such as Australia Day contribute to Australians' sense of pride and unity. The Commonwealth will continue to support the National Australia Day Council to coordinate and extend national Australia Day activities.

national australia day council

The National Australia Day Council (NADC) coordinates national Australia Day activities and contributes to the development of national pride. The Council is a non-profit public interest company limited by guarantee in November 1990.The State and Territory Australia Day councils and committees are autonomous bodies which liaise with the NADC to form a nationwide Australia Day network.


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