Page 1199 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 24 April 1990
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the main emphasis of the Alliance Government's heritage policy relates to its tourist potential. I think that that scarcely does justice to the issue that we are debating and it draws attention to the paucity of their knowledge of and their sensitivity to these issues.
There is one statement in the Alliance Government's policy on heritage that is worthy of note - just the one. That is their written commitment to consult the community on matters of heritage. That is an historic statement in itself and I think, if such consultation were to be undertaken by the Kaine Government, it would be extremely significant. It would be a first for this Government to actually ask the people of Canberra what they think. So there is some history in the document but it relates to the consultation and their stated intention to consult on this matter. Of course, we know that we have yet to see them consult on any other matter. I trust that they will do so.
One of the most important areas of ACT heritage, which I think is often overlooked, is the industrial heritage of this area. That is the particular focus of ACT Heritage Week for this year. It is an area that the Alliance Government has been notably silent upon and has remained silent upon, although we have had the benefit of the Chief Minister's little history lesson. It is an issue that has been overlooked in the ACT and, in fact, to most outsiders Canberra has been identified as a white-collar city - a city of pen-pushers. Underneath that superficial image the real history of the ACT is quite different.
I think it is a very great shame that the public knows so very little of the lives and lifestyles of the ordinary working people of this region. To go back to the Aboriginal history of the ACT area, as I say, we know very little of the Aboriginal settlers here and the industrial heritage that they have left to us. What do we know about their canoe making? We have evidence that it took place. What do we know about those axe grinding stones in Namadgi National Park? We know that they are there, and that is about it. The true relevance of those industrial objects, that industrial heritage, is not widely known and is certainly not known to the Canberra public.
Nor do we know a great deal about the significance of migration in the ACT. The waves of migration that took place from the early 1950s onwards and the objects that those people brought with them, the history that they brought with them, are very little appreciated in the ACT yet they have contributed enormously to our city. I think it is time that we did pay far more attention to the lives and lifestyles of ordinary working people in our appreciation of what constitutes heritage.
It is all too easy, and in fact it verges on the obvious, to protect places like Lanyon, Lambrigg, Calthorpes' House and Government House, but it is very much more difficult to protect the evidence of those ordinary working people. The
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