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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 4468 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The place remains on the interim Heritage Places Register as part of the Red Hill heritage precinct, however, which means that there is some impact of that listing on the garden, although it is not perhaps as intense or as direct as it was for the listing originally in 1993. The problem with the garden is that, unlike, say, a building or an object, gardens can very quickly deteriorate. Mr Moore, I am sure, will be aware that, if he happens to be busy in the Assembly for three or four weeks in the warmer months of the year, his garden pretty quickly deteriorates and goes to pot. My garden at the moment is a very good - - -

Mr Moore: Your garden goes to pot, does it?

MR HUMPHRIES: Perhaps with Mr Moore's garden that is not such an inappropriate suggestion. I withdraw any suggestion of illegality or drug use, Mr Speaker. This highlights a problem we have at the moment, which is that a heritage place such as a garden, whose values are the design, intrinsic layout and maintenance of the garden, can easily deteriorate if there is no requirement on a person to maintain it at a particular level. This is the same for any heritage garden in the ACT. It is the fact that the garden at Red Hill has run down. The owners, for whatever reason, did not maintain it at the level maintained by Sir Harold and Lady White. The result is that the Heritage Council did not hesitate to remove it from the list. That is, I think, extremely sad. The council is liaising closely with the National Trust, the Garden History Association and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects to develop an approach to the registration and documentation of heritage gardens that I hope will be workable and realistic; but the fact is that it cannot force garden owners to maintain the garden in a certain way.

Perhaps the answer to this problem is one that we here in the Assembly should be looking at. Perhaps the answer in managing heritage places in the ACT is to provide some incentives for private owners of gardens that are listed to maintain those gardens. For example, the suggestion has been made to me informally by members of the Heritage Council - and I am very seriously considering the suggestion - that we should provide a rebate on the water rates of heritage-listed gardens, to encourage those who have such gardens not to stint on the watering of the gardens and with the money they save from that perhaps to invest in maintenance of the gardens. Ultimately, unless we actually acquire the property and manage it ourselves - an attempt was made to do that, I understand, when the garden was sold a few years ago - it is impossible to maintain the gardens.

Mr Speaker, I regret very much that there has been a decline necessitating the removal of the garden from the list. Just to reassure Mr Moore slightly, I understand that the proposal which has been put forward or at least mooted in respect of the garden is not for a multidwelling development; it is for a single residence. That may or may not be reassuring to Mr Moore.

MR MOORE: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. I presume that it is Mr Humphries's joint that actually goes to grass rather than to pot. Mr Humphries, you mentioned providing incentives. In order to ensure that people actually have faith in the protection of the heritage register and the whole process, can you tell us when you will make a statement about the issue of incentives for people to whom we are giving that responsibility? I probably should declare some interest because I have a house in a heritage area which has a garden such as that we are talking about.

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