Page 1398 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 April 2019
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summer exhibitions. Jobs were lost and programs and exhibitions were cancelled. Unfortunately, this was just the beginning.
In the 2015-16 MYEFO, the Turnbull government announced that it would impose an additional efficiency dividend on the cultural agencies within the communications and arts portfolio. The Chief Minister has clearly articulated why this creates such a particular challenge for cultural institutions. It is in large part because of this legacy of conservative government cuts that the decision to award the Australian War Memorial almost half a billion dollars does sit uncomfortably with many Canberrans.
The people I represent are not mugs. They have seen the damage inflicted on our museums and galleries. They know people who have lost their jobs. The federal Liberal government could adequately fund all of our superb cultural institutions and they could invest in new ones, such as a dedicated keeping place for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander objects, histories and cultures, or a dignified place to remember and reflect on the stories that came out of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
The ACT Labor government welcomes new investment in our city, our national capital, and that includes extending the War Memorial. Like many in our community, however, I am not convinced of the need to demolish the award-winning Anzac Hall, which is less than 20 years old. It is important to note that the campaign to save Anzac Hall is not a campaign against the War Memorial or its expansion. To quote the Australian Institute of Architects:
As architects we are passionate about preserving Australia’s heritage and honouring our national history, nowhere more so than the extraordinary service and sacrifice of the servicemen and women.
That’s why Anzac Hall was designed with such care and sensitivity to the highest standards of design excellence, an effort recognised when it was selected above any other piece of public architecture to receive the Sir Zelman Cowen Award … It is incomprehensible that in planning what would otherwise be such a welcome extension at the War Memorial, so little regard has been shown for the cultural significance of Anzac Hall, which is a national landmark and much-loved exhibition space.
As the Chief Minister’s amendment indicates, I look forward to the opportunity for the ACT government to engage with the incoming federal government on both the War Memorial expansion and the plans that have been put forward by other cultural institutions.
Madam Speaker, we debate this issue with great urgency today. Our national cultural institutions and collections, which we all own, are under threat. Film is decaying and precious objects are being held in ageing, inadequate facilities, putting our history at risk due to a lack of leadership to support our cultural heritage. Staff have left our community and taken their experience and expertise elsewhere, leaving those who remain to work all the harder in the jobs they are so passionate about. We are all poorer because of this loss of talent.
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