Legislative Council, Wednesday 23 October 2024

Ms FORREST (Murchison) - In speaking to the Historic Cultural Heritage Amendment Bill, I note my support for it and also note the member for Hobart also alluded to this relates to European heritage and it is important to make that distinction. We have separate legislation relating to Aboriginal heritage. I will contain my comments to the bill before us and the matters related to the European heritage.

We in Tasmania tend to take some of our beautiful heritage-listed buildings for granted; we do not possibly even see them a lot of the time. It is not a criticism of the people of Tasmania generally, but sometimes it is not until you lose something you realise the preciousness of it. The member for Hobart was right talking about some of the fights to save buildings from demolition because they are, in the way, old or tired looking. For some, the heritage value is in the eye of the beholder.

I have had numerous discussions with people about what constitutes a heritage-listed property and that it is not always the fact that it is old; it could be that. I believe the member for Hobart talked about this with the Wrest Point Casino, which is unique for its time or it has particular attributes that makes it worthy of listing on the Heritage Register. She also talked about the Goods Shed at Macquarie Point. For many it was 'just an old shed, what are we worried about', but there are significant heritage components of that and sometimes it is not the whole building, it is an aspect of that building that may be the fact here.

I am not sure, maybe the member for McIntyre or Rosevears, or someone, can tell me whether or not Henty House is actually listed?

Ms Armitage - It is. It is called Brutalist.

Ms FORREST - I know it is Brutalist.

Ms Armitage - Yes, that is the listing.

Ms FORREST - I was going to make that point. This comes back to my point of beauty or value being in the eye of the beholder, because most would say that is not an overly attractive building. It is of an era and a lot of people think it perhaps would be better removed, but it is not going to be removed. There are many buildings some people feel may not be attractive in the sense that they look beautiful, but for other people they would think that is an entirely beautiful building and love the Brutalist architecture. There is a whole range - there is Art Deco, there is Brutalist, there is Georgian; I could go on. Different people have affections for different styles of architecture and different buildings.

Many of us would remember the interesting debate in the good old Hobart Town around the red awnings on the building just up in Murray Street. That took on an absolute life of its own. The red awnings are still there looking slightly pink these days after being faded by the sun. In any event, people do take the heritage of some - particularly older buildings - very seriously and rightly fight to protect some of these buildings.

I will relate some of the comments the member for Hobart made in that the heritage value is not just necessarily that individual building. It can be the street it is in. We also have heritage-listed trees and things like that because they are important for the context and history of the place in which they stand - acknowledging that sometimes those trees die, because all living things will die eventually.

There is a provision in the bill, and I know it is mostly a bill to tidy up things overlooked in previous amendments or were not apparent at the time of the amending bills in 2014 and 2019 but where it says: [tbc 11.44]

To allow the Tasmanian Heritage Council to take a more holistic approach to assessing impacts of heritage significance, it is proposed that the Tasmanian Heritage Council be authorised to consider the broader impacts that works to one heritage place has on the adjacent Tasmanian Heritage Register places. This will address the current situation whereby the impact of works on one terrace house to an adjacent role of individually listed terraced houses cannot be considered under current provisions.

Mr President, you might have a list of terrace houses, to use this example, and it could be four, five, six terrace houses and next door you have a building not heritage listed and not currently in keeping. It has already been approved and has been there for 10 to 20 years, whatever, and as work is proposed on that, I do not believe - I am happy to be corrected if I am wrong here - the work to be undertaken on that property which is not heritage listed is required to consider the heritage of the neighbouring heritage properties, because they could be right next to each other or even over the road if it is a streetscape we are looking at as well.

Mrs Hiscutt - Through you Mr President, there is no requirement.

Ms FORREST - That is problematic. Okay, it is problematic. I have had some experience in this. I will declare that. You have got beautiful old sandstone cottages, terraces or tiny cottages and you see this in Battery Point everywhere, for example, and right next door you have got a building that is anything but sympathetic to the heritage of the area and the heritage of neighbouring properties and they are right up together like that. Their boundaries are common and so building can be approved right up to the boundary of the heritage listed property and the non heritage listed property does not have to consider the heritage of these. To me, that seems wrong because it can completely overshadow those heritage buildings. If you look around Battery Point, they are usually low buildings and so you can build this monstrosity beside it.

Mr PRESIDENT - Empress Towers.

Ms FORREST - Empress Towers, yes well, we could talk about Empress Towers. I think that is a good example of why you only do it once and then you realise the errors of your ways. I am not talking about Empress Towers here, Mr President, I am talking about other buildings being right next door and they are right next door. I am sure Empress Towers is next to a number of heritage-listed properties up there. If you look at Arthur Circus, they are all little tiny little cottages around there and if there is a non heritage listed property right next to it for example, that was able to build another two storeys on top without consideration to the heritage of those little cottages in Arthur Circus, for example, to me that would be fundamentally wrong. If you are building an extension or a new building adjacent to or very near heritage properties that have a heritage area like in that sort of area where there is a lot of heritage properties, there should be a requirement to be sympathetic to the heritage of the area.

I think it is a bit of a gap. If I am correct in that, and I think I might be, it would be something that I would encourage the government to have a look at to ensure that these heritage buildings are not overshadowed, particularly the little cottages and the little buildings. If you want to do an extension or some major work or minor work for that matter on a little heritage listed cottage in these areas you have to go to extensive lengths to ensure that the heritage value is respected and that the works do not undermine that. I know that works can be very slowed down to enable those places to unfold because sometimes when you are working on one of those little old places you lift up the floorboards and think, 'oh'.

Ms Rattray - There is nothing there.

Ms FORREST - Well there could be something there -

Ms Rattray -or nothing.

Ms FORREST - and that is the point, so all work stops while you call the archaeologists in and they go through with a sieve and a spoon to see what is there because there can be not much in the way of foundations perhaps, but there could be a whole heap of other stuff under there and so the works on these, and rightly so, I am not saying that should not happen, I am saying what happens to the house next door can be completely undermining of the heritage of the little cottage that maybe this work is being done on, concurrently even.

To go to the point that was raised by the member for McIntyre and also by the member for Hobart with the change from an exemption to a - I have forgotten the actual name of it.

Ms Rattray - Minor works

Ms FORREST - Minor works permit, I think was the word, was it not, approval? I understand that it is better to have an approval for works rather than exemption against them. We should always avoid exemptions in my view in this sort of process because if you are going to issue exemptions, there is always the question 'does it comply'? You have got an exemption, but does the work that is done then comply with the law and the legislation so that if you do want to sell the property that it is clear that it is approved works. I think it is important to be really clear about that process to not say 'well, we are going to give you an approval even though you have done the wrong thing here,' that there are also provisions in that.

We talked about this in the briefing a couple of weeks ago about make-good provisions and things like that. If someone started - maybe through ignorance, it is not always deliberate, but sometimes it is deliberate - works on a heritage-listed property, maybe the owner did not realise they had to get special permission or heritage approval for it. Some things cannot be undone. If you have already knocked down the wall, you can rebuild it to look the same but it is not the same. If you have knocked out a major wall in a building or something like that, it is hard to reinstate it. What make-good provisions are there that are required to actually achieve an approval? That might be considered major work - if you knock out a wall or knock down an external wall or something like that.

We need to be really clear that we will not condone bad behaviour here. We are not going to condone and retrospectively say 'alright then, here is your approval'. I would hope that approval would only be issued with appropriate make-good provisions where an aspect of heritage may have been destroyed. This can be like taking out old fireplaces in buildings and things like that, which are integral to the story of the property. It does not mean you have to have an actively working fireplace, but you should maintain the mantelpiece and the actual structure may be really important to the heritage story of that property.

I also note the time frame difference. The members for McIntyre and Hobart have asked questions about that. I do think it is important to have those emergency provisions, because if you become aware of someone who has the digger out there and are about to start, if you can put an emergency stop order on that, you could prevent that demolition. We saw this some years ago, from memory. There was a property somewhere in Hobart where the fence wall had been knocked down and they were about to start into the rest of the property but were stopped at that point. As my memory goes, I could be wrong about that, but there was a delay because it was not sure the power or time frame was there.

These are mostly tidying-up important areas that have perhaps been overlooked. I would like the Leader to feed back on a couple of those points raised, but overall, I support the legislation.