1999 State Heritage Convention Report

CONTENTS    1. Forward    2. Executive Summary    3. Conference Introductory Address    4. Welcome on Behalf of Traditional Landowners    5. Official Opening    6. Keynote Addresses:             -  Heritage - The Way Forward             -  An Investment in Time             -  Working Together    7. Heritage Principles    8. Heritage Standards    9. Topical Workshops    10. Ombudsman's Report    11. Convention Program    12. Attendance List    13. Biographical Notes

INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS

HERITAGE AND HERITAGES

by Professor David Dolan Director, Research Institute for Cultural Heritage, Curtin University;

This gathering has been organised by the National Trust of Australia (WA) with several interlinked ambitions, including working towards a State heritage strategy, and assisting the current Federal effort to develop a unified system of identifying and managing heritage places of natural indigenous, and non-indigenous cultural significance. In pursuit of these aims we have been urged (on the initial announcement brochure) "to be controversial, diverse, dynamic".

This State heritage convention has been consciously organised as part of a series of events including a national heritage convention held in Canberra in August 1998. This was attended by representatives of various heritage organisations and bureaucracies from around the country, but presumably due to constraints on size, failed to include or represent some major non-bureaucratic stakeholders. It is also, inevitably though unofficially and apparently far less self-consciously, part of another less formal sequence or series of events. This is a reference to the researches and debates which have been going on all around the world, including in Australia (in such places as our own Research Institute for Cultural Heritage here in Perth) in an effort to understand not just the pluralism and diversity of heritage, but that heritage is frequently the focus of political contestation and is often dissonant and divisive rather than a unifying force.

Examples of dissonant or contested heritage include South Africa, the Balkans and parts of Central Asia today, Spain during its Civil War, or closer to home the Swan Brewery or Rottnest Island here in Western Australia. On this issue the best sources are Dissonant Heritage (1996) by two Canadians, G. Ashworth and John Tunbridge who was a visiting fellow at Curtin University in 1995; or Contested Urban Heritage (1997) edited by Roy Jones and B. Shaw, both of Perth.

Indigenous cultures have for millennia expressed embodied and cared for what has lately come to be called their heritage. However, in its early European manifestations, such as in France where heritage protection legislation first appeared in the 1840s (no wonder they now have millions of tourists annually putting billions of dollars into their economy), heritage or patrimoine was generally deeply associated with nationalism. We have become increasingly aware of the dangerous side of nationalism, but the heritage-nationalism link is still strong, particularly in Australia. The term appears in the phrase "National Estate" which survives in the title of the Register maintained by the Australian Heritage Commission, and the sentiment is there in almost all the political debate and rhetoric.

Of course, not everything which is done at the national level, (in the political sense of the administration of the whole country, as opposed to the regional or State level), is lumbered with all the problems of Nationalism. While there may be a few theoretical problems with the idea of a National Heritage Strategy, it is probably agreed that it would be a great step forward for Australia. It is something we want to achieve, not sabotage. But to achieve a workable National Heritage Strategy, and also to achieve integrated administrative approach to heritage if that is possible, we have to face reality, rather than brush complicating issues under the carpet for the sake of a quick result. It will be difficult, but possible through hard work, to set up a unified or integrated administrative approach to heritage, and give it a try. I am not so sure we are on the right track to setting up an integrated system of uniform standards that will really work well. Nor is it unarguably desirable-- to some it smacks of assimilationism to bring indigenous cultural places under the umbrella of "heritage" which as generally understood is a western, indeed European, notion.

We have been told our discussion must be controversial, diverse and dynamic, if we are to achieve anything of lasting value or validity here. In this spirit, I am using this brief introductory and welcoming address to raise some issues, which will have to be faced sooner or later. It is certain that they are in the minds of many of us here, but on the basis of the document Key Outcomes (from the 1998 Canberra convention) and the associated website there is no evidence that they have been taken into account in the bureaucratic processes.

From the official documentation, one could conclude that at the political level, understanding has not progressed far beyond where it was in the bicentennial year 1988 when there was a lot of talk about "our" nation and heritage, but a lot of people offended and feeling left out. Awareness of the political, contested, occasionally dissonant and divisive potential of heritage may be in some of our heads, it may be in government reports which have not been made public, or in the minutes of the Australian Heritage Commission, but it is invisible in public documentation such as that for the 1998 Canberra convention. On all the evidence, the basic issues were never addressed, with the agenda jumping blithely straight to a process of reconsidering and developing an administrative comparandum and framework already developed by consultants for Heritage Victoria.

For much of the 20th century, some of the best scientific minds were devoted to for GUTs: the unfortunate acronym for Grand Unifying Theories, which would unite electricity and magnetism and gravity. From time to time we have heard that a GUT is within reach, but we are still waiting and the coming century will surely see this search either successful or finally abandoned as a mirage. The heritage bureaucracies in Australia today, against the general direction of the rest of the world, are now searching for a GUT of heritage. And (to invent a term) for a GUS: a Grand Unifying System.

I have already said that a GUS in the form of an integrated administrative approach to heritage could be a great improvement on what we have had in the past in this multi-jurisdictional country. But can it be achieved and made to work-- that is the hard part-- if it is not soundly based? Based, that is, on awareness of the true complexity and contradictoriness of heritage. Heritage is not really a singular noun, nor just plural, but collective. It means many different, often conflicting, things to different people and groups in the community, and to different individuals within what are often regarded as communities of interest.

If the push towards an integrated administrative approach to heritage and a National Heritage Strategy was starting now, and real consultation was taking place on how to go about it, a logical suggestion might be to debate the issues first. For example, can uniform standards address the Waugul/Swan Brewery site where indigenous culture sees as an intrusive element a building, which is listed on the State Register in its own right in terms of non-indigenous heritage values? However, the consultation is happening now-- this is part of it-- with the push well underway, positions announced if not irreversible, but no evidence that the complexities have been fully addressed-- or can be without lots of backtracking.

It is widely believed that the push for an integrated administrative approach to heritage comes from the Federal Minister, Senator Robert Hill, and he is to be commended. It is the job of heritage bureaucrats to try to deliver, and the job of researchers and scholars to try to help through elucidating issues. At her farewell appearance at the National Press Club, Wendy McCarthy, former Chair of the Australian Heritage Commission, estimated that the window of political opportunity for a National Heritage Strategy was about a year. That was almost exactly a year ago, so we can't afford to lose time. How can we expedite the process from this point, without resorting to the cliched gesture of putting heads in the sand and refusing to see the complexities?

The structured program of this convention, like that of the larger bureaucratic process of which it is part, unfortunately does not allow for canvassing the broad theoretical issues in the light of international experience. We are jumping right in, to the local and the specific; and we will all have to put the bits together for ourselves. This will be no mean task, so we must wish the speakers well, and aim to proceed together in the utmost goodwill. In saying welcome, starting discussion, and introducing the first keynote speaker Mr Adrian Fini, Managing Director of the Fini Group, Western Australia's most respected developers, I urge that as we try to move towards broad united approaches to Heritage, we all, speakers and listeners, constantly remember that Heritage can be contentious, is not always unifying but sometimes divisive,-- not just heritage but heritages, not just three sorts, but multiple.