Ray Tonkin speech - "Thirty years in harness"
Ray Tonkin was Executive Director of Heritage Victoria for over 30 years. He retired in June 2009. This is his farewell speech - a reflection on 30 years of heritage conservation.
His speech is the inaugural Heritage Council address, which the council hopes will be a yearly event, reflecting on issues pertinent to heritage in Victoria.
I hope that this presentation is not seen simply as a bit of Tonkin indulgence.
After 30 years working for the state government in its heritage conservation operations (with the occasional time out) I have seen quite remarkable changes in policies, processes, attitudes and relationships.
It is a good opportunity to reflect on what has happened in those 30 odd years. Not so much about me, but more about the processes that have evolved for heritage conservation, the players and how they have played and the broader attitudes of the community.
This presentation is constructed in 3 parts.
First of all I will skip through a series of illustrations which have marked the progress of heritage conservation over the past thirty years.
Then I have constructed the paper around a number of themes. Namely;
- Growth of interest in heritage issues
- Changing nature and definition of heritage
- Processes for decision making
- Growth of professionalism
Finally I will indulge myself and offer predictions and observations as to what the future milestones will be.
First of all the images of milestones.
Growth of interest
In 1974 the Victorian Parliament passed a piece of ground breaking legislation, the Historic Buildings Act. This was the first time in Australia that there had been legislation specifically designed to control the future of private property for heritage reasons. It wasn’t the first piece of legislation in Victoria that set out to achieve heritage identification and conservation. The Archaelogical and Aboriginal Relics Preservation Act and the Government Buildings Act had done so from 1972 and the Town and Country Planning Act had been specifically amended in that year to make the conservation of historic places possible as part of the operation of planning schemes.
So the Historic Buildings Preservation Council (HBPC) and its small administrative support arm set sail in 1975 with what they, and the government saw as an important but relatively constrained role.
Within a couple of months it was clear that there were communities and local government authorities which saw this as an opportunity to pursue their ambitions for the conservation of urban environments and places. The HBPC was inundated with nominations to add places to the new register. So, from day one the implementation of the heritage legislation was chasing its tail.
The initial Historic Buildings Register contained 370 places (virtually all buildings constructed in the nineteenth century).
By 2009 the Victorian Heritage Register supports over 2000 places (being a mixture of buildings, landscapes, shipwrecks, objects, trees, etc), the Heritage Inventory of historic archaeological places contains 7500 entries (this grew out of a piece of legislation primarily designed to protect aboriginal archaeological sites) and there are well over 100,000 properties throughout the state identified in planning schemes.
Heritage Victoria has a staff of 50 – 60 and is a reasonably sophisticated operation, acknowledged as an important arm of government in Victoria and, with a good reputation in the community for providing an important government service.
No attempt by dark forces in government to circumscribe community interest by restricting resources to HV and other heritage operations has succeeded. The community has become increasingly attached to its heritage places and individuals and groups (including local government) invest considerable resources in planning and other forums arguing for preservation and conservation. If in 1978 I had suggested to a number of municipalities that within 30 years they would be spending well over $100,000 pa each for specialist heritage advice they would have laughed at me.
Commensurate with this has come the growth of a healthy and productive private sector, consulting to a property development sector that willingly seeks advice and sees it as part of the normal manner of good planning and development facilitation.
Thirty years ago none of us anticipated this growth of interest or engagement and it would be fair to say that it has been difficult to meet the demand and sustain an agenda of innovation and change in an area that by its very nature is conservative and resistant to change. Several of the themes I identify in this presentation are underpinned by this inherent conservatism and as I will indicate later the future of heritage conservation in this country will rely on some of those barriers being broken down.
Changing nature and definition of heritage
In the beginning in Victoria heritage was seen to be nineteenth century buildings and archaeological relics (including shipwrecks and their associated relics). This was reflected in the names of the first pieces of legislation;
- Archaeological and Aboriginal Relics Preservation Act 1972
- Government Buildings Act 1972
- Historic Buildings Act 1974
- Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976
At the federal level it was seen somewhat differently with the Whitlam government establishing a committee of inquiry into something called The National Estate. This committee recommended the drafting of the Australian Heritage Commission Act which was passed in 1975. For them heritage encompassed places of importance to indigenous communities, places of natural significance, and places of historic importance.
It would be fair to say that even this broader definition had its limitations. Its approach to landscapes was unclear, it didn’t encompass movable objects (they got their own legislation in 1986), it didn’t encompass heritage collections and it definitely didn’t attempt to deal with intangible heritage.
The term heritage was subsequently used by legislation in NSW and SA which followed the federal government’s lead.
In Victoria the gazettal of amendment 224 to the Melbourne and Metropolitan Planning Scheme in 1984 was a key to the broadening of the definition of heritage and a key move toward providing communities and municipalities with the capacity to identify and protect their heritage places.
In Victoria heritage officially remained historic buildings and archaeological relics until 1995 when the current Heritage Act was passed. Despite that the term heritage was in general use from the 1980s and the administrative arm of the HB Act was known as the Heritage Branch from 1980 and the Historic Buildings Council had been happy to extend the definitions established by legislation to their limits.
An important step had been the publication of Graeme Davison’s (the Chair of the HBC) “What Makes a Building Historic”. This was a stake in the ground and not only gave the profession of public historian a boost in the arm, but importantly made it clear that Victoria’s heritage did not need to be only measured in terms of architectural style.
Another move in this regard was the launching of a prosecution against David Marriner when he removed the original Walter Withers murals from the western district homestead Purrumbete. David was somewhat perplexed by this action, especially since the Manifolds had some years previously removed and sold another Withers mural painting from the homestead. However, regardless of what had previously been ignored by the HBPC times had changed and there was a desire to assert a broader definition as to what constituted heritage.
Equally the listing of the Bow Truss building in Geelong and the subsequent battle to save it and the listing of the first modern office building, the former ICI building in East Melbourne re-affirmed that Victoria’s heritage was more than pretty nineteenth century buildings. The listing of Ned Kelly’s father’s house at Beveridge was another example of this move. Of course this was not the end of Ned Kelly and his part in the definition of Victoria’s cultural heritage.
Perhaps the listing of Waverley Park, under the provisions of the 1995 Act was an event which made the strongest public statement that heritage had long moved away from a pre-occupation with attractive nineteenth century buildings. The nomination and this listing was as much about the intangible as the built fabric.
All of this of course did not alleviate the concerns of historians, museum curators and indigenous communities who rightly saw heritage as more than buildings and relics.
The passage of the 1995 Act was a watershed in a number of ways. However, its broadening of the definition of heritage and the subsequent amendments to the Act have enabled the notion of heritage as identified through the Victorian Heritage Register to be more encompassing.
A good example of this has been the recent management of issues surrounding the remains of executed prisoners at Pentridge. And of course the great public attraction that that issue has provided, yet again with Ned Kelly. It isn’t over yet.
Despite this, it doesn’t integrate the identification and management of indigenous heritage. There is an Aboriginal Heritage Act and Aboriginal Heritage Council, it doesn’t deal with matters related to natural heritage. That, unfortunately remains focussed on public land management with some limited involvement of the planning system as it relates to freehold property. Of course it doesn’t deal at all with intangible heritage.
Making decisions
An overriding theme in the development of heritage conservation has been “decision making” or more precisely “who is properly equipped to make heritage decisions”. In the late 1950s and 60s it was certainly a select group of members of the National Trust. This select group were well educated in architecture and the arts. By the 1970s the Trust’s Survey and Identification Committee was the pre eminent body and it remained dominated by educated and erudite men (and the occasional woman).
The role of this committee was so central to heritage conservation in Victoria that a similar body was written into the Historic Buildings Act 1974. The Classifications Sub-Committee of the Historic Buildings Preservation Council was formed by the Act and had prescribed members drawn from the Council. It was not surprising that the Trust’s committee and this committee had a number of common members, or at least members who at various times served on both.
So, for at least 25 years heritage decisions, that is; what should be added to lists and what should happen to those places were taken by a very select group of people in the community generally with a particular view of what was important and how it needed to be managed.
Of course the early pieces of legislation ensured that the political arm of government retained a strong control, with the identification of heritage places remaining the ultimate prerogative of the relevant Minister (this remains the case in most other states). They also assumed that conservation decisions would be relatively constrained.
In Victoria this changed with the decisions of the Historic Buildings Preservation Council over the Rialto building and the site that is now known as No 1 Collins St. It would be fair to say that these decisions were instrumental in the passage of the 1981 Act with its tighter political control and subsequently the 1983 amendments, by the Cain Labor Government to ease that control.
The notion that such decisions could be taken by a broader selection of members of the community or by administrators acting within parameters established by a broader community of interest was inconceivable. Heritage was an elite activity.
Changes to legislation in the 1980s and the growth of heritage protection regimes at local government changed that. By 1996 when the Historic Buildings Act was replaced with the Heritage Act the Historic Buildings Council had a much broader and more diverse range of expertise than had been envisaged in the 1970s. The same went for decisions on what should be permitted to happen to places and in many of those cases decisions were delegated to bureaucrats working in the Heritage Branch.
At the local level municipal councillors with very little professional expertise were entrusted with these decisions and in many cases they also delegated decisions to Council officers. It was at this point that the availability of good heritage advice to local government became so important and the expansion of the heritage advisor program was vital to ensuring that this advice was available. This program, of course has its critics and its rocky patches, but has generally provided councils and communities with a good service.
This was an appropriate regime if you accepted that Victoria’s cultural heritage consisted of far more than a select group of architectural monuments.
The notion that conservation was different to preservation and restoration was also not well understood and it was the promulgation of the original Burra Charter in 1979 that so importantly defined terms and established principles for the conservation of Australia’s heritage places.
A peculiar feature of the Victorian heritage protection regime had been the separate arrangements put in place for government property. The Government Buildings Act of 1972 had set up separate processes and even though that Act was repealed in 1983, separate arrangements stayed in place until the 1995 Heritage Act. Of course the view that the government shouldn’t control its own activities was translated into the administration of the Planning and Environment Act in 1987 giving the Ministers for Education, Health and Conservation with exemptions from any planning controls, including heritage overlays. This is currently playing out yet again with government school building works emanating from the federal government’s education funding being exempt from having to obtain any form of planning approval.
This situation came to a head with the de-commissioning of Willsmere. As a government health facility there was a view from the health bureaucrats that this grand landmark could or should be wiped from the landscape, if for no other reason than to maximise a financial return to the Victorian Government. This isn’t the time to enter into a dissertation on all the moves in this saga other than to say that a change of attitude from senior officers of the Office of Major Projects and a sympathetic developer ensured that the physical form of this place remains dominant on the Melbourne landscape.
Of course the Heritage Act 1995 pushed these decision making powers even further into the realm of administrative decisions and left the policy advice and the review of decisions with the Heritage Council. In some senses this was the most radical and courageous feature of that legislation.
At the local level many decisions were taken at a local administrative level under the provisions of the Planning and Environment Act, but were open to review by Planning Panels Victoria, (which has established its own specialist heritage group) or VCAT. Whilst in most instances this lead to more efficient decision making, the massive growth of the heritage estate and the tendency of some councils to keep the decision making close to their “political chests” has resulted in those councils gaining a poor reputation for effective and efficient decision making.
It must be said, however, that this trend to heritage conservation as an administrative process remains contentious in some circles. There are some people who still believe that a poor piece of evidence from an “expert heritage consultant” at VCAT is always superior to a decision by a local council planning officer or that decisions by bureaucrats at Heritage Victoria could never be better than decisions by the appointed experts sitting on Heritage Council.
My point is that this debate about where decisions can be appropriately taken has been a major and unfortunate interference in the progress of heritage conservation as an area of public policy that impacts on all Victorians. I am firmly of the view that truly administrative decisions should be taken at an administrative level and that the politicians should protect their role as policy makers by not engaging in minor administrative processes.
Despite that, the balance is now firmly on the side of the community and it is difficult to equate the decision making practices of 2009 with the processes in place in 1974.
Professionalism
Heritage conservation started as a hobby for many people. Whilst it was born out of a serious concern for the future of Australia’s built environment the effort that went into the establishment of the National Trust, for example, was largely voluntary and a part time interest for those people, who had more important mainstream occupations. Inevitably this interest became more and more engaging and there was a level of resentment towards the new colts who started getting paid for their efforts and who in turn started questioning the methods and techniques of the voluntary pioneers.
I must admit that when I started in the industry I did think that I was lucky to be able to translate my part time interest or hobby into a paid job.
Within the built environment professions this resentment of the professionalisation of heritage conservation has largely dissipated. The growth of Australia ICOMOS and the development of the Burra Charter have been critical milestones in this change. As has been the development of specific heritage focussed professional and community groups such as the Garden History Society or the Institution of Engineers Heritage Committee.
Equally the development of strong community and resident groups with an interest in heritage conservation has resulted in a far more sophisticated pursuit of heritage conservation outcomes.
However, as heritage conservation has embraced new areas such as gardens or collections there has been new room for the hobbyists in those areas to feel under valued. It is up to the professionals establishing themselves in this area to respect the contribution of these people and ensure that their knowledge and views are carried forward. This has been a major theme of the 2006 heritage strategy, particularly in the area of heritage collections.
There are insufficient resources available to address the expectations of the community generally without them being wasted in turf wars between amateurs and professionals.
The area of heritage conservation that lacks a broad professional engagement is place management. Australia has some standout examples of heritage place management such as the NSW Historic Houses Trust, but that is essentially a museum operation and will not be an effective model for the great majority of heritage places. A vast amount of our built cultural heritage remains in productive use as houses, shops, hotels and offices, but there are a mass of places that require greater imagination when it comes to finding alternative viable uses. The mass of places that are owned and managed by government agencies like Parks Victoria, the Education Department or VicTrack and the paucity of professional input into their management are indicative of the problem.
Equally so many small towns have their heritage village or restored icon and the approach to management is by and large a voluntary effort focussed on displaying the place to an interested or should I say increasingly disinterested public.
The future
Simply reciting a history of the past 30 years is hardly good enough. So I am further indulging myself by making some suggestions as to what challenges lie ahead for heritage conservation in Victoria. These are longer term challenges, which I would hope in 30 years will be reported as achievements of that period.
First of all is the need to draw together the identification and management of the cultural heritage of indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. Victoria now has a modern Aboriginal Heritage Act and an impressive Aboriginal Heritage Council along with the longer standing Heritage Act and Council. However the structure of the two heritage acts is completely different and they are administered from different arms of the same department.
Also, the approach to the management of indigenous cultural heritage is still built around the archaeological investigation of the relics of that culture without much attempt to differentiate what is of greater or lesser importance.
This fundamental difference in approach to the identification and management of cultural heritage places should at least be discussed and an attempt be made to see the professional approaches of the various conservation disciplines as a means to achieving good cultural heritage conservation rather than an end in themselves.
The second big challenge is improved heritage place management. I alluded to this before and I believe that in particular a more dynamic and creative approach to the retention and re-use of heritage places must be found. This is particularly so for redundant publicly owned places.
The National Trust has discovered the hard way that the passive house museum, so popular in the 60s and 70s is not so anymore and the highly creative responses of the NSW Historic Houses Trust have only been possible though the ongoing and significant financial support of the NSW Government. Even then its portfolio is limited in size and would not reflect the broad place management issues of that State.
Australia is not unique in having a vast array of heritage places that have major re-use challenges. We need to look to those countries who provide alternative models and test those models here. The notion that the Murtoa Stick Sheds, Barwon Sewer Aqueducts or Mt Buffalo Chalets should be removed from the landscape is not the sign of a country that treats its cultural heritage seriously.
Third is the need to continue the development of a sound national system of heritage protection. I am firmly of the view that Australia has too many heritage lists and that as a result we maintain a confusing system. However, we can bring practices into line across the country. The introduction and wide adoption of the Burra Charter showed that this was possible. The recent promulgation of a national set of heritage assessment criteria is also a sound, if not earth shattering step.
The great level of community support for heritage conservation that I mentioned earlier will only be sustained if the practices and standards applied are consistent across the country. Whilst the notion of nationally common standards and approaches might be of little concern to a heritage practitioner in WA it will be of some interest and concern to the trans-national corporation who is dealing with heritage issues in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. In the end it is those organisations that can have a dramatic impact on the way in which governments support or don’t support the conservation effort.
I can only suggest that the work that has started under the auspices of the Environment Protection and Heritage Ministerial Council must continue and be supported by all jurisdictions.
Finally I see the challenge of dealing with intangible heritage (that is the customs and practices of our society) as a looming issue. It has become a significant point of discussion in international heritage forums and the debates will inevitably find their way to our shores. I doubt very much that the traditional techniques of listing and permitting can effectively deal with this aspect of our heritage, but I do see that this is an area that is shared between indigenous and non-indigenous communities. Perhaps this is a key to my first challenge.
Address in reply by Peter Lovell
Peter Lovell is founder and director of Lovell Chen Architects and Heritage Consultants.
I suspect that Ray has heard a lot about his professional life over the past month or so and I do not propose to elaborate on the fact that he has worked under 11 Ministers, 8 heads of Historic Buildings and Heritage Councils, 7 premiers, 5 prime ministers; but (it must be said) only one Sovereign.
I would like to briefly provide a view of the person who I have known professionally for as long as we have both been in the heritage business. For much of the early period I did not know Ray well, but over time increasingly our paths crossed and my appreciation and respect for Ray in all aspects of his professional life grew.
In all of my experience, Ray has first and foremost remained a person of the highest professional integrity and commitment, and has been a key leader in the development of professional practice and the implementation of sustainable heritage management in Victoria. Sustainable not so much the sense of the current thinking but in its robust survival and growth, as a fundamental plank in the planning system for this state.
As Ray has so succinctly summarised he has participated in and seen the evolution of heritage practice, in the state and the nation as whole, over a critical time and played a key role in many of the initiatives which have been pursued.
His contribution is one which reflects a personal passion and interest in the field combined with his invaluable ability to maintain an objective and balanced approach. (I don’t think that I have ever seen Ray angry – agitated on rare occasions, occasionally letting off steam - usually about Canberra heritage bureaucrats or a Minister but always in control).
In the implementation of cultural heritage management in the State Ray has been pivotal in the development and maintenance of a statutory framework, which is one of the most effective and longest standing of any in Australia. One only needs to observe the dilution of heritage controls in other states and territories and the muddle in Canberra to realise how lucky Victoria has been.
He has led and inspired a support team over many years who have ensured that heritage in Victoria is a strong and integral part of the planning system. His efforts personally and as supported by his team have ensured that Victoria’s heritage has been conserved in an active and constructive manner. The long standing team who have worked with him, many for decades, is a great reflection of the leader that he is. He has always been a person who has encouraged his team to explore issues and develop ideas. He is also a person who is a good listener and values varied opinions and inputs.
As Director over the past 22 years Ray has faced pretty much everything which could be expected and more.
1980s – The 80s boom was an extraordinary period and Ray was confronted with all walks of life from the development industry. Princess Theatre, the Gothic Bank, the first scheme for the redevelopment of the GPO, 120 Collins Street, were all major and challenging projects. The factory closures and conversions – Bryant & May and Swallow & Ariel;
1990s - the dissolution of the fortresses of the old mental health system – Willsmere, Ararat, and Mayday Hills, as well as other major heritage places including the Abbotsford Convent redevelopment, the Regent Theatre and the Brunswick Brickworks;
2000s – Under his watch but perhaps less directly involved in the detail Barwon Heads Bridge, Herald & Weekly Times, Victoria Brewery, Myer, the MCG, Waverley Park;
His success in dealing with many owners of heritage buildings and sites is that he has always looked at the potentials in heritage – assess it, conserve it, but make sure that it has a viable future. His interest in finding solutions for difficult sites has meant that not all of his decisions have been met with applause within the heritage community, but this has never caused him to shy away from the challenge.
Ray is a man of discretion although in a casual observation of headlines relating to Ray Tonkin in the world’s press over the past decade one might think otherwise.
He has generally eschewed the limelight and when one examines the headlines relating to his activities over the past decade most relate to three subjects – Ned Kelly (including in the Hong Kong Standard), Puffing Billy, Barwon Heads Bridge and the Boyd House.
His personal diplomacy and strategic thinking has further ensured that at all times he has maintained excellent relationships with clients, consultants, the public and governments of diverse persuasions.
This has been assisted by his extraordinary personal knowledge in the field (researcher, writer, manager and thinker) and his ability to determine a course of action which considers competing demands and delivers a well balanced outcome.
Tonight he has outlined the objectives for the future. He is a person who has always had an eye on the bigger picture and in his support and commitment to the Victorian Heritage Strategy has ensured that Victoria is well grounded in its heritage planning for the future.
In the area of education he has over many years actively supported and pursued the development of courses and professional development activities in support of heritage and conservation training. He has contributed to such programmes in diverse ways including the chairing of committees and boards, in speaking and lecturing and in mentoring. In doing so he has at all times maintained a broad view of cultural heritage management, acknowledging and embracing all facets of this hugely diverse discipline.
More broadly Ray has been an active participant in the national debate on heritage and has provided a highly informed and experienced view. His contributions in this area and through the COAG process have ensured that Victoria has been and remains a key player in this debate and the continuing conversation about the manner in which heritage management can be best implemented at all levels.
In every sense my assessment of Ray is that he has always excelled in his role providing strong and high minded leadership to a very committed and long standing team. He has been the face of Victorian Heritage and will be much missed.