Category Heritage

• Cut and paste

  THAT THE AUSTRALIAN SYSTEMS for heritage and environmental protection are racist is just a statement of the obvious; the Pope is Catholic for the same reasons, and with the same irrevocable finality. They are designed not to protect, but to establish a framework of forms to permit, and there’s really nothing that can’t legally be done if someone is willing to put enough time into drawing up a fancy enough report.

  Posted 8 February 2021 | Author Liam Hogan | » Read more

• Church

  THE INNER WEST COUNCIL has declined to list a church as locally significant on its ‘Schedule 5’ register of items of local heritage, a statutory instrument. It’s interesting for what it reveals about the objects and practices of Australian built heritage.

  Posted 16 November 2020 | Author Liam Hogan | » Read more

• Machines

  IN A DECISION OF the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal, the senior member was asked to rule—amongst other things—on whether a particular kind of rifle, that the applicant wanted to import into Australia and own, was 'of a kind that is designed or adapted for military purposes'. Unless you're particularly interested in the arcane details of specific 20thC weapons, which I'm not, it's an interesting judgement for the sheer taxonomic argument that must have gone on between the two parties, discussing what particularly about this object set it in either a prohibited or a permissible category.

  Posted 8 July 2020 | Author Liam Hogan | » Read more

• Explosives

  THE MINING COMPANY RIO Tinto was recently responsible for the blasting of a set of highly significant caves in Juukan Gorge in the Hammersley Ranges. This was legal; Ministerial authority under Western Australian law gives consent to this kind of mining development, which can then not be held up in other courts. By contrast, Heritage Acts across the States protect non-Aboriginal cultural heritage more elaborately. In Sydney, the Sirius Building, whose redevelopment was, in a similar way, given direct consent by the Minister, was looked over by the Supreme Court, and saved from demolition. Plain racism explains a great deal of the distinction, but not everything.

  Posted 28 May 2020 | Author Liam Hogan | » Read more