Page 3033 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 17 October 2007
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community to the extent that, certainly, the NCA has now drawn back, to some degree, from the type of development they would support in relation to the Albert Hall.
Just by way of some other immediate background, as members would be aware, my colleague, the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, who is responsible for the management of the Albert Hall, has announced in the last week that, as a result of the non-identification of a tender to comply with requirements regarding the medium or long-term management of the Albert Hall, the tender process has determined that the government, through the Department of Territory and Municipal Services, will now accept responsibility in the interim for the management of the Albert Hall. Immediate restoration which has been identified as most urgent will be completed, and the government will continue to consider a long-term management structure that ensures that the heritage values of the Albert Hall are protected and that an appropriate level and degree of restoration is pursued and achieved.
In the context of that, the government has also announced that it will proceed with a nomination for the National Heritage List of the Albert Hall. Nominations for 2006-07 closed, in fact, prior to the decision that the government took to seek to nominate the Albert Hall—that is, nominations for this year. The nominations, in fact, closed in April. It was only in June that I took the decision that the ACT government would seek to have the Albert Hall nominated for the National Heritage List. In the mean time, however, officers from the ACT Heritage Unit have maintained contact with the Department of Environment and Water Resources, which is responsible for heritage matters under Malcolm Turnbull, to actually discuss the nomination process. We are now in the process of completing the application forms, the documentation, that is required in order to ensure that a nomination is drafted and is ready before nominations close for the 2008 round of nominations. So, we are going through the process: we have the forms, we are in consultation with the commonwealth. At this stage, our advice is that nominations for 2008 will close in February 2008.
The Albert Hall conservation, management and landscape plan, which has been endorsed by the ACT Heritage Council at its April meeting, assesses the heritage values of the hall against both ACT and national heritage criteria. That is the criteria that will form the basis of our application. The analysis and statements of claim contained in the conservation, management and landscape plan will be used, as I say, for the basis of our argument that the Albert Hall should be listed on the national heritage list.
MR SPEAKER: A supplementary question from Dr Foskey.
DR FOSKEY: What will the government do to meet its responsibilities in terms of management of the hall in the interim? Will there be community consultation in the formation and implementation of the necessary management plan for Albert Hall?
MR STANHOPE: Dr Foskey, thank you for the question. As I indicated just briefly by way of preamble, the current management arrangement that is with the current manager has been extended to 30 November this year. That was an extension of a pre-existing contract which we agreed to some time ago, and we are very grateful to Mr McLachlan, the current manager, for his patience and his forbearance in relation to the
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