SOUTH FREMANTLE POWER STATION — REGISTER OF
HERITAGE PLACES
301. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Minister for Heritage:
I refer to the minister's
announcement on 14 June that the South Fremantle power station has been added
to the state Register of Heritage Places.
(1) Who sought that listing?
(2) When did
the Heritage Council of Western Australia commence consideration of this final
listing and when was the minister made aware of it?
(3) Has the
minister been in any discussions regarding this listing with the unsolicited
bidder mentioned by the Minister for Energy today?
Mr D.A.
TEMPLEMAN replied:
(1)–(3) The
answer to the last question is no. The Heritage Council had a number of
interim-listed sites, with some of them dating back to over 20 years ago. Under
the new Heritage Act, which this government introduced and which reformed a Heritage
Act that a former Labor government introduced, a series of heritage assets that
—
Dr A.D. Buti: Did they put
the Liberal Party on the list?
Mr D.A. TEMPLEMAN: There have
to be criteria including relevance for heritage items and I am not sure whether
the Liberal Party fits that criterion!
A series of assets would have
actually come off the interim list and potentially not been protected, so the
Heritage Council, as is appropriate, held an independent process that finalised
the assessment of a range of heritage assets, including
Victoria Quay, Fremantle port and a number of other sites, including those on
Wadjemup (Rottnest Island). That is a
normal process of the Heritage Council and, indeed, it is a process that I support.
I was very happy to support the acquisition of those assets on the state
register.
The member's conspiracy
theories that he might have are very puzzling, and one needs to be reminded
that, as we have seen with a number of heritage assets, the application of
heritage value, be it on a municipal list or on the state register, is not an
imposition to the protection and the enhancement of such an asset. We have seen
this along St Georges Terrace with the
former Treasury buildings, as one example, but there are a number. Adaptive
re-use is now a very important principle in protecting heritage assets. I am
looking forward to the interest, and it seems that there is deep interest,
which is great, that may have been expressed because a high-value heritage
outcome will be delivered, as well as an adaptive re-use proposal for the
future of that very important state-registered heritage asset.