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Society of Heritage Owners NSW Just, transparent heritage laws with positive incentives for owners. |
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FANTASTIC NEWS FOR ALL HERITAGE OWNERS!
THE NSW HERITAGE ACT AMENDMENT BILL WHICH FINALLY - AFTER 30 YEARS OF HERITAGE ABUSES - GIVES OWNERS ACCESS TO SOME FAIR TREATMENT, UNBIASED PROCEDURES AND PROPER APPEALS ON THE MERITS WAS PASSED INTO LAW BY THE NSW PARLIAMENT ON 3 JUNE 2009.
Here are the names of the NSW Parliamentarians who voted in favour of the Bill and thus have assisted heritage owners to finally enjoy fair procedures congruent with living in a modern western democracy:
FOR
[mainly Labor Party and Independents like Rev Fred Nile, who SoHONSW wishes to personally acknowledge and thank for being so interested in heritage owners rights] Mr Brown
Mr Catanzariti Ms Fazio Ms Griffin Mr Kelly Mr Macdonald Reverend Nile Mr Obeid Ms Voltz Mr Amery
Ms Andrews Mr Aquilina Ms Beamer Mr Borger Mr Brown Ms Burney Ms Burton Mr Campbell Mr Collier Mr Daley Mr Furolo Ms Firth Mr Greene Ms Megarrity Here are the names of the disgraceful NSW Parliamentarians happy to vote against this Bill and therefore vote against [and in some cases argue strongly against] heritage owners gaining any fair rights. These are names of the NSW MP's who want to keep NSW heritage property owners in the equivalent of Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe,to continue the massive heritage rorts uncovered by the two recent government inquiries, to deny owners access to decent appeal rights on the merits, deny us consistently applied heritage assessment criteria and who want us to continue to suffer with no account whatsoever being taken of our financial ability to cope with the loss in our property value, no reasonable standards for heritage listing or de-listing or to take into account the derelict and dangerous state of our item: AGAINST [Liberal, Greens and Independents like Clover Moore MP for Bligh and Mayor of Sydney City Council one of the worst heritage owner hating Councils in NSW - see left hand side for Worst Councils in NSW to find out more about her and her Councils track record] Mr Ajaka Mr Gay Mr Pearce Tellers,
Mr Colless Mr Harwin Mr Aplin
Mr Baird Mr Baumann Ms Berejiklian Mr Besseling Mr Cansdell Mr Constance Mr Debnam Mr Dominello Mr Draper Mrs Fardell Mr Fraser Ms Goward Mrs Hancock Mr Hartcher Mr Provest Mr Richardson Mr Roberts
Mrs Skinner Mr Smith Mr Souris Mr Stokes Mr Stoner Mr J. H. Turner Mr R. W. Turner Mr J. D. Williams Mr R. C. Williams Tellers, Mr George Mr Maguire
PAIRS WHOSE VOTE CANCELLED EACH OTHERS OUT VIA AGREEMENT
Brief History of the Hertiage Act Amendment Bill (NSW) 2009
Click here for the media release about the NSW Heritage Act Amendment Bill 2009 Click here for the Bill's page on the NSW Parliament website Click here for the Minister's agreement in principle speech for the Bill Click here to read the NSW Government's response to each of the recommendations from the independent Expert Panel's Review of the NSW Heritage Act.
The 16th May 2009 was indeed a historic day for the owners of the over 31,000 items heritage listed in NSW as was 3 June 2009, when the Bill finally passed into law in NSW with one small amendment which we do not take issue with.
For those of you with an interest in details, some clauses of the Amendment Bill commenced operation retrospectively from November 2008, and other portions commenced on different dates but the bottom line is all the clauses were in full operation and represented good law in NSW by 1 July 2009. Owners looking to have their rights implented should ensure that any heritage listing or delisting as well as any specialist heritage reports from 1 July 2009 onwards only assess the heritage item against all the rights embodied in the law.
Owners need to be alert and extremely wary about practices where biased heritage consultants or those seeking to sabotage the new law granting owners some decent rights ensure those commissioned or writing reports still only report under the pre-1 July 2009 heritage listing and delisting criteria. SoHONSW recommends such cases be referred to with the NSW OMbudsman as a formal complaint or if you consider it was a deliberate choice by the official involved - to the NSW Independent Commission for Corruption.
NSW Councils and their Heritage Officers must not be permitted to get away with failing to implement the law.
Why was this Bill contents so crucial for owners of heritage property in NSW?
This Bill signalled the first ever, reasonable steps in respecting owners rights after more than 30 years of extremely well documented heritage rorts, malpractice [and worse!] in NSW where owners and their rights had been carefully excluded from any consideration by those who created and then benefitted personally from so doing.
SoHONSW wholeheartedly supported the passing of this Bill into law.
Steps involved in passing the Bill into law on 3 June 2009
Is the Bill perfect?
SoHONSW does not consider the Bill to be total perfection, It does not encompass all our goals. However, it does represents around 90% of what we have been working towards securing for the past 5 years, so is a massive improvement on the current, discredited heritage system. Rest assured, we will be working hard on securing the 10% of heritage reforms in NSW we have not yet won.
SoHONSW notes at this juncture that if the pro-heritage organisations, their members, [especially those earning a hefty living off the proceeds of their heritage consulting businesses] and other organisations that appear to have acquiesced to their heritage policies being hijacked and if the heritage fanatics had not been so greedy, so utterly contemptuous of owners and repeatedly promulgated fanatastic lies about the so called 'benefits' of heritage listing [carefully refusing to even admit any detriment despite owners intimate knowledge and experience of them] then it would not have been necessary for us to commence this campaign of heritage law reform.
Quite simply the heritage mafia - after 30 years of open slather and increasingly systematic abuse of owners - got too cocky, too demanding and ever more grasping in their peculiar definition of what constitutes "heritage." They also actively promoted rorting and abuses of local government heritage listing powers for non-genuine heritage purposes. So - owners, who most directly experienced the real effects of these abuses and heritage rorts - got organised. We exposed these deep seated heritage malpractices and asked for help in changing them. Both the Liberal Federal and NSW Labor government listened, insituted independent inquiries which confirmed our claims and both made strong recommendations for reform.
Despite our disappointment about this particular strong recommendation being effectively shafted, the remainder of the Bill addresses appropriately and in a balanced manner, the vast majority of the issues heritage owners and our members have been agitating to be reformed.
Minister Keneally, the NSW Department of Planning and those who worked on sculpting this Bill [excepting those who watered down the Expert Panel's recommendation identified above - we suspect some of the same fanatics from the Heritage Branch who produce that heritage propaganda pamphlets only ever telling owners about the advantages associated with heritage listing on their web site and/or reproduce deeply methodologically flawed research from pro-heritage activisits and organisations claiming heritage listing has a positive effect on a properties value] have the gratitude and support of owners of heritage listed items in NSW.
The Bill and its accompanying Explanatory Notes and Minister Keneally's first Reading speech introducing it is the most important step in ending 30 years of maladministration and corruption that has infested the NSW heritage listing system - we refer specifically to the local government level here.
The Acts' implementation
SoHONSW reasonably expects that immediately the Act becomes law, its terms will be implemented poste haste in NSW.
In particular, that the NSW Minister for Planning Ms Keneally and the NSW Minister for Local Government Ms Perry must issue a joint Circular to all NSW Councils requiring them to adhere immediately to its terms, including the listing and de-listing criteria, as well as the background principles [the spirit as well as the words] identified by the Expert Panel as critically important.
The Expert Panel were explicit - most of the major reforms they recommended for NSW heritage listings - such as the Gateway Criteria and de-listing criteria - must also apply to local Councils in NSW, in addition to State listings.
One of the major philosophical principles or changes identified and promoted by the Expert Panel was proper, ethical lawful and fair treatment of owners of heritage listed properties. Something missing for the past 30 years.
This long overdue principle manifests itself in a number of ways throughout the Act, which all centre on the idea that owners are not donw graded to mere 'stakeholders' [or not even that according to some heritage fanatics, who spent the last 30 years air brushing out of consideration any mention of owners unless it was to falsely accuse us of demolition by neglect and then seek more powers to persecute us] but the key to the optimum management of genuine heritage.
SoHONSW expects the NSW Department of Planning and the NSW Department of Local Government to have advanced plans in place and to immediately issue Circulars, orders as well as amendments to standards LEPs and DCP sections relating to heritage to ensure Councils can get their act together, comply in full and immediately implement it.
So - who wants NSW heritage owners to remain without any of these decent, fair rights?
As is expected, those with long standing vested interests in the heritage industry and.or heritage hobbies [or politicians who either support them or are simply making what they consider to be canny political choices to give the appearance of supporting them to maximise their local votes at the next election] are either opposing these reforms or greeting them with faint support and endless caveats, the net effect of which is the same as opposing them.
SoHONSW wishes to single out and condemn in particular:
- the NSW Local Government and Shires Association;
- the NSW Liberal Party; and
- Independent MP for Bligh Ms Clover Moore who also happens to be Mayor of Sydney City Council, one of the NSW Councils SoHONSW has identified as one of the greatest heritage rorting Councils in the state. Once you read her speech opposing the Bill you will realise why Sydney City Council heritage is in the appalling state it is.
The NSWLG&SA issued a Press Release dated 8 May 2009 in which they claimed to give some support for the reforms [cagily phrased] but later released an analysis of the Bill that in no way reflected that cautious support expressed in the Press Release.
This schitzophrenic response from the NSWLG&SA is not unusual on heritage issues.
Whoever the NSWLG&SA employ to analyse heritage reforms consistently puts the boot into any reforms that benefit owners in any way, or increases owners fairness and transparency - despite the oft repeated claims of senior NSWLG&SA figures that they hold these principles dear. The caveat seems to be - "as long as they don't interfere with my heritage hobby."
You can view their Press Release at http://livenews.com.au/news/nsw-opposition-angry-at-plan-to-remove-more-council-planning-powers/2009.
The NSWLG&SA is a peak organisation established ostensibly to represent the interests of all NSW Councils. NSW Councils pay an extraordinary amount of rate payers money per year to belong to the NSWLG&SA. The long standing President is Ms Genia McCaffery, who is also Mayor of North Sydney Council [NSC] as well as a former employee of the National Trust, who still appears on stage at rallies and at other events organised by the National Trust.
It is our view that NSWLG&SA has had its heritage agenda hijacked for years by radical heritage activists. We do not believe the NSWLG&SA approach accurately and fairly represents the needs and views of the constitutent NSW Councils who fund its operation. However, the NSWLG&SA submissions and positions in relation to heritage appear remarkably congruent with the views and positions of the National Trust, who we understand it, are not members of the NSWLG&SA, but appear to enjoy remarkable financial largesse and other benefits from certain NSW Councils. Clover Moore's Sydney City Council for example recently donated $25,000 from their unspent Heritage Fund to waste on a National Trust fair day. These SCC "unspent" heritage funds should be allocated to owners of heritage listed properties to maintain them - not to an already super-wealthy organisation already in receipt of massive tax payers funds.
Despite the fact that the NSWLG&SA ran a 2008 campaign opposing planning reforms in NSW based on the need for transparency, respect for property owners rights and the value of their properties being adversely affected, they have never given similar concern, empathy or policy support to owners of heritage listed properties who face the same problems. In fact, they have led the charge against owners and to further harm our interests and to deny us fair treatment. Consequently, SoHONSW views the NSWLG&SA as virulently anti-heritage owner. We urge NSW Councils who are wasting rate payers money joining the NSWLG&SA to protest by refusing to renew their membership.
Further, the NSWLG&SA member Councils fees fund the production of their Land and Environment Court Reporter, allegedly to keep subscriber Council staff up to date and educated on planning and legal issues. Its 'Editor' is Genia McCaffery. SoHONSW notes North Sydney Council where Ms McCaffery is Mayor appears on the losing side in some startling Land and Environment Court cases. While North Sydney Council's heritage [mal]practices have been slammed in judgements, these do not appear to get reported to their Council members in the Reporter they fund to transmit such information. Curious editing indeed Ms McCaffery!
Such interesting "editing" of highly pertinent heritage judgements critical of Council heritage practices that reflect badly on the Council in question, on their own President leadership of that Council as well as the NSWLG&SA, means the NSWLG&SA member Councils are kept in the dark about startlingly critical heritage judgements, including those detailing serious heritage malpractices and pungent criticisms from the Court about their own President's Council. So much for transparency! Guess it only applies to one's ideological friends.
It has been disappointing and distressing to NSW owners of heritage listed items that repeated submissions from the NSWLG&SA focussed on grasping more power for themselves to further persecute owners of heritage listed properties, made repeated allegations of 'demolition by neglect' against owners [ given short shrift and thankfully dismissed by both inquiries as lacking any basis in fact of being a problem] and failed to engage with or address the serious and well documented heritage maladministration and indeed heriage corruption issues, including ones their own members were complaining about.
So who precisely within the NSWLG&SA is reponsible for the content of their heritage submissions and analysis of heritage issues, including this Bill?
The NSWLG&SA response to this Bill is a continuation of this mean spirited, defensive and deliberately persecutory, unhelpful attitude towards owners of heritage items.
The second organisation SoHONSW wishes to condemn for their response to this Bill is the NSW Liberal Party. See side panel for more information about their capture by heritage fanatics and the jettisoning of classic liberal philosophy. [MORE INFORMATION COMING ON THIS SECTION]
The third is Clover Moore, Indepedent MP for Bligh, as well as Mayor of Sydney City Council. Extracts from her speech on the Bill and our rebuttal will be added in the near future.
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