Dave Sharma (Wentworth, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to commend the remarks of the member for North Sydney, who has had a long involvement with the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust both during his time in parliament but also in the years beforehand. Indeed, he is one of the people here in this place who was present at its creation, so to speak.

The Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, the topic of today's legislation, is a remarkably enlightened and innovative piece of public policy. It was a transitional body that was established in 2001 by the Howard government to rehabilitate former defence sites upon Sydney Harbour and eventually open them up to public access. These sites include, in my own electorate of Wentworth, the Macquarie Lighthouse at Vaucluse and the Marine Biological Station at Watsons Bay, but also, of more significance, the sites at North Head and Middle Head, the former submarine base Platypus, Cockatoo Island and the docks at Woolwich. When this body was established 20 years ago now, it was designed to ensure that these lands would be held open and available for public benefit for current and future generations—that they would both rehabilitate these sites but also allow the public to once again access them. As the member for North Sydney said, these sites are some of the most iconic and picturesque upon Sydney Harbour, and if we were to lose the custodianship of these lands, if they were to fall into the hands of developers or private interests, they would be lands we would almost certainly never get back.

Much has happened in the 20 years since the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust was established: the portfolio—the number of assets it has under its management—of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust has grown; the life of the trust has been extended; the trust has successfully opened all the sites to the public, with only some small areas still closed—but the bulk of these defence sites that were given over to its custodianship in 2001 are now open and accessible to the public; and it's done amazing work to rehabilitate and activate these sites, turning them into treasures for the people of Sydney, for visitors from interstate, across the country, and indeed, in normal times, for visitors from overseas. In non-COVID times, about 1.8 million people per year visit the lands and assets belonging to the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust.

I want to commend in particular the work of the outgoing CEO of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, Mary Darwell—she's now left—and also all her professional staff there, and the board, which has been led by Joseph Carrozzi for a number of years now. I was privileged to serve on the board of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust for a period, from 2018 to 2019, and I saw firsthand the dedication and the professionalism of the staff but also what an amazing asset they'd created from land that had been underutilised and inaccessible to the public for decades beforehand.

The genesis of this legislation of course is the 2019 announcement by the government to commence an independent review into the trust's future arrangements. That made perfect sense, because the trust, in its 20 years of operation, had done all that was asked of it—it rehabilitated former defence lands and made them accessible to the public and activated it for the public.

This review that the government announced was to map out the future pathway of the trust and to see what duties it should fulfil in future and, indeed, whether it should continue to exist as a body, because, when the trust was first set up and established, the intent was it rehabilitate these lands and pass them back to the New South Wales government. During the time of that independent review, there were over 177 public submissions received to those conducting the review, consultations were held with over 500 people and there were multiple public forums held with affected communities and stakeholder groups, who take a keen and healthy interest in these lands.

The independent review, which was published in 2021, found widespread support for the work of the trust, and it made 21 recommendations to help ensure the trust was positioned well into the future. Some of those highlights were, firstly, to make sure that the trust continued in perpetuity, so rather than the 2033 repeal provision—this is when the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust was initially due to come to a close—the independent review recommended that the life of the trust, as the custodian and manager of these former defence lands, continue in perpetuity. Some of the other recommendations of this independent review included the development of an audit plan and a master plan for Cockatoo Island, probably the most challenging of the sites under the trust management; greater recognition of Indigenous sites; and increased focus on the military heritage, again both especially important for Cockatoo Island, which was a site of Indigenous settlement and ceremony in its early history and then an incredibly important naval facility for Australia during the Second World War, in particular.

The independent review also recommended improved volunteer engagement and greater community consultation. The government agreed, by and large, with the central finding of the review, that the trust should become an ongoing entity and retain special responsibility for these sites. Upon the findings of the review being released, $9 million was immediately made available to the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust to help keep sites safe and accessible, at least as an interim measure. In 2021, in the budget of October last year, a further $40.6 million was provided over four years to provide the trust with support for its work in rehabilitating sites—an important capital injection.

This bill that we're debating today, the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust Amendment Bill 2021, is the next major step in implementing the findings of this independent review. The bill takes forward four important recommendations from the review. Firstly, it implements the central finding of the review, that the trust should become an ongoing entity. The review found that there was wide community support to retain in federal hands the lands managed by the trust and to ensure that the trust managed these lands on an ongoing basis. And, as I mentioned, this is different to the original mission of the trust, which was to rehabilitate the land and then hand them over to state government custodianship.

The bill also supports the recommendation for a refresh of the trust's membership to ensure that board members are equipped with the skills and expertise needed to steer the trust adequately and effectively into the future. In particular the bill lays out that board members must have expertise in one or more of the following fields: in environment and heritage conservation; in Indigenous culture; in land planning and management; in business, financial, property or asset management; in tourism or marketing; in military service; or in the law. In addition, one of the trust's board members must be a person of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage and one must have experience or expertise in local government.

Furthermore, the bill before us today also updates provisions regulating the trust's commercial activities. The last two decades of the trust's operation have shown that sensitive commercial operations have an important role to play in bringing life and amenity and activity to sites and contributing to the cost of upkeep and maintenance. I think the trust's management of Middle Head has been an exemplar, where they've managed to provide a commercial activity for functions and events, for artists, for sports facilities and recreational facilities, whilst making sure the public has full accessibility to the site and full amenity of the site.

This bill sets a new threshold for ministerial approval of contracts to $5 million from the existing $1 million under the existing legislation. This will ensure the efficient functioning and the operational independence of the trust and avoid the minister of the day becoming entangled in the day-to-day operational issues of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust. The bill will also provide for an indexation of this amount. That original figure of $1 million has not changed since the bill was enacted almost 20 years ago, but this new $5 million figure will be indexed here on in.

The bill also ensures that long-term leases are only available when it's clearly consistent with the overriding objectives of public access, amenity, conservation, heritage and environment. Currently under the legislation, any leases over 25 years must be contained in a disallowable legislative instrument. The independent review found this to be too blunt a tool and that it was unduly restraining potential uses of harbour trust sites that could help meet harbour trust objectives, including conservation and heritage. This is particularly true for Cockatoo Island, which is a difficult and capital intensive site and will require significant remediation and new assets in the years ahead.

Under the new provisions contained in this bill, the trust cannot enter into a lease or a licence for a period longer than 35 years and, for leases of between 25 and 35 years, a proposal must be prepared and tabled for consideration by both houses of parliament with a statement of reasons. The Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, in preparing this statement of reasons. must engage in community consultation and include their feedback in this statement of reasons. This proposal, which would be prepared and tabled before both houses of parliament, would be a disallowable instrument, which means that it would be subject to the same level of parliamentary scrutiny that these current proposals enjoy. But if, at the end of the disallowance period, the proposal has not been disallowed, the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust can proceed to negotiate the terms of this lease or licence. Then a final stage of approval must be granted by the minister before a lease or licence can actually be granted.

Finally, this bill will provide support to the trust in an ongoing role by modernising the language of the act and including amendments related to the review of regulations under the act, which are due to sunset and which are now likely to be remade later this year, following community consultation. Passage of this legislation will be a very important development for all those who care about the preservation and conservation of Sydney Harbour's foreshore—our previous and unique foreshore—including those people in my own electorate of Wentworth, who take a close interest in these issues. The bill will give the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust the certainty to plan for the future, including making provision for the significant investments that need to be made in rehabilitating some of these sites.

I wish to place on record my appreciation for the minister responsible for shepherding this process, the member for Farrer, but also those people who undertook the independent review, Ms Carolyn McNally and Ms Erin Flaherty, who did a tremendous job in engaging the community and providing a pathway ahead for the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust. I would also like to acknowledge a number of parliamentary colleagues, past and present, who have worked closely on these issues over the years—the member for North Sydney, who I mentioned earlier; Senator Andrew Bragg, the senator for New South Wales, who has been closely engaged with these issues; the previous member for Warringah and former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who took a close interest in these issues during his time here; and the former member for Wentworth, the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull, one of my predecessors, who, similarly, took a very close interest here.

With this legislation, we are ensuring that the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust will continue to do so well what it has done over the past two decades so effectively, and that is to be a steward and a custodian of some of our most precious and valuable lands. Anywhere in Sydney and, indeed, anywhere in the world, they are lands that are of tremendous significance for the Indigenous heritage value, for the settlement historical value and for the access, amenity and recreation they provide to citizens to this very day. It will ensure that the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust remains fit for purpose in the decades ahead, and I commend this legislation to the House.

See this speech in context