Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Portrait Gallery of Australia Bill 2012 and the associated bill. On behalf of the coalition, can I say how proud we are today to have played a significant role in helping the gallery to reach many of those milestones and how proud we are today to play our part in helping the gallery sever perhaps the final apron string to government to become its own authority.

The National Portrait Gallery of Australia is one of the many national collecting institutions that the coalition is proud to support. We support these institutions not only because they are entrusted with protecting, for all time, our memories, our stories and our shared history but because they reflect and exhibit the best aspects of ourselves, of our national character, of our hopes and aspirations for the future and of what it means to be Australian.

The bill and its associated bill continue the vision the Howard government had for the gallery when it established it many years ago. It has been quite a journey—a journey that the coalition has shared with the gallery, and continues to share by supporting this bill today. It is appropriate therefore for me to acknowledge today the coalition's arts ministers over those formative years, ministers like Senator George Brandis, who is the coalition's current arts spokesman, Rod Kemp, Helen Coonan and Richard Alston. Those ministers worked with the gallery to establish it as a permanent part of the Australian cultural landscape.

It was ministers of the Howard government who in 2004 took the decision to provide funding for a permanent home for the gallery—a decision to provide $87.7 million to construct a state-of-the-art home for the gallery within the Parliamentary Triangle. In 2007, as Minister for the Arts and Sport, Senator Brandis began his address to the National Press Club by speaking of the gallery:

On the southern shore of Lake Burley Griffin, there is rising what will become one of Australia’s great public buildings—the new National Portrait Gallery. The Gallery … will complete the national collecting institutions in the Parliamentary triangle, and tell the nation’s story through the accessible genre of portraiture in a magnificent contemporary building.

The National Portrait Gallery could almost serve as a metaphor for the Howard Government’s contribution to the arts—characterized by a commitment to uncompromising artistic standards, strong financial support and accessibility to the broader public, yet little remarked and seldom acknowledged.

The coalition continues to hold those values, and continues to work with the gallery, through supporting this bill and the associated bill, to further cement the gallery's place as an essential part of Australia's cultural heritage.

While the coalition supports this bill, and sees a bright future ahead for the gallery under these new arrangements, the future for the arts and collecting institutions in Australia under this government is under a cloud of uncertainty. From the future of the Australia Council for the Arts to the security of funding for Australia's major performing arts companies, all is uncertain under this government and under this minister. After two ministers and two elections, and three years after it was promised, Labor have delivered funding cuts, efficiency dividends and staff reductions but have still not delivered the national cultural policy they promised back in 2009. The only thing the minister has to show for these wasted years is a discussion paper that, apart from rhetorical motherhood statements, reveals only a preoccupation and obsession with the National Broadband Network. This is exactly what Senator Brandis was warning of in 2007 when in his address to the National Press Club he said:

… the problem about parties of the Left is that their attitude to the arts is defined by instrumentalism. What artists do is not valued for its own sake. Art is not seen as a creative activity justified by the talent or genius of the artist alone. Rather, the arts are seen as a means to some other end: an appendix to social policy, a vehicle for social change, an instrument for political causes, a propaganda tool. Art is not seen as an end in itself.

The coalition has a proud record of supporting the arts in Australia, and in particular those institutions that promote excellence, like our collecting institutions, elite arts-training institutions and major performing arts companies. We will continue to value our national collecting institutions and continue our strong record of support for institutions like the National Portrait Gallery of Australia. We are therefore proud to support this bill and the associated legislation.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak about the National Portrait Gallery of Australia Bill 2012 and the related bill, and in particular to talk about this magnificent cultural institution that is in my electorate of Canberra. I would like to start by providing some context to this legislation. The National Portrait Gallery was created to increase the knowledge about the Australian people and to increase the appreciation of Australian culture, our history and our identity—to tell our story. This is done through the display of portraiture—that is, portrait painting, portrait photography and self-portraits.

The National Portrait Gallery, which lies between two of Australia's most important institutions, the High Court of Australia and the National Gallery of Australia, has now become an equally significant cultural landmark of the national capital, and it is one of which we are very proud. It may be the youngest of our cultural institutions, but the idea for a national repository for Australian portraits has been around since the early 1900s. But it took some 90 years before the idea of a national portrait gallery in Canberra actually took shape. In 1992, the founding patrons of the National Portrait Gallery, and great supporters of the arts, Gordon and Marilyn Darling, initiated an exhibition called Uncommon Australians. The success of this touring exhibition led to the gallery's first permanent exhibition at Old Parliament House.

For its first decade, the National Portrait Gallery was located inside Old Parliament House. Lovely Old Parliament House, the old wedding cake, was a very welcome place to house the National Portrait Gallery. However, a gallery of this scope needed its own space, and in 2006 work began on the current site. The new Portrait Gallery, to quote from its own history:

… draws inspiration from Canberra’s environment and natural light and links the visitor’s experience of the gallery spaces to the Australian landscape.

I am sure everyone here in this room tonight has been down to that part of Canberra, just beside the lake. The design of the building is incredibly open, welcoming and light, and the thing that many Canberrans, including me, appreciate is the fact that the creation of the National Portrait Gallery has required a linking of all the national institutions. We now have a beautiful boulevard of contemporary and public art as well as paving and landscaping that links the National Library to the National Gallery with beautiful landscape works. For me, in a way it finishes that cultural and national enclave down by the lake that is so important for Canberra as well as the rest of Australia. In a way, the National Portrait Gallery has driven the finale of that area. It now looks complete, finished and beautiful, and Canberrans are very proud of it.

The National Portrait Gallery is, as is often recognised and commented on, a rather unique reflection on Australia and Australian culture. Visitors will find over 400 portraits of Australians who have shaped our country in many ways. Anyone who has walked through the Portrait Gallery or enjoyed that outlook over Lake Burley Griffin will agree it is one of the most impressive galleries in Australia.

I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the wonderful and dedicated staff at the National Portrait Gallery, who make every visitor feel very special and very welcome. Canberrans, as I said, have embraced the National Portrait Gallery and frequent it just for lunches at the cafe. But it is also a community facility in many ways. I have been to weddings at the National Portrait Gallery. I attended my media advisor's wedding just a few years ago. I have also been to Heywire launches there too, as well as another number of other events for community organisations. In addition to that, I have been to a number of business events where Canberra and interstate businesses have celebrated the beginning or conclusion of conferences at the Portrait Gallery.

The thing I love about those community and business events is the fact that in hiring those wonderful spaces in the National Portrait Gallery, the interstate and Canberra visitors also get the opportunity to move around the gallery. In a way it is not just the space that is being provided but also access to all the wonderful works in there. It is an incredibly inclusive approach to hiring. It is not often in Australia you can go to a gallery, have an event there, hire rooms, get it fully catered and also get the opportunity to wander around the gallery and peruse these wonderful works with a glass of champagne in your hand. So it is a unique experience and one that is very much embraced by the business community as well as the general community here.

As part of the 2012-13 federal budget, the government announced that the National Portrait Gallery would be established as an independent statutory authority. At present the gallery functions as a branch within the Department of Regional Australia, Local Government, Arts and Sport. This is an anomaly that will be fixed by the bill. This bill will provide the National Portrait Gallery with a status corresponding to Australia's other great national collecting institutions. This bill provides proper acknowledgement of the success and significance of the National Portrait Gallery. It establishes the Portrait Gallery as a statutory authority with effect from 1 July 2013 and provides for transitional arrangements.

This legislation also establishes the Portrait Gallery's functions and how it may undertake them. The Portrait Gallery's most significant activities will be those related to the national collections of portraits in its custody. The functions of the gallery as established by the bill are to develop, preserve, maintain, promote and provide access to a national collection of portraits, other works of art and related material including portraits that reflect the identity, history, diversity and culture of Australia. It will also develop and engage a national audience—they do that brilliantly—in relation to that collection and other works of art and related material that will be in the possession of the gallery including through exhibitions, through education, through research, through publications and through public and online programs.

The legislation also sets out the powers to enable the Portrait Gallery to perform these functions. It provides for money to be appropriated and made payable to the Portrait Gallery. It also provides the fabulous land and fabulous buildings that will ensure the continued use of the Portrait Gallery's purpose-built building in the Parliamentary Zone in the ACT, in the electorate of Canberra. For the first time, as a result of this legislation, the functions of the Portrait Gallery will be enshrined, giving it a clear and coherent purpose reflecting its cultural role and its cultural importance. As a result of this particular bill, the National Portrait Gallery will continue its role as a source of great pride to all Australians and to all those who visit the national capital. This bill represents a fitting tribute to Canberra and a very important change to one of my electorate's most significant cultural institutions.

I was at the Portrait Gallery only last week at another wonderful function organised by Canberra BusinessPoint, which is an organisation that has been set up by the Canberra Business Council to provide a range of services to businesses at various stages of maturation. They provide advice, support, assistance and services to businesses that are just starting up, are looking at going into export markets or are at a stage of wanting to expand. That is always difficult with a business—how quickly you want to do it, finding the right partner and a whole range of challenges that face a growing business. And they provide services to businesses that are perhaps going into a new area or wanting to expand into a new field. Canberra BusinessPoint provides a range of fabulous services to the Canberra small business community.

At the lovely Portrait Gallery last week they had their BusinessPoint awards. I would like to use this opportunity to congratulate all the finalists and winners of those awards. It was a wonderful night and it was fabulous to be with all these business people, some of them in the early stages of business, who have got all these wonderful ideas and are so incredibly passionate about their ideas—and that is really the success of any business. They are businesses that are motivated by ensuring that Canberra and Australia has a sustainable future. They are businesses that are modelled around a whole range of sustainable elements. They are businesses that are driven by a creative drive or the desire to protect the climate. There were a range of businesses represented and it was really impressive to meet with some of those people and to learn not only about their businesses but about their passion for business.

So I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the finalists and the winners. In the Web and Mobile category we had myinfoQ, HRMWEB and the winner, CloudCentral. In the Clean and Green category—and this was very much the theme of the night—we had Envirolove, Easy Care Landscapes and the winner, Jigsaw Housing. I had the opportunity early last year to go and see one of Jigsaw Housing's prototype sustainable houses in the member for Fraser's electorate. They are doing some great projects in terms of trying to make sustainable houses as green as possible while at the same time as affordable as possible.

In the Bricks and Mortar category the finalists were Omega Medical Design and Flint in the Vines, and the winner was Switched on Cycles, which specialise in electronic bicycles. The finalists in the Creative and Design category were Knave and Fables and Andie Meredith. Knave and Fables do this amazing jewellery, and Andie Meredith has some amazing clothing design. The winner of that category was the Canberra Academy of Dramatic Art, who won that category last year as well.

In the Micro-Enterprise category, an area that is near and dear to my heart, the finalists were Achieve Beyond and Nature's Canvas; and the winner was Canberra Holistic Massage. In the High Growth category, a really challenging part of a business's life, the finalists were Contractor Compliance and Deeks Health Foods—known, I am sure, to many Australians as well as Canberrans. The winner of that category was Handmade Canberra, which is owned by two fabulous women, who produce and showcase creations—jewellery and artwork from Canberra as well as from the region. The absolute outright winner of the Canberra BusinessPoint Award was Jigsaw Housing.

So, congratulations to all of those businesses. It was wonderful to meet with them last week. I am very proud of them and I am really proud of the passion they have for their businesses and for creating a more sustainable and environmentally green Canberra.

In closing, I want to again commend this bill to the House. It is particularly significant, given that 2013 is the national capital's centenary year. It is also the 25th anniversary of this wonderful building here. So I know there are a number of celebrations being planned for the 25th anniversary of the new Parliament House. I was involved in the celebrations for the 20th anniversary, so I am very much looking forward to the 25th anniversary—and I know, from many in this chamber, that there are some great events planned.

In terms of the events planned for our centenary, they are endless. I went to the launch of that program again last week. Robyn Archer has produced a phenomenally comprehensive and exciting program. Our centenary celebrations are called One Very Big Year, and it was one very big launch as well. It was amazing that she managed to fit in as much as she did in the time we were there. We are very much looking forward to the celebration next year in so many different areas—in the sciences, the arts, music, architecture, health and in so many other areas. It is going to be a wonderful year, and it is very fitting and appropriate that this bill will come into effect in Canberra's centenary.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Although the bills we are discussing tonight, the National Portrait Gallery of Australia Bill 2012 and a related bill, may be of a technical and non-controversial nature, we should not allow the mechanics of running the National Portrait Gallery to mask the function of this valuable institution and the potential it has to enhance our cultural life.

Its history is already quite colourful, as is the momentum it has generated in a comparatively short time. The National Portrait Gallery is the latest icon in the Parliamentary Triangle. When it was opened on 4 December 2008 it was, at that time, the newest building in that area for two decades. The National Portrait Gallery has been a talking point for over a century. The artist Tom Roberts suggested such an institution in the early 20th century—in fact, right at the beginning of the 1900s.

The vision of Gordon and Marilyn Darling, and their generous benefaction, led to the purchases and exhibitions of portraiture, sponsored initially by the National Library. Fittingly, the Darlings become the gallery's inaugural patrons.

The first exhibition was held in Old Parliament House in 1994. Andrew Sayers was appointed director four years later. The fledgling collection was displayed in the old, but refurbished, Parliamentary Library; and also in two adjacent spaces in the Old Parliament House. And if I am not mistaken, Mr Deputy Speaker, I think it was the Country Party, later the National Party, room that was used for some time. The gallery became independent in 1999. Over the next decade it expanded at that venue. As the gallery itself put it at that time:

… the raison detre was not a Hall of Fame of important people, but visitors to the National Portrait Gallery at Old Parliament House experience the mixed and intriguing bag of individual stories—good and bad, lofty and humble, famous and obscure, that punctuate Australian history.

But I believe it is even more than that again. In those portraits visitors have four experiences, for the most part: fine paintings; extraordinary, interesting subjects; an insight into Australia's history in the person of those who made it; and, finally, a window into Australia's cultural life. And that says nothing about the unique architecture of the firm Johnson Pilton Walker and their bold use of natural light, as the member for Canberra recently alluded to.

It is a building that inspires me, as does the diversity of the collection itself. I recommend it to all my visitor friends who come to Canberra, ahead of all the other icons in the Parliamentary Triangle—important as they are.

We have all been brought up on the legend—good and bad—of Ned Kelly. But nothing excites one's morbid curiosity, on one hand, and the blunt vengeance of the law, on the other, like seeing Ned's death mask and the head-and-shoulders cast on which it sits—complete with the rope burns to his neck. That is one of the exhibits at the National Portrait Gallery. On a more pleasant aspect of the law, my favourite painting is of Justice Michael Kirby in his crimson robes as President of the New South Wales Supreme Court. I do not always agree with Justice Kirby's interpretations but I must say this Ralph Heimans portrait is an adornment to the collection and a fine salute to a complex Australian character.

The National Portrait Gallery is now taking its place with our iconic national institutions, and it is appropriate that it be given full statutory recognition and authority. These bills set the parameters of that authority and spell out the gallery's functions and the structure and responsibilities of its board. As I said at the beginning, I do not want to dwell too much on technical aspects, but there are sensible measures, including: the power to enter into contracts; the power to occupy, use and control any land, building, structure or other improvement made available to the gallery; the power to purchase or take on hire, to commission or produce, or to accept as a gift or on deposit or loan, portraits, other works of art or related material; the power to make available, whether by hire, loan or otherwise, portraits, other works of art or related material—and I will come back to that because it is an important point; the power to provide financial assistance to persons, whether by way of loan, grant, award or otherwise and whether on commercial terms or otherwise; the power to accept gifts, devices, bequests and assignments, whether on trust or otherwise; and the power to act as a trustee of money or other property vested in the gallery on trust. They are all sensible measures.

The legislation talks about other things such as the size of the board—the board will be a chairman, a deputy chairman and between three and seven directors. It talks about how the board will be appointed, and how in extreme circumstances it can be removed. It talks about their remuneration, which will be a function of the Remuneration Tribunal. Again, all these things are sensible and are certainly not opposed by the opposition.

I would like to talk some more about the gallery itself. It is remarkable how many characters who have forged the Australian temperament are represented in the 2,000-odd works in the collection, from Portrait of Albert Namatjira by Sir William Dargie to Sally Robinson's contemporary portrait of Angry Anderson complete with his tatts, if you want extremes. We have a range of historic characters, including John Webber's 1782 representation of Captain James Cook, William Dargie's Kingsford-Smith and Charles Ulm, Clifton Pugh's Archbishop Mannix and Melissa Beowulf's Nancy Wake—the White Mouse. These are all iconic Australian characters. There are lawyers like Tom Hughes QC and Neville Wran; politicians like Bert Evatt, John Button, Tom Uren, Jack Lang, Joh Bjelke-Petersen and John and Janette Howard; unforgettables like Eddie Mabo, Fred Hollows and Nancy Bird-Walton; Indigenous Australians like opera singer Harold Blair, Senator Neville Bonner, Kath Walker and Lowitja O'Donoghue; captains of industry including Essington Lewis, numerous members of the Fairfax family, Don Argus and Arvi Parbo; artists from the mid-19th century, from Lola Montez through to Nellie Melba at the turn of the century, and to ballerina Marilyn Rowe—who I remember as being an absolute adornment to the Australian Ballet—and rock idol Johnny O'Keeffe and our own Dame Joan Sutherland. What an array of artists—and I am just listing a few of them; this is nothing like the full collection. Then there are the poets, from Dame Mary Gilmore to Les Murray, and artists and sportsmen far too numerous to name.

Some of us who are perhaps a little older than others probably remember when these people were on black and white TV. There are others we have known just by name. To go there and see them and see the sort of people they were, to see famous artists painted by some of our most distinguished portrait exponents—people like Sir William Dargie and Clifton Pugh—to see all those characters in all their unadulterated glory, is a rare experience. I get a great kick out of that. Much as I like going to the National Gallery and much as I forgive Gough Whitlam for buying Blue Polesin retrospect it was a very wise decision—the National Portrait Gallery has works both contemporary and through our history right back to Captain Cook.

Both the gallery's mission statement and the new bills outline that the function of the gallery is to make the collection available for exhibitions and tours—in other words, they refer to accessibility. I commend and support this very strongly. Not everyone will visit Canberra, so it is appropriate that this national collection not just sit down here but be accessible to other capital city people through their galleries and also to regional residents.

Although 2.4 million visitors have seen the collection in Canberra, many more have seen sections of it in 29 regional and a few capital city galleries. There have been eight touring collections in the past three years and there are currently five on tour or on loan. That is quite exceptional for the gallery in such a short time.

As a country member who supports the arts, I would like to see collections coming to Bundaberg and to Hervey Bay's soon-to-be-open gallery. In Hervey Bay, the council, with government support, is about to open a new art gallery. Bundaberg already has one, a historic building—the old Customs House. Both of those will be great venues and I want to see segments of the National Portrait Gallery's collection available to people in country areas. Country people should have the opportunity to participate fully in the cultural life of the nation. So I urge the director, Louise Doyle, whom I compliment, and her new board to pursue a vibrant program of access and touring to regional galleries. I think this is a good bill. It marks the coming of age of the National Portrait Gallery and I am proud to support it.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to follow the member for Hinkler and to agree with so much of what he had to say in his very articulate speech. There is much that divides us in this place, but I think it is often the arts which can bring us together. I particularly appreciated the comments by the member for Hinkler about the great wisdom and prescience of the Whitlam government.

The National Portrait Gallery was something I remember first thinking about when I lived as a whippersnapper in London for a number of years. I was there on my own and loved the opportunity to visit the British National Portrait Gallery. It has that great combination of art and history you get in a portrait gallery. Wandering amidst the portraits there, I remember thinking to myself, 'It would be great if Australia had one of these.' As previous speakers have noted, Tom Roberts had had that idea in the early 1900s, but it was not until much later, 1999, that Australia got its National Portrait Gallery.

For its first 10 years, the National Portrait Gallery was in Old Parliament House—a beautiful venue but not one which was created as an art space. The new National Portrait Gallery space is a unique spot. You get that sense of what an interesting location it is going to be when you approach it and see the imbalance of the architecture on the front—it looks as if it is not possible for the cantilever to hold up. Then, as soon as you enter, you are struck by portraits which range right through Australian history, such as Ah Xian's ceramic bust of John Yu, Bill Henson's triptych of Simone Young and Howard Arkley's portrait of Nick Cave.

Mr Neville interjecting—

As the member for Hinkler points out, it is the way the light strikes those works which really makes it such a success—as is the case in any great gallery space.

I have two favourite portraits at the gallery. In common with the member for Hinkler, one is the portrait of Michael Kirby by Ralph Heimans. I was associate to Michael Kirby at the time the portrait was done and it sat in the corner of his office for the first few months while he wandered forwards and backwards past it, trying to work out what he thought of it. It is of course not the most modest of portraits. It portrays the judge as, I think, a sort of Romanesque figure standing out—the only one facing the artist—amidst an array of judges. I think it is quite befitting of Michael Kirby's career as a judge—constantly with his face to us, not just writing the judgements but engaging the polity.

My other favourite portrait is the one of Deborah Mailman painted by Evert Ploeg. Deborah Mailman is just looking directly at the viewer with a sense of boldness and a sense of power. There is such strength coming out of the portrait.

The National Portrait Gallery is engaged in digital portraiture as well. My favourite portraits, I confess, are the oils, but so many of the new portraits these days are screen based digital portraits. On 2 August, the National Portrait Gallery announced the inaugural winner of its $10,000 iD Digital Portraiture Award. The artist judged to have made the most outstanding screen based digital portrait was Laura Moore. Her portrait was titled Animation 1. Other finalists were Aaron James McGarry, Nina Mulhall, Clare Thackway and Bridget Walker. Those portraits can be viewed in the National Portrait Gallery until 28 October.

The National Portrait Gallery of Australia Bill 2012 gives the National Portrait Gallery its own piece of legislation. That will be important, as previous speakers have noted, in allowing the gallery to stand on its own two feet and to engage, as the other cultural institutions do, with other entities and with other government departments. As the member for Canberra eloquently noted in her speech, the National Portrait Gallery will be involved in the extraordinary Centenary of Canberra celebrations which start next year. The theme of the Centenary of Canberra, curated by the energetic Robyn Archer, is: 'Seed now, blossom in 2013, flower for another hundred years'.

Not surprisingly, the National Portrait Gallery is involved in the centenary as well. It is going to feature a number of exhibitions coinciding with centenary themes through next year. A particular highlight will be Elvis at 21, an exhibition toured by the Smithsonian Institution Travelling Exhibition Service, with Canberra the only Australian venue. It consists of a collection of photos of Elvis Presley that are 'remarkably candid, intimate and fresh' according to the publicity material.

Although it is not at the Portrait Gallery, the Portrait of a Nation project will form part of the Canberra centenary celebrations. Portrait of a Nation will remind Canberrans that our nation's rich history lies in our street and suburb names. Portrait of a Nation, for which I am one of the spokespeople, will encourage Canberrans to rediscover the significant national figures after whom their streets and suburbs are named and learn a little bit more about the history of those people, perhaps even make a family link. For example, the relatives of one of those people might attend a Christmas celebration in a street which is named after that person.

If Canberra were a person, I think it would be an egalitarian patriot, someone who understands the past but is not bound by it—and the National Portrait Gallery is very much part of that. It recognises our rich history and the great value of design in nourishing the soul as well as the mind.

Another design event recently brought to the national capital was the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects national landscape architecture awards, which I attended with pleasure last week. I want to briefly acknowledge the award winners. The 2012 Australian Medal for Landscape Architecture went to UDLA. The AILA National Landscape Architecture Award of Excellence went to Plan (E). Other awards went to Jeavons Landscape Architects for their Clifton Hill railway project and to Fresh Landscape Design for their Roogulli project in Bywong, New South Wales. ASPECT Studios won an award for their innovative work at Pirrama Park and another for their project at Jack Evans Boat Harbour in Tweed Heads. Andrew Green received an award for the SW1 project; Ecoscape Australia, for Mueller Park Universal Playspace; Vee Design, for the Robelle Domain in Ipswich; and McGregor Coxall, for the Australian Garden and the new entry of the National Gallery of Australia—and it is great to see such high-quality design here in the nation's capital.

Taylor Cullity Lethlean received an award for their Wild Sea exhibit at Melbourne Zoo. They are a really innovative firm of landscape architects. I know they are still mourning principal Kevin Taylor, who, tragically, died in a car crash last year. He was an alchemy of extraordinary qualities, being not only a great designer but also an extraordinary teacher.

Spackman Mossop Michaels received an award for the Humanities and Science Campus in the Parliamentary Triangle; John Mongard Landscape Architects, for Bingara and the Living Classroom; UDLA, for the Kimberley LNG precinct strategic assessment report; and the City of Bendigo, for the Bendigo Botanic Gardens Master Plan. Harris Hobbs received an award for the Bonner P-6 School and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Learning and Cultural Centre, a project in my own electorate of Fraser. Clouston Associates received an award for the Clarence River Way master plan; and Fitzgerald Frisby Landscape Architecture, for Lollipop Creek.

Zoe Metherell received a research and communication award for a comparative study on Melbourne's freeway planting designs; Oxigen Landscape Architects, for Green Infrastructure; HASSELL, for their project, Local-area Envisioning and Sustainability scoring system; Spackman Mossop Michaels, for their Chinatown Public Domain Plan, a really innovative redesign of Sydney's Chinatown area; and Taylor Cullity Lethlean, for their Victoria Square project. There were also two leadership awards, which went to Lucinda Hartley and Gweneth Leigh. I would like to acknowledge the national jurors who worked to select the award winners: Niall Simpson, Paul Harding, Alison Breach, Catherine Brouwer, Gary Rake and Catriona McLeod. Again, it was a great showcasing of design here in the national capital.

So much of what makes Canberra extraordinary is that meld of design and history of which the National Portrait Gallery is such a strong part and one that I am enormously proud to be engaged in as a Canberran. I commend the bills to the House.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Good evening, colleagues. Listening to the member for Hinkler, the member for Canberra and the member for Fraser makes you reflect on the fact that Labor has a proud tradition in the arts, and the bills that we are discussing tonight are part of that proud history—indeed, even more so leading into the centenary of Canberra in 2013.

It gives me great pleasure to represent the Minister for the Arts this evening, the Hon. Simon Crean. I also have a great appreciation of the arts. My great passion in life is directing musicals. In fact, I have directed 19, and I am looking forward to my 20th, which will be an Australian premiere in two years time. I am rather busy in the meantime! Anyway, I am looking forward to it and I hope you can all come and see it. On behalf of the minister, I would like to thank all honourable members for their contributions to the debate on these very important pieces of legislation.

As the minister said when he introduced the National Portrait Gallery of Australia Bill 2012 and the National Portrait Gallery of Australia (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2012 into the parliament, the passage of these bills will enable the home of the national portrait collection to develop and flourish as one of Australia's pre-eminent cultural institutions. This legislation will enshrine the functions of the gallery for the first time, giving it a clear and coherent purpose, and position it to attract more sponsorship and philanthropy.

It is worth looking at the functions in the bill. Among other things, and importantly, the bill will allow the gallery's functions to involve developing and engaging a national audience in relation to that collection and other works of art and related material that are or will be in the possession of the gallery, including through exhibitions, education, research, publications and public and online programs—in short, to share this fantastic gallery and all it contains with the rest of Australia. The bill also establishes the gallery as a body corporate, with a governing body consisting of a chair and deputy chair and between three and seven other members. The legislation enables the minister to appoint board members by written instrument. The bill provides that the minister will make the appointment of the first director of the gallery. The recruitment and appointment of the first director will ideally occur before 1 July 2013, to have effect on that day. Also among the provisions, the gallery staff will be engaged under the Public Service Act 1999. The legislation also provides for the employment of people on secondment from other Commonwealth, state or territory agencies, or indeed on contracts.

Minister Crean and those members who spoke on the legislation are no doubt excited by the potential of the Portrait Gallery to engage and enthral a national audience with its collection of portraits that encapsulate the essence of achievement and endeavour across Australia. The National Portrait Gallery of Australia will be—and is now—a source of great pride to all Australians and a lasting gift to Canberra in its centenary year.

The minister thanks all members who participated in the debate and thanks the House for the support of this significant legislation.

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I put the question that these bills be now read a second time.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.