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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-06-05 Daily Xml
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HERITAGE HEROES AWARDS

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (14:56): My question is to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation. Will the minister inform the house about the outcome of the 2012 Heritage Heroes Awards?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (14:56): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. I was hoping someone would ask me this question and I am pleased that someone has. Last week I had the pleasure of attending the 2012 Heritage Heroes Awards run by the University of South Australia's Hawke Centre. The Heritage Heroes Awards recognise the efforts of those who have excelled in their recent endeavours to preserve and protect our state's heritage. Interestingly, in previous years the awards were designed to acknowledge the contribution that volunteers make to heritage conservation.

However, in recognising that everybody has a role in preserving our heritage, and after being provided with many outstanding examples of heritage preservation occurring in all manner of places, this year's awards were expanded to include any individual group that has worked on a heritage project. This has enabled us to recognise the efforts of other bodies; for example, schools and universities, industry, small businesses and workplaces. I am pleased to advise that this year's awards were of an outstanding level.

The minister's award went to the Farina Restoration Project Group, an amazing group of volunteers and locals who have been restoring the old railway town of Farina in the Flinders Ranges. Led by Mr Tom Harding of Torquay, Victoria, 60 volunteers have been working for the past three to four years, stabilising the town's old stone buildings, researching its history and erecting information signs around the town. Farina (or as it was formerly known The Gums or Government Gums) is located on the old Ghan railway between Lyndhurst and Marree. It was an early outback settlement but, with shifting railway lines and fortunes, Farina eventually became a ghost town.

Nevertheless, this group of dedicated volunteers has now breathed new life into Farina and turned this former railway town into a tourist attraction. They have also performed important work on the Farina cemetery by restoring and recording the graves of soldiers who served in World War I and World War II, and they have logged a significant piece of our early multicultural history by doing similar work on the Afghan graves of early cameleers. The volunteers hope that the final outcome of the project will be a model outback town similar to Swan Hill in Victoria, one where tourists can visit and gain an appreciation of the town in its heyday. This might seem to be a high aspiration, but when one considers that Mr Harding and his friends started with merely $850 and a dream by a campfire, one can see that they have a vision and that it is not too far fetched.

Other Heritage Heroes awardees included: the Construction Industry Training Board and Applied Building Construction Training, for training building workers in the conservation, restoration and repair of historic buildings; the Spalding History Archive Group, for preserving and recording the history of the Spalding district and township, located just north of the Clare Valley; Studio Nine Architects, for sensitive additions and upgrades to Eringa, once the home of Sir Sydney Kidman and now Kapunda High School's administration building; and the Pichi Richi Preservation Society, for operating and maintaining the historic Pichi Richi railway in the state's Mid North, amongst many others. If any members would care to find out more about the awards or the winners, they can look up the departmental website.

More than 2,200 individual places are on the South Australian Heritage Register, from iconic buildings such as the one we are in today to the copper mines of Burra and the Old Gum Tree at Glenelg. However, we must remember that we would not have been able to preserve and maintain this great wealth of heritage if it were not for the efforts of these volunteers and community groups who do so much for our state. They are outstanding in their work and their efforts, and I commend them to the chamber.

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