The following formal submission have been made public
Submitter: Richard LlewellynAnzac Hall and Glazed Link
Works Approval Team
National Capital Authority
Treasury Building,
King Edward Terrace, PARKES ACT 2600
12/04/2021
Submission opposing:
Block 3 Section 39 Campbell - Australian War Memorial Redevelopment Project
‘Main Works Approval’ Application
Introduction:
1. The Australian War Memorial is an eminent part of Australia’s social history that contributes much to anchor Canberra’s place in the psyche of the nation. It would be trite, disrespectful and ignorant to suggest that it is just a tourist attraction.
2. Memorial redevelopment documentation plays both the ‘tourism’ and the ‘business opportunities’ cards to a disproportionate level. The Memorial’s multiplicity of purposes, roles and impacts includes but transcends these aspects.
3. The Memorial redevelopment project documentation ignores that balance; rigorous analysis of the documentation (*#1) shows that it is duplicitous in its arguments and exclusively self-serving in its conclusions.
4. This submission presents five grounds on which the NCA should reject the current redevelopment proposal.
5. First Consideration: the ‘economic’ advantages postulated by the Memorial will not eventuate.
6. The Memorial stridently avows that there is a high level of public support for the project but denies access to source documents to prove that claim. Mere repetition of a statement is not proof of truth.
7. The Memorial alludes to ‘surveys’ of ‘stakeholders' it has undertaken, claiming high levels of support. However, survey responses were selected from multiple-choice options worded so that no response could be negative towards the project. (*#2) It is fundamentally dishonest to claim that agreement with a statement akin to ‘do you consider that there should be more representation of modern Veterans?’ constitutes approval of the Memorial re-development project either implicitly or explicitly.
8. Memorial ‘surveys’ have been targeted on selected audiences; the bias inherent in this is evident. It has been a prime example of ‘push’ marketing, a widely discredited practice.
9. Opposition to the project from an expansive cross-section of society (including former Memorial Directors and senior officers, top-level senior Defence persons, eminent Australians and many others) has been published and is available for public inspection. This includes letters (*#3, #4)) and other editorial and general commentary in the media (*#5), a public petition (*#6) and submissions to Parliamentary approval authorities including the Public Works Committee (*#7) and under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act (*#8)
10. The overwhelming majority of openly-sought, publicly-documented, author-identified and absolutely verifiable commentary has been opposed to the project in ratios varying from mid 60% to more than 85%. In the case of the ‘Early Works’ Consultation (sic) it was seen, that of the record number of submissions (600+), 99.5% did NOT support the works approval, which was ignored by the NCA.
11. These commentators must be considered ‘stakeholders’ as much as any other Australian. By its original intent and development to date, the Memorial has every Australian citizen as a stakeholder.
12. The Memorial deceptively promotes the results of surveying ‘stakeholders’ it has selected (from groups most likely to be favourable to the proposal e.g. veteran’s organisations) as representing the opinion of all Australians. In fact, they are a very restricted sample of Australian society. These results are statistically and morally corrupt as indicators of overall Australian sentiment towards the project.
13. The existing data shows the Memorial redevelopment proposal will deter significantly more than 50% of its potential visitors.
14. Second Consideration: the Campbell proposal will not return to Canberra any increase in tourism or spin-off commercial reward.
15. Loss of support by 50% or more of the Memorial’s visitor population equates to a loss of perhaps 500,000 visitors each year to Canberra and a rapidly diminished role for the Memorial both in Canberra and in Australian society.
16. This result will impose a tangible loss of support for the Memorial as a meaningful contributor to a comprehensive understanding of national history and Australia’s place in the world, resulting in resistance to future funding requests by the Memorial. Concrete historical evidence of this can be seen from the scarcity of funding when interest in Australian military history was low in the several decades prior to 1993.
17. From the perspective of tourism, the Memorial is the biggest (numerically) visitor drawcard in the ACT, and is of world-wide significance. That position is the direct result of its unique nature, which has hitherto been a widely respected blend of education about warfare, Australian military and conjoined social history, sensitive exhibition of relevant artefacts and dignified remembrance of the sacrifice of those who have died.
18. The redevelopment proposal trashes that unique character to be replaced by celebration of military service, triumphalism and warrior-worship of participation in conflicts irrelevant to Australian society and the display of military hardware, consequent on its availability as discarded Defence materiel – not through informed curatorial decision.
19. Years of high rates of visitor attendance demonstrate that the Memorial is a major priority for visitation; many commentators have expressed publicly that in its current form it is very effective at delivering its mission. Re-purposing that mission is a grossly negative move, contrary to the legislation, the purpose and the ethos of the Memorial.
20. There is growing sentiment world-wide repudiating war and similar activities. The Memorial, by abandoning the balanced and nuanced delivery of its historical and social messages and their replacement with what is frequently characterised as a ‘Disney-theme-park’ presentation, is obdurately ignoring the prevailing public mood.
21. When the Memorial loses visitation numbers, the flow-on reduction in commercial benefit to Canberra is inevitable. Memorial claims of such commercial benefit from the redevelopment project are demonstrated to be spurious by the available published data.
22. Third Consideration: the Campbell proposal will reduce the respect of the rest of the nation for Canberra as the appropriate location for the most significant Cultural Institutions.
23. That Canberra has no ‘natural’ advantages (historical or geographical) as a location for the most nationally-important Cultural institutions (including the National Library, National Archives, National Museum and National Gallery) is unarguable. All of these institutions have created their reputation by their achievements and quality.
24. There is a symbiotic relationship between these institutions and their visitor numbers. Other than for researchers, few Australian or international travellers only visit one of these institutions; exposure of institutions not on the top of the visitor lists creates new / heightened appreciation as a result.
25. The Memorial is the premier drawcard. Politicians histrionically call it things like: ‘Australia’s most sacred place’, or ‘the soul of the nation’ and are enthusiastic to support even ludicrous expenditure on it.
26. If the proposed redevelopment proceeds, it will result in a place that is frequently referred to in the media as a ‘military theme park’ version of itself. There have been comparisons drawn with over-blown tourist-magnet constructions such as the ‘Big Prawn’ or the ‘Big Banana’- and not kindly. The reaction of those trenchantly opposed to war is loathing of an overt demonstration of rampant militarism and veneration for military technology.
27. The strictly financial impact on all Cultural institutions and Canberra tourist-related business is obvious. Less immediately obvious but extremely important is that the opportunity to deliver insight and access to highly significant areas of Australian history will be lost to increasing numbers of Australians and our international visitors.
28. The Memorial proposal will adversely impact the Memorial and impose collateral damage on the other cultural institutions and on Canberra itself.
29. The NCA is the last resort to prevent this happening.
30. Fourth Consideration: the far better option, that does not devalue the Memorial at Campbell and opens other opportunities for development of tourism and business is the Mitchell Precinct Option.
31. The Memorial commenced in 2012 to acquire land in Mitchell contiguous with the existing Mitchell Conservation Annex, Mitchell ‘B’ storage building and the Treloar Centre Storage and Display facility. The Memorial now holds title of a total area of just over 4.5 hectares, designated ‘the Mitchell Precinct’ by the Memorial. The Mitchell Precinct is the subject of a significant development plan in its own right, that is deliberately almost totally hidden in Memorial documentation supporting the Campbell redevelopment plan.
32. The Memorial’s Mitchell Precinct is bordered by conservation / storage facilities of the Australian National Archives and the National Museum of Australia. Together these facilities present a major opportunity for the development of a ‘cultural institution back-of-house activities’ conglomerate, creating an entirely new tourism and cultural development infrastructure of mutual benefit to the institutions themselves in terms of meaningful public exposure and to the business and commercial activities of Mitchell and Gunghalin at very low cost.
33. The potential conglomerate area at Mitchell would provide adequate room for expansion of both institutional facilities and shared public access support facilities, and benefit from (as well as add validation to) the Light Rail development that literally passes along one boundary.
34. The Campbell development option is neither commercially needed nor socially wanted in Campbell and would provide no possible long-term benefit.
35. In its submission of June, 2017 to the Public Works Committee (PWC) in support of the funding for building the Mitchell ‘E’ storage facility (*#9) the Memorial stated that one of the 9 Plan Development Principles is:
1.11.10 Principle 9 – Strengthen Public Presence
Strengthen the public recognition of Mitchell Precinct as an integral component of the
Australian War Memorial and home to a significant national collection. This can include
unified corporate identity and the potential for public access and display of collection items. [Bolding - author]
36. The Memorial repudiated the very existence of its own Precinct Plan principle just over thirty days later (*#10) and in all subsequent documentation and communication relating to the Campbell re-development plan. However, Principle 9 remains a published fact and a statement of intent to the PWC of future development at Mitchell.
37. This was not the first statement by the Memorial of intent for Mitchell as a public access site: in 1992, the Memorial obtained PWC approval (*#11) for the construction of the Mitchell ‘B’ building:
‘The Committee recommends the construction of a storage-display facility for the Australian War Memorial at Mitchell, at a cost of $6.5m’
[Bolding - author]
38. The Memorial has denied (repeatedly) prior PWC approvals for public access to Memorial relics as a feature of Mitchell past and future development in all documentation related to the re-development proposal – including to the PWC itself. This could be construed as lying to Parliament.
39. The repeated dishonest denials by the Memorial of the existence of the undertakings it has made – over a period of nearly three decades - to effectively utilise and develop the Mitchell site is a clear statement that it has no intention of honouring the commitments it made to PWC in order to secure funds. Yet it undertook a campaign to acquire land for Memorial purposes during that period.
40. The Campbell re-development project as currently proposed will severely affect all visitation to cultural institutions resulting in a double-loss position of benefits to Canberra.
41. Fifth Consideration: the sites contained by the Mitchell Precinct will stagnate in development if the Campbell plan goes ahead.
42. The Campbell re-development project is slated to occupy the Memorial for at least the next 10 years and the funding approval mandates / is based upon that timetable.
43. The forensic analysis of the Initial Business Case documented in (#1 a:) highlights clearly that the Memorial’s calculations of space and functionality requirements are unsupported (and unsupportable) conjecture. Ipso facto any funding breakdown is similarly guesswork and the history of most large-scale building works in Canberra is that initial estimates will be exceeded by multiple percentages – not just fractions.
44. The Memorial is currently the Federal government’s poster-child for extravagant expressions of patriotism which divert public attention but the resultant horn of financial plenty has not always been open to the Memorial.
45. There is no guarantee that funding will remain as currently abundant. Additional funding for development at Mitchell will not be forthcoming when works on the Campbell plan go badly over-budget. The potential for not just the Memorial but the adjacent cultural institution sites and Canberra generally to reap benefits from development at Mitchell will be unrealised.
46. If the Memorial project is allowed to proceed, the NCA would forever be associated with the disgraceful outcome for Canberra.
47. Recommendations: In order to be consistent with the National Capital Plan, the NCA must not approve the proposed Main Works packages. Specifically:
48. The NCA should not endorse nor support the Memorial re-development plan project in its current form.
49. The NCA should require the Memorial to prepare a responsible proposal for development at Campbell that reflects the Memorial’s historical purpose and ethos, is respectful of Heritage implications and does not alienate a large proportion of its potential audience; and
50. The NCA should require that any future proposal from the Memorial provides a holistic approach to both of its sites to develop an integrated facility that enhances rather than diminishes the Campbell site balance of remembrance, display, and ‘story-telling’ gallery development with Large Technology Object display (in particular) to become a feature of the Mitchell site development.
References/Links:
(#1): a: Llewellyn, Richard et al: The Australian War Memorial extensions: a critique of the design choice‘, Honest History, 24 June 2019; and
b: Llewellyn, Richard et al: ‘The Australian War Memorial Redevelopment Program: the “Mitchell Option” reassessed‘, Honest History, 22 July 2019
(#2): Wareham, Dr. Sue, President MAPW: ‘Let’s not allow the Australian War Memorial to become something much uglier‘, Canberra Times, 27 February 2021
(#3): http://honesthistory.net.au/wp/opposition-to-war-memorials-498-million-extensions-grows-more-than-80-distinguished-australians-sign-letter/
(#4): http://honesthistory.net.au/wp/stop-this-mad-indulgent-498m-project-at-the-war-memorial-open-letter-to-the-prime-minister-signed-by-over-70-australians/
(#5): e.g.: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/16/former-war-memorial-heads-join-call-to-redirect-500m-for-grandiose-expansion-to-veterans and:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2019/sep/05/we-demean-our-history-when-we-turn-the-australian-war-memorial-into-disneyland
(#6): http://honesthistory.net.au/wp/stephens-david-thoughts-of-the-people-against-the-war-memorials-grandiose-extensions-project/
(#7):https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Public_Works/AustralianWarMemorial/Submissions
(#8): http://honesthistory.net.au/wp/wp-content/uploads/1820-EPBC-response.pdf
(#9) https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Public_Works/AWMStoreProject/Submissions
(*#10) GHD: Australian War Memorial Redevelopment Options Assessment Report , Section 4.2, [pdf available upon request from author]
(#11):https://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/house_of_representatives_committees?url=reports/1992/1992_pp498.pdf
National Capital Authority
Treasury Building,
King Edward Terrace, PARKES ACT 2600
12/04/2021
Submission opposing:
Block 3 Section 39 Campbell - Australian War Memorial Redevelopment Project
‘Main Works Approval’ Application
Introduction:
1. The Australian War Memorial is an eminent part of Australia’s social history that contributes much to anchor Canberra’s place in the psyche of the nation. It would be trite, disrespectful and ignorant to suggest that it is just a tourist attraction.
2. Memorial redevelopment documentation plays both the ‘tourism’ and the ‘business opportunities’ cards to a disproportionate level. The Memorial’s multiplicity of purposes, roles and impacts includes but transcends these aspects.
3. The Memorial redevelopment project documentation ignores that balance; rigorous analysis of the documentation (*#1) shows that it is duplicitous in its arguments and exclusively self-serving in its conclusions.
4. This submission presents five grounds on which the NCA should reject the current redevelopment proposal.
5. First Consideration: the ‘economic’ advantages postulated by the Memorial will not eventuate.
6. The Memorial stridently avows that there is a high level of public support for the project but denies access to source documents to prove that claim. Mere repetition of a statement is not proof of truth.
7. The Memorial alludes to ‘surveys’ of ‘stakeholders' it has undertaken, claiming high levels of support. However, survey responses were selected from multiple-choice options worded so that no response could be negative towards the project. (*#2) It is fundamentally dishonest to claim that agreement with a statement akin to ‘do you consider that there should be more representation of modern Veterans?’ constitutes approval of the Memorial re-development project either implicitly or explicitly.
8. Memorial ‘surveys’ have been targeted on selected audiences; the bias inherent in this is evident. It has been a prime example of ‘push’ marketing, a widely discredited practice.
9. Opposition to the project from an expansive cross-section of society (including former Memorial Directors and senior officers, top-level senior Defence persons, eminent Australians and many others) has been published and is available for public inspection. This includes letters (*#3, #4)) and other editorial and general commentary in the media (*#5), a public petition (*#6) and submissions to Parliamentary approval authorities including the Public Works Committee (*#7) and under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act (*#8)
10. The overwhelming majority of openly-sought, publicly-documented, author-identified and absolutely verifiable commentary has been opposed to the project in ratios varying from mid 60% to more than 85%. In the case of the ‘Early Works’ Consultation (sic) it was seen, that of the record number of submissions (600+), 99.5% did NOT support the works approval, which was ignored by the NCA.
11. These commentators must be considered ‘stakeholders’ as much as any other Australian. By its original intent and development to date, the Memorial has every Australian citizen as a stakeholder.
12. The Memorial deceptively promotes the results of surveying ‘stakeholders’ it has selected (from groups most likely to be favourable to the proposal e.g. veteran’s organisations) as representing the opinion of all Australians. In fact, they are a very restricted sample of Australian society. These results are statistically and morally corrupt as indicators of overall Australian sentiment towards the project.
13. The existing data shows the Memorial redevelopment proposal will deter significantly more than 50% of its potential visitors.
14. Second Consideration: the Campbell proposal will not return to Canberra any increase in tourism or spin-off commercial reward.
15. Loss of support by 50% or more of the Memorial’s visitor population equates to a loss of perhaps 500,000 visitors each year to Canberra and a rapidly diminished role for the Memorial both in Canberra and in Australian society.
16. This result will impose a tangible loss of support for the Memorial as a meaningful contributor to a comprehensive understanding of national history and Australia’s place in the world, resulting in resistance to future funding requests by the Memorial. Concrete historical evidence of this can be seen from the scarcity of funding when interest in Australian military history was low in the several decades prior to 1993.
17. From the perspective of tourism, the Memorial is the biggest (numerically) visitor drawcard in the ACT, and is of world-wide significance. That position is the direct result of its unique nature, which has hitherto been a widely respected blend of education about warfare, Australian military and conjoined social history, sensitive exhibition of relevant artefacts and dignified remembrance of the sacrifice of those who have died.
18. The redevelopment proposal trashes that unique character to be replaced by celebration of military service, triumphalism and warrior-worship of participation in conflicts irrelevant to Australian society and the display of military hardware, consequent on its availability as discarded Defence materiel – not through informed curatorial decision.
19. Years of high rates of visitor attendance demonstrate that the Memorial is a major priority for visitation; many commentators have expressed publicly that in its current form it is very effective at delivering its mission. Re-purposing that mission is a grossly negative move, contrary to the legislation, the purpose and the ethos of the Memorial.
20. There is growing sentiment world-wide repudiating war and similar activities. The Memorial, by abandoning the balanced and nuanced delivery of its historical and social messages and their replacement with what is frequently characterised as a ‘Disney-theme-park’ presentation, is obdurately ignoring the prevailing public mood.
21. When the Memorial loses visitation numbers, the flow-on reduction in commercial benefit to Canberra is inevitable. Memorial claims of such commercial benefit from the redevelopment project are demonstrated to be spurious by the available published data.
22. Third Consideration: the Campbell proposal will reduce the respect of the rest of the nation for Canberra as the appropriate location for the most significant Cultural Institutions.
23. That Canberra has no ‘natural’ advantages (historical or geographical) as a location for the most nationally-important Cultural institutions (including the National Library, National Archives, National Museum and National Gallery) is unarguable. All of these institutions have created their reputation by their achievements and quality.
24. There is a symbiotic relationship between these institutions and their visitor numbers. Other than for researchers, few Australian or international travellers only visit one of these institutions; exposure of institutions not on the top of the visitor lists creates new / heightened appreciation as a result.
25. The Memorial is the premier drawcard. Politicians histrionically call it things like: ‘Australia’s most sacred place’, or ‘the soul of the nation’ and are enthusiastic to support even ludicrous expenditure on it.
26. If the proposed redevelopment proceeds, it will result in a place that is frequently referred to in the media as a ‘military theme park’ version of itself. There have been comparisons drawn with over-blown tourist-magnet constructions such as the ‘Big Prawn’ or the ‘Big Banana’- and not kindly. The reaction of those trenchantly opposed to war is loathing of an overt demonstration of rampant militarism and veneration for military technology.
27. The strictly financial impact on all Cultural institutions and Canberra tourist-related business is obvious. Less immediately obvious but extremely important is that the opportunity to deliver insight and access to highly significant areas of Australian history will be lost to increasing numbers of Australians and our international visitors.
28. The Memorial proposal will adversely impact the Memorial and impose collateral damage on the other cultural institutions and on Canberra itself.
29. The NCA is the last resort to prevent this happening.
30. Fourth Consideration: the far better option, that does not devalue the Memorial at Campbell and opens other opportunities for development of tourism and business is the Mitchell Precinct Option.
31. The Memorial commenced in 2012 to acquire land in Mitchell contiguous with the existing Mitchell Conservation Annex, Mitchell ‘B’ storage building and the Treloar Centre Storage and Display facility. The Memorial now holds title of a total area of just over 4.5 hectares, designated ‘the Mitchell Precinct’ by the Memorial. The Mitchell Precinct is the subject of a significant development plan in its own right, that is deliberately almost totally hidden in Memorial documentation supporting the Campbell redevelopment plan.
32. The Memorial’s Mitchell Precinct is bordered by conservation / storage facilities of the Australian National Archives and the National Museum of Australia. Together these facilities present a major opportunity for the development of a ‘cultural institution back-of-house activities’ conglomerate, creating an entirely new tourism and cultural development infrastructure of mutual benefit to the institutions themselves in terms of meaningful public exposure and to the business and commercial activities of Mitchell and Gunghalin at very low cost.
33. The potential conglomerate area at Mitchell would provide adequate room for expansion of both institutional facilities and shared public access support facilities, and benefit from (as well as add validation to) the Light Rail development that literally passes along one boundary.
34. The Campbell development option is neither commercially needed nor socially wanted in Campbell and would provide no possible long-term benefit.
35. In its submission of June, 2017 to the Public Works Committee (PWC) in support of the funding for building the Mitchell ‘E’ storage facility (*#9) the Memorial stated that one of the 9 Plan Development Principles is:
1.11.10 Principle 9 – Strengthen Public Presence
Strengthen the public recognition of Mitchell Precinct as an integral component of the
Australian War Memorial and home to a significant national collection. This can include
unified corporate identity and the potential for public access and display of collection items. [Bolding - author]
36. The Memorial repudiated the very existence of its own Precinct Plan principle just over thirty days later (*#10) and in all subsequent documentation and communication relating to the Campbell re-development plan. However, Principle 9 remains a published fact and a statement of intent to the PWC of future development at Mitchell.
37. This was not the first statement by the Memorial of intent for Mitchell as a public access site: in 1992, the Memorial obtained PWC approval (*#11) for the construction of the Mitchell ‘B’ building:
‘The Committee recommends the construction of a storage-display facility for the Australian War Memorial at Mitchell, at a cost of $6.5m’
[Bolding - author]
38. The Memorial has denied (repeatedly) prior PWC approvals for public access to Memorial relics as a feature of Mitchell past and future development in all documentation related to the re-development proposal – including to the PWC itself. This could be construed as lying to Parliament.
39. The repeated dishonest denials by the Memorial of the existence of the undertakings it has made – over a period of nearly three decades - to effectively utilise and develop the Mitchell site is a clear statement that it has no intention of honouring the commitments it made to PWC in order to secure funds. Yet it undertook a campaign to acquire land for Memorial purposes during that period.
40. The Campbell re-development project as currently proposed will severely affect all visitation to cultural institutions resulting in a double-loss position of benefits to Canberra.
41. Fifth Consideration: the sites contained by the Mitchell Precinct will stagnate in development if the Campbell plan goes ahead.
42. The Campbell re-development project is slated to occupy the Memorial for at least the next 10 years and the funding approval mandates / is based upon that timetable.
43. The forensic analysis of the Initial Business Case documented in (#1 a:) highlights clearly that the Memorial’s calculations of space and functionality requirements are unsupported (and unsupportable) conjecture. Ipso facto any funding breakdown is similarly guesswork and the history of most large-scale building works in Canberra is that initial estimates will be exceeded by multiple percentages – not just fractions.
44. The Memorial is currently the Federal government’s poster-child for extravagant expressions of patriotism which divert public attention but the resultant horn of financial plenty has not always been open to the Memorial.
45. There is no guarantee that funding will remain as currently abundant. Additional funding for development at Mitchell will not be forthcoming when works on the Campbell plan go badly over-budget. The potential for not just the Memorial but the adjacent cultural institution sites and Canberra generally to reap benefits from development at Mitchell will be unrealised.
46. If the Memorial project is allowed to proceed, the NCA would forever be associated with the disgraceful outcome for Canberra.
47. Recommendations: In order to be consistent with the National Capital Plan, the NCA must not approve the proposed Main Works packages. Specifically:
48. The NCA should not endorse nor support the Memorial re-development plan project in its current form.
49. The NCA should require the Memorial to prepare a responsible proposal for development at Campbell that reflects the Memorial’s historical purpose and ethos, is respectful of Heritage implications and does not alienate a large proportion of its potential audience; and
50. The NCA should require that any future proposal from the Memorial provides a holistic approach to both of its sites to develop an integrated facility that enhances rather than diminishes the Campbell site balance of remembrance, display, and ‘story-telling’ gallery development with Large Technology Object display (in particular) to become a feature of the Mitchell site development.
References/Links:
(#1): a: Llewellyn, Richard et al: The Australian War Memorial extensions: a critique of the design choice‘, Honest History, 24 June 2019; and
b: Llewellyn, Richard et al: ‘The Australian War Memorial Redevelopment Program: the “Mitchell Option” reassessed‘, Honest History, 22 July 2019
(#2): Wareham, Dr. Sue, President MAPW: ‘Let’s not allow the Australian War Memorial to become something much uglier‘, Canberra Times, 27 February 2021
(#3): http://honesthistory.net.au/wp/opposition-to-war-memorials-498-million-extensions-grows-more-than-80-distinguished-australians-sign-letter/
(#4): http://honesthistory.net.au/wp/stop-this-mad-indulgent-498m-project-at-the-war-memorial-open-letter-to-the-prime-minister-signed-by-over-70-australians/
(#5): e.g.: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/16/former-war-memorial-heads-join-call-to-redirect-500m-for-grandiose-expansion-to-veterans and:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2019/sep/05/we-demean-our-history-when-we-turn-the-australian-war-memorial-into-disneyland
(#6): http://honesthistory.net.au/wp/stephens-david-thoughts-of-the-people-against-the-war-memorials-grandiose-extensions-project/
(#7):https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Public_Works/AustralianWarMemorial/Submissions
(#8): http://honesthistory.net.au/wp/wp-content/uploads/1820-EPBC-response.pdf
(#9) https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Public_Works/AWMStoreProject/Submissions
(*#10) GHD: Australian War Memorial Redevelopment Options Assessment Report , Section 4.2, [pdf available upon request from author]
(#11):https://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/house_of_representatives_committees?url=reports/1992/1992_pp498.pdf