President’s Report

With a new year turning over, an election in the air and a heritage festival approaching, I’m very pleased to report on growing momentum in planning for the state’s 200th anniversary activities.  

Following a number of community discussions that were underway last year, the History Council will shortly be inviting all interested stakeholders, institutions, organisations and individuals to join us for a strategic planning event in June.  We hope this will be an opportunity to set strategic goals and identify collaborative project work.  At the end of the session we will provide advice to government on an agenda for the WA200 preparations.

We’d love you and your organisations to join us.  Please start thinking about the ideas, projects, aims and objectives that matter most to you, and be ready to share them with others.

In addition to our WA200 engagement, the History Council will continue its activism on behalf of history and heritage in Western Australia.  There have been several big issues with which we have engaged in the past few months, including the Windsor Theatre heritage listing, which has raised complex issues of expert advice and conflicts of interest in heritage protection.  We have also contributed to several significant discussions in Fremantle.  In that context, we recommended the ‘dual naming’ of Kings Square with a Whadjuk Noongar name, to acknowledge and remind the community of Fremantle’s complex layers of history and cultural heritage.  

Finally, I’m also delighted to let you know that we have recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the History Councils of NSW, Victoria and South Australia to form the ‘History Councils of Australia’.  The HCA’s purpose is to advocate for the discipline of history, the work of historians and for history in the national conversation.  It is also to maintain and develop the ‘Value of History’ statement, which you can read here.

Deborah Gare