Key Points
- The broad budget for a gallery at the Australian War Memorial devoted to Australia's Frontier Wars has been revealed.
- The gallery will be a part of a $550m redevelopment of the War Memorial.
- The new gallery is expected to open in 2028.
A gallery recognising Australia’s Frontier Wars in the Australian War Memorial won’t open until 2028, with "between $5 and $10 million" of the memorial’s $550 million redevelopment renovation budget to be spent on a 'pre-1914' gallery.
The revelations came during a budget estimates committee on Tuesday night, which interrogated the Australian War Memorial’s (AWM) decision to expand its recognition of colonial conflict as part of ongoing development works.
In September, the AWM announced it would establish a gallery dedicated to the Frontier Wars – a period of bloody conflict between British colonisers and First Nations peoples following the 1778 invasion.
AWM chair Brendan Nelson said at the time the memorial would show a “much broader, a much deeper depiction and presentation of the violence committed against Indigenous people, initially by British, then by pastoralists, then by police, and then by Aboriginal militia”.
Greens senator Lidia Thorpe used Tuesday’s estimates committee to ask how much of the AWM’s $550 million budget would be dedicated to a Frontier Wars gallery.
"I would have to take on notice exactly what [the funding amount for that is], but it is in the order of somewhere between $5 and $10 million, for everything that’s in the pre-1914 gallery," the AWM’s executive program director Wayne Hitches said.
Slaughterhouse Creek Massacre of 1838, NSW, by Godfrey Charles Mundy Credit: Australian War Memorial (Commons Wikimedia)
"It is difficult to provide specific costings ahead of the Memorial’s detailed designs… the gallery costings are generally calculated by floor space per square metre, rather than specific installations," they said.
"The new Pre-1914 gallery space, including the frontier violence component, is estimated to be upwards of $5 million including designers, curatorial staff and gallery installation. The curatorial team will be stood up in late 2024 to commence design work."
AWM director Matt Anderson told the committee the gallery wouldn’t open until 2028 – which was in line with the project’s expected timeline.
"We're hoping to establish the gallery-advice teams in 2025 - these galleries are not expected to open until 2028."
Mr Anderson added the project was due to be delivered "within budget and within the total timeframe".
"We’re hoping to have the southern entrance and parade ground concluded in 2024, the CEW Bean Building, research centre and central energy plant all done in 2024, the glazed link – the glass that comes over the back and joins ANZAC Hall and that upper gallery completed in first half of 2025, the lower gallery completed in the lower half of 2025," he said.
"And that's when we’ll go back into the main buildings and start the gallery work."
Legality of recognising Frontier Wars questioned
The Australian War Memorial Act, which the memorial is bound by, is frequently cited as a limitation on Frontier War recognition.
Nationals Senator Matt Canavan used the estimates committee to question whether the AWM had changed its legal interpretation of the Act, citing an article published on the organisation’s website in 2014.
"As defined in Australian War Memorial Act, the memorial's official role is to develop a memorial for Australians who have died on or as a result of active service, the definition does not include the internal conflict between Indigenous populations and colonial powers of the day," he said.
This engraving by Samuel John Neele of James Grant's image of 'Pimbloy' is believed to be the only known contemporary depiction of the Bidjigal resistance leader Pemulwuy. Source: Supplied / State Library of Victoria
Mr Anderson said that remained the AWM’s position, but added the memorial had also acknowledged frontier violence for four decades.
"Since about 1986 the Australian War Memorial has had frontier violence in its galleries," he said.
“Prior to this development taking place, we had what was called the ‘Colonial Galleries’, and within those we covered the Boer War, Boxer Rebellion, [Battle of] Sedan, and we also included within that section frontier violence.”
Mr Canavan asked whether the memorial council planned to take fresh legal advice on the planned expansion.
"There are no plans to take legal advice simply because we believe we have the discretion available to us to be able to do this," Mr Anderson stated.
