Ms O'CONNOR - Thank you Chair. Minister, one of your predecessors in the role undertook a purge of the heritage register and about a third of the listings were removed. It might have ended up being something like 1500 properties. It became very clear from the properties that were removed that whole streetscapes were being taken off the register. In Launceston and in Hobart and in other parts of Tasmania, 10, 15, 20 houses within a street were removed from the heritage register. When you have a look at the act, it's ambiguous about the state heritage significance of streetscapes. Do you agree that that's something that needs to be looked at, in terms of a cohesive heritage register, where we are preserving streetscapes with significant period buildings?
Ms OGILVIE - I'm always open to good suggestions and if that is something that people would like to see I'm certainly open to looking at it. I'm not sure whether the LISTmap that we launched the other day, does provide that sort of information -
Ms O'CONNOR - No, that's not; it's separate issues.
Ms OGILVIE - No; but I think where you going was that there's another layer to it.
Ms O'CONNOR - No, it's about law reform to protect streetscapes.
Ms OGILVIE - I'll ask the secretary.
Ms WILSON - The removal of places off the register is the Heritage Council's responsibility and I know the process you were talking about. The process for reviewing places on the heritage register and potentially removing some of those was quite thorough. The Heritage Council assessed those places on the register and if they didn't meet the criteria in the act, they were removed. They had to not meet the criteria on the act to be removed.
Ms O'CONNOR - Thank you.
Mr WILLIE - It's important to note too, some of those streetscapes, if they were removed that was because they weren't of state significance and they would be relevant to the local planning scheme, which caters for heritage precincts and streetscapes.
Ms O'CONNOR - Thank you, Ms Wilson. I understand that the act made it possible to remove large clusters of homes that formed a streetscape heritage site because the act said that those homes individually weren't of state significance. The question to the minister was more about the capacity of the act to protect streetscapes so that you can have a completeness of heritage in the listing, and I ask you to have a look at that.
Ms OGILVIE - I’m very happy to do that and perhaps you would like to write to me on that?
Ms O'CONNOR - Sure.
Ms OGILVIE - I'm very open minded about that.