This blog post incorporates my submission to the Harbour Trust 9 May 2023 in response toThe Harbour Trust Draft Master Plan for Sydney Harbour’s Middle Head precinct. The Harbour Trust is a government agency which relies overly on external consultants and insists on putting marketing and public relations ahead of strategic planning and the development of actual services.
I was the Business Director, Loves Data Pty Limited, a Harbour Trust tenant from 2008 – 2015. During this time Loves Data established itself as a world leading Google Certified Partner. Our company and our people saw themselves as innovators, citizens and custodians of the Harbour Trust heritage buildings we leased in Georges Heights and the ASOPA (Australian School Of Pacific Administration) in the Middle Head precinct.
In our final years as a Harbour Trust tenant we employed 20 university graduates in various areas of specialisation in digital marketing and digital analytics technologies. Our annual rent including outgoings was close to $200K without reliable mobile phone and Internet services or an sufficient public transport frequency or facilities.
ABOVE: Loves Data was the first Google Certified Trainer outside the USA for Google Analytics and Google AdWords. Photo: Michael Mangold 2015.
We invited Geoff Bailey, the Harbour Trust Executive Director at the time, to give our team a talk on the Harbour Trust’s achievements and its plans. At one point in the building’s history, Loves Data's offices housed the Edward Hallstrom Pacific Library Collection, which was transferred on permanent loan to UNSW Library by the National Library of Australia in 1998.
ABOVE: (Left) Geoff Bailey, Executive Director, Harbour Trust, (Right) Michael Mangold, CoFounder, Loves Data. Photo: Loves Data 2011.
Linda Bergin OAM, Founding President of the Headland Preservation Group (HPG) also gave a talk to the company’s team, other tenants, and other founding members of HPG. Linda led the campaign in the late 1990s which stopped the Department of Defence selling former defence sites at Middle Head, North Head, Cockatoo Island, Snapper Island, Woolwich Dock, and the Platypus submarine base, Neutral Bay, to developers.
ABOVE: Linda Bergin OAM, Founding President, Headland Preservation Group (HPG) gave a talk at Loves Data’s offices. Photo: Michael Mangold 2013.
ABOVE: Repurposed ASOPA (Australian School of Pacific Administration) heritage buildings where officials from New Guinea studied. Photo: Michael Mangold 2023.
The business model of the Harbour Trust Draft Master Plan 2023 focuses on food, beverage and events. It underestimates the environmental, educational, technological, health and longevity revolution and their potential to release the social and economic value of its sites. It omits the Harbour Trust’s own important achievements in making open green space accessible with landscaping and the natural environment accessible with walkways.
Australians, and new and extended migrant families in particular, are thirsty and hungry for places and spaces with authentic history and heritage that they can explore in developing their relationships with their country. They are thirsty and hungry for knowledge, not evermore food, beverage and events.
ABOVE: Walkways built by the Harbour Trust are valuable in themselves and as links in the Bondi to Manly Walk. Photo: Michael Mangold 2023.
“Walking for exercise is the most popular sport or activity which Australians regularly participate in. Nearly half of adult Australians, or 47.9%, regularly go for a vigorous stroll.” (Source: Roy Morgan Finding No: 7592 May 13, 2018). At the same time over 80% of all children aged 2–14 do not meet the Australian Government’s Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) guidelines for physical and screen activity. Over 70% of 15–17 year olds and an estimated that 75% of adults aged 18–64 are insufficiently physically active. (Source: Australian Government Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Physical activity Web article 19 May 2023).
Above: A school excursion group walking along the edge of Middle Head Road in the absence of signage to safe walkways nearby. Photo: Michael Mangold 2019.
Community pushback via a change.org online petition with over 2,000 signatures may Save Middle Head Café from demolition! However other components in the Harbour Trust Draft Master Plan such as a west-facing underground change room facility at Middle Head Oval and the demolition instead of renovation of the existing pavilion, and the clearing of bushland and recreational green space for car parks, remain.
The activation of the Middle Head precinct requires imagination and innovation. Above all else it requires a systematic approach to public transport. Partnering by the Harbour Trust with Transport for NSW to provide reliable and frequent connecting bus and ferry services is a logistical and economic necessity for the sustainability of the Harbour Trust.
Above: Tiny bus shelter of token use to Harbour Trust tenants or the many visitors on weekends. Photo: Michael Mangold 2020.
The traffic plan in the Draft Master Plan is based on statistics from peak periods in COVID lockdowns. It includes car parks in bushland and a brief mention of public transport.
ABOVE: Indigenous heritage is referred to superficially in the Harbour Trust Draft Master Plan. Photo: Michael Mangold 2023.
A glaring omission in the Harbour Trust Draft Master Plan is visitor data and research. The Harbour Trust’s research and interpretation of natural, Indigenous, military, and community heritage remain minimal. The installation in the Submarine Miners’ Depot at Chowder Bay is outdated. The mounting of photos of the 21st Australian Auxiliary Hospital at Georges Heights, on the walls of a storage room there, go back to 2008.
The Barracks are marked for demolition in the Harbour Trust Draft Master Plan under the guise of returning the space to First Nations without any detail of Indigenous input or community consultation. These buildings are constructed from Australian hardwood and an objective professional opinion suggests they could be renovated and used for accommodation; securing their heritage value, sequestering carbon, and avoiding disruption to the environment and the costs of demolition.
ABOVE: The Barracks, built in the 1950s, accommodated the AATTV (Australian Army Training Team Vietnam) in the 1960s. Photo: Michael Mangold 2023.
The Land’s Edge Foundation’s Harbour Lodge at Chowder Bay, Middle Head, provides accommodation and facilities for student and community environmental education, adventures, walks, and recreation. It is popular with private schools pursuing outdoor adventure and educational experiences for their students.
ABOVE: (Right) The Land’s Edge Foundation’s Harbour Lodge at Chowder Bay, Middle Head, can accommodate 75 people. Photo: Michael Mangold 2023.
The heritage of Middle Head is multifaceted with the potential for a variety of experiences for visitors and students in close proximity to Sydney Harbour. The stories of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV) and Ray ‘Simon’ Simpson, VC, DCM, one of Australia’s greatest soldiers, are well documented for example but there is no interpretive / education centre to make this information available to engage with onsite.
ABOVE: 1969. Ray ‘Simmo’ Simpson VC, DCM, a great Australian soldier. ‘Simmo’ served at Cowra Breakout, World War II (New Guinea), Korean War, Malayan Emergency, and Vietnam War.
ABOVE: 1962. The first contingent of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV) at the Intelligence Centre, Middle Head. Sergeant R.S. Simpson (Infantry) (Front Row, Far Left).
Local, interstate, and international visitors attracted by the Middle Head’s parkland and proximity to the Harbour wander through with few clues to its history and heritage, and unsure of whether or not they are trespassing.
The objects of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust as set out in the legislation include:
ensure that management of Trust land contributes to enhancing the amenity of the Sydney Harbour region;
protect, conserve and interpret the environmental and heritage values of Trust land;
maximise public access to Trust land;
establish and manage suitable Trust land as a park on behalf of the Commonwealth as the national government;
The Harbour Trust’s objects are integral to each other and should not be isolated or cherry picked in the way they have been by the Harbour Trust to support its Draft Master Plan. Community consultation of visitors, including local, interstate and international students and tourists, stakeholders, tenants, and education and community leaders, should be engaged with and consulted to assist in developing a people centric Harbour Trust culture.
ABOVE: The Harbour Trust would benefit from management focused on public service not marketing and public relations campaigns. Photo: Michael Mangold 2023.
The Independent Review of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust 2019–20 instigated by Sussan Ley, the then Minister for the Environment, held promise. There were extensive and public consultation sessions. The final report was comprehensive but the results have been disappointing. The Harbour Trust board continues to be made up of mostly political appointments instead of the expertise needed. The Community Advisory Committees (CAC) now exclude the Headland Preservation Group (HPG) which has acted on behalf of all Australians from the outset in the late 1990s.
ABOVE: The Headland Preservation Group (HPG) has filled the community consultation gap in the Harbour Trust Master Draft Plan process. Photo: Michael Mangold 2023.
The outgoing Harbour Trust chairperson, Joseph Carrozzi AM, dispelled the myth that the Harbour Trust was self-funding. The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP, Minister for the Environment and Water, has secured funding for essential works. Serious consideration should now be given to appointing a diverse and professionally qualified board and executive with the skills to activate the original vision for the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust:
To provide a lasting legacy for the people of Australia by helping to create the finest foreshore park in the world and provide places that will greatly enrich the cultural life of the city and the nation.
This can be achieved with prudent financial management and strategic planning based on data and research gathered from visitors, tenants and a cross section of Harbour Trust staff from the CEO through to rangers. The fastest and best path to a sustainable future for Middle Head and all other Harbour Trust sites is community engagement, transparency and genuine community consultation on issues and plans with environmental sustainability, public transport schedules and facilities for buses and ferries, and an interpretive / education centre, the priorities.
ABOVE: Open green space to be cleared for a car park in the Harbour Trust Draft Master Plan. Photo: Marta Sengers 2023.