Bills Digest No. 92 2002-03
National Gallery Amendment Bill 2002
WARNING:
This Digest was prepared for debate. It reflects the legislation as
introduced and does not canvass subsequent amendments. This Digest
does not have any official legal status. Other sources should be
consulted to determine the subsequent official status of the
Bill.
CONTENTS
Passage History
Purpose
Background
Main Provisions
Endnotes
Contact Officer & Copyright Details
Passage History
National Gallery Amendment Bill
2002
Date Introduced:
25 September 2002
House: Senate
Portfolio: Arts and Sport
Commencement:
The day after Royal
Assent
Purpose
To amend the
National Gallery Act 1975 to enable the National Gallery
of Australia to make a gift of a work of art, whether or not it has
a saleable value, with the approval of the Gallery Council and the
Minister.
Section 9 of the National Gallery Act
1975 (the Act) provides for the disposal of a work of art that
is unfit for, or no longer required as part of the national
collection. Disposal is to be by way of sale, gift, or destruction.
However, the Act also states that the Gallery shall not make a gift
of a work of art unless the work has no saleable value.
This Bill proposes to amend the Act to allow for
the gift of works with a saleable value. According to the second
reading speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer,
Senator the Hon Ian Campbell, this measure is expected to broaden
the scope for making gifts of works to other institutions,
including regional galleries within Australia.(1)
The Council of the NGA approved a Disposal
Policy in April 1995.(2) The objectives of the NGA
Disposal Policy are to:
-
- dispose of works of art by exchange or transfer in order to
refine and improve the Gallery s collections(3)
-
- transfer works that may be better placed in another gallery or
similar public collecting institution, and
-
- de-accession works of art, using the financial proceeds, if
any, for collection development and improvement.(4)
The purpose of review and disposal is to improve
the quality of the collection. The decision to dispose of a work is
made by the Gallery Council and approved by the Minister. When
considering a work for disposal the Council must consider, among
other things, whether:
-
- the significance or aesthetic merits of the work fall below the
general level of the collection
-
- the work lowers the overall level of quality or representation
of an artist or any area of the collection
-
- the work has deteriorated to such an extent that it is no
longer able to be exhibited and is beyond restoration to an
acceptable standard
-
- the work has been found to have been falsely documented,
described or attributed, or is a forgery
-
- the work is duplicated in the collection where duplication
serves no scholarly or educational purpose. A duplicate means a
work produced as a multiple or in an edition, for example a work
struck from the same die or printed from the same block or
plate
-
- the work is one that is no longer representative of the
collection as characterised by the Gallery s Acquisition Policy at
the time of disposal.
The Gallery does not dispose of a work by a
living artist except with the written permission of the artist. A
work which was the subject of a gift or a bequest is not disposed
of without first obtaining the consent of the donor, the relevant
trustee or the personal representative of the donor s estate, where
this is possible. Details of the disposal of any works of art are
included in the Gallery s annual report which is tabled in
Parliament.
In 1998 the Australian National Audit Office
(ANAO) conducted a performance audit of the country s major
collecting institutions, the National Library of Australia, the
National Gallery of Australia, the National Museum of Australia,
and the Australian War Memorial. In its report entitled
Safeguarding Our National Collections,(5) the
ANAO found that disposal was not a high priority activity of any of
the institutions it examined.(6) It reported that since
1990 the Gallery had disposed of only one work of art(7)
which was returned to its previous owner.(8) The ANAO
recommended that in order to ensure the continuing quality of its
collections, the Gallery along with the other collecting
institutions, should allocate a higher priority to identifying
items for possible disposal.(9)
The latest annual report of the NGA records that
Ministerial approval was obtained to dispose of 670 objects during
the financial year 2001-2002. Items disposed of comprised a group
of 20 photographs by an unknown artist of the 19th
century and an archive of 285 glass and 365 film
negatives.(10)
The NGA has an extended program of loans of
works of art to other galleries and through touring exhibitions.
The latest annual report of the Gallery states that during
2001-2002 the Gallery lent more than 2000 works for exhibition,
including travelling exhibitions and works lent to Commonwealth
official residences.(11)
In October 2002 the NGA announced that as part
of the celebration of its twentieth anniversary, the Gallery would
be sending some of its most treasured works to 20 galleries around
the country over the next twelve months. The program was given the
name 20/20 after the NGA asked the directors of 20 state and
regional galleries to choose their top three works from a list of
20 possibilities. The works available include some of the Gallery s
most valuable and most popular works. Galleries to be lent a major
work from the NGA s collection include the State galleries and
regional galleries in Kalgoorlie, Bunbury, Darwin, Alice Springs,
Cairns, Rockhampton, Mount Gambier, Albury, Broken Hill and
Launceston.(12)
In November 2001 the NGA jointly purchased with
the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery an early Australian colonial
painting by John Glover. This was the first joint acquisition made
by the NGA and the two galleries will share the painting for six
months each year.(13) The purchase of the painting at
auction was investigated by the Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission (ACCC) for possible collusion and price fixing between
the galleries. In December 2002 the Chairman of the ACCC, Professor
Alan Fels, stated that whilst it [the ACCC] will not be taking any
further action at this stage, it may do so in the future should new
information come to light . The ACCC s legal advice was that the
NGA was subject to the Trade Practices Act like any other business
. He is reported as saying that [i]f museums get together and make
agreements about buying, they have to be extraordinarily careful to
avoid breaching the law. They would be well advised to have good
legal advice before collaborating on buying decisions
.(14)
Item 1 amends subsection 9(4)
of the National Gallery Act 1975 to allow the National
Gallery of Australia to dispose of works by gift, even if those
works have a saleable value. The Bill does not affect the
requirement that the NGA must still have the approval of the
Gallery Council and the Minister before it makes any gifts of works
of art.
-
- Sen the Hon Ian Campbell, Second Reading Speech , National
Gallery Amendment Bill 2002, Senate, Debates, 25 September
2002, p. 4800.
- Amended by the Council at its meeting in December 1995.
- Section 10 of the Act enables the NGA to exchange a work of art
in the national collection for another work of art, with the
approval of the Gallery Council.
- National Gallery of Australia, Into the new millennium:
Corporate Plan 1999-2001.
- Australian National Audit Office, Safeguarding our national
collections , Audit Report No. 8, 1998-99.
- ibid., p. 49.
- ibid., p. 49.
- ibid., p. 51.
- ibid., p. 50.
- National Gallery of Australia, Annual Report
2001-2002, p. 22.
- National Gallery of Australia, Annual Report
2001-2002, p.4. Details of loans to other galleries are listed in
the Annual Report on pages 124-127.
- NGA art works to be shown around the nation , by David Meagher,
Australian Financial Review, 3 October 2002; Nerves on
edge as Ned Kelly crosses the Nullarbor , by Sophie Douez, The
Age, 10 December 2002; Elvis joins Kelly gang and goes bush ,
by Misha Schubert, Australian, 10 December 2002.
- Galleries club together for a $1.78m slice of history , by
Geoff Maslen, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 November 2001. The
painting was John Glover s Mount Wellington and Hobart Town
from Kangaroo Point (1831-1833).
- Gallery in clear on Glover buy , by Penny Brown.
Australian, 11 December 2002.
Rosemary Bell
31 January 2003
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ISSN 1328-8091
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