National

Location: Isolated & Neglected Remote Homesteads,

                 Distributed throughout the Top End

Threat:   Decay and Neglect

In this the Year of the Outback (2002), it is telling that many homesteads and other rural buildings are under threat from neglect and decay.

Many of these places are no longer used as dwellings or as working station buildings, so they have become increasingly exposed to neglect, the vagaries of the climate, and to vandalism.

These once proud buildings, which represent so much of the nation’s post 1788 settlement history, have now themselves become part of the story of social and pastoral change which has occurred so rapidly in the last few decades.

The tragedy is that there is no national picture of these losses. While there have been a number of regional and State and Territory surveys of homesteads and other rural buildings, there is no national inventory of these places, and therefore no means of identifying those most at risk, and providing a means to ensure the survival of a representative group of them.

In recognition of the significance of these places to the nation, a nation wide effort should be made to coordinate a survey to assess the condition of isolated rural homesteads and their outbuildings, as a first step to ensuring that a significant number are preserved so that they - and their stories - can remain as part of the national story for generations of Australians into the future.