ANZ and National Trust Mortgaging Tasmania’s Heritage

• Oak Lodge, on The National Trust website, here

The ANZ bank has a history of funding controversial projects in Tasmania. It has come to light from a title search that the ANZ bank holds a mortgage over the property, Oak Lodge, Richmond. The National Trust of Australia (Tasmania) has decided to sell Oak Lodge, a property that was gifted to the community under the care of the National Trust by Miss Muriel Horsfall and has been operated by the Coal River Valley Historical Society as a local museum.

What is the ANZ doing to own a mortgage on a National Trust property that is most likely to be non-profit and has little profit-making capability to service a loan? What sort of business case did the National Trust (Tasmania) make to ANZ in order to obtain the mortgage? How many other Tasmanian National Trust properties are mortgaged by ANZ? Are the ANZ so ethically challenged as to take on any business even when it involves our heritage?

Unlike the National Trust in other parts of Australia and the world, the National Trust in Tasmania is now effectively a Government business enterprise set up by Act of Parliament in 2006 and is run by a Government-appointed board. The Tasmanian Government transfers its heritage properties under lease to the National Trust (Tasmania) who then sell properties that have been gifted to them by private individuals in order to maintain the Government-owned properties. In this manner, the State Government circumvents its obligation to maintain our heritage at no cost to its Treasury.

Did the ANZ review its mortgage on Oak Lodge when the Tasmanian Government took over the National Trust in Tasmania? If not, they should do so now as a matter of urgency.

What is the annual cost to the National Trust to service the mortgage? Is this cost the reason for sale? What would be the net return after a sale when the mortgage is discharged? I believe that the ANZ should be asked to write off this mortgage that they never should have taken out. I believe that if that happens, then the ownership of Oak Lodge should be transferred to a specific-purpose trust whose board comprises of representatives of Local Government (Clarence), the Coal River Valley Historical Society, TMAG, the Tasmanian Heritage Council, the National Trust, ANZ and other interested parties.

The writer is a member of the National Trust and is a shareholder in ANZ.

• A Save Oak Lodge public meeting will be held at the Richmond Town Hall on Wednesday 30th January, 2013 at 7:30 p.m.