We recognise our responsibility to protect the value of Australia’s natural and cultural heritage in sites under our ownership and control, in keeping with our existing environmental commitments.
Under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), we are required to identify places that are likely to have Commonwealth heritage values, as listed in the Commonwealth Heritage criteria.
Our Heritage Strategy 2021-2023, demonstrates how we meet our heritage obligations under the EPBC Act. We also keep a publicly-accessible heritage register identifying equipment or sites under our ownership or control that have known Commonwealth heritage value. These include air traffic control towers, navigation aids and former communications facilities.
We currently support the Civil Aviation Historical Society, which runs the Airways Museum at Essendon Airport. For many years, we have collected and preserved a range of equipment related to our business such as air traffic control consoles, radomes, fire trucks and navigation aids. This collection is managed and preserved in the Airways Museum and, while largely historical in content, it houses equipment that may help illustrate Commonwealth heritage values of our places.
Connecting the nation
To improve public access to Australia’s aviation history and contribute to its conservation, we have partnered with the University of Canberra to develop the Connecting the Nation: Australia’s Aviation Heritage website.
Connecting the Nation aims to improve public access to Australia’s aviation history and contribute to its conservation through a single, digital portal that draws together our country’s rich sources of aviation history.
The website provides a central source for enquiries into our aviation history and addresses the sustainability and conservation needs of collections across Australia.
