With big money being spent on inner city museums, WAFarmers CEO Trevor Whittington argues the nation’s farming heritage is also deserving of a voice
Across Australia, we’ve become experts at spending vast sums of money on glittering museum projects that often feel more corporate than cultural.
Take Western Australia’s $400 million WA Museum Boola Bardip.
Sure, it is a stunning structure, but it is one that could easily pass for a Silicon Valley headquarters.
Next in line is the planned Aboriginal Cultural Centre (ACC) by the Swan River, an equally eye-watering venture.
While celebrating history and culture is essential, it’s time we asked if we could stop building temples to the past and start preserving the past itself?
The contrast in the bush couldn’t be starker.
Australia’s farming heritage – the backbone of rural communities and a pillar of the nation’s economy – is rusting away in paddocks, sheds and old farm tips.
Scattered across the countryside are relics of agricultural innovation: old tractors, headers, and trucks that revolutionised farming and fed the nation.
These aren’t just simply machines; they’re artefacts of grit, ingenuity and the stories of the men and women who worked the land.
While Perth is busy making architectural statements, small farming museums across rural Australia are fighting to preserve this heritage on shoestring budgets.
These museums, run by passionate local volunteers, are desperate for funding to build sheds, restore machinery and protect collections from the elements.
Meanwhile, their urban counterparts enjoy state-of-the-art facilities and Instagrammable backdrops.
Sure, Boola Bardip is a triumph of design, but where’s the Chamberlain 40K on display inside it? Where’s the WD-9 International?
These iconic machines cleared the Wheatbelt, yet visitors wander through Perth’s museums with barely a nod to the machinery that shaped the nation’s agricultural history.
It is as if we’re embarrassed by our farming roots, preferring abstract ‘conceptual journeys’ to the dust, grease and noise of real history.
This isn’t just about preserving old tractors; it’s about saving the stories of the people who used them.
The pre-war generation is gone. The post-war farmers who cleared land with Sherman tanks and worked with horse-drawn ploughs are dwindling fast.
Soon, farmers of the 1950s and 1960s, who doubled the output of machinery through ingenuity, and the innovators of the 1970s who built the first home-made four-wheel drives, will also be gone.
If we don’t act now, these stories – and the machines they revolve around – will vanish forever.
With this, future generations will lose their connection to the resilience and resourcefulness that built our agricultural legacy.
The WA government has committed $250 million to the Aboriginal Cultural Centre, which is a project that tells an essential story.
But why not allocate just 5 per cent of that funding to the state’s 20 or so rural farming museums?
This modest investment could help put priceless machinery under cover and create a sustainable future for these collections.
Better yet, why not match the annual funding allocated to running the ACC with equivalent support for regional museums?
Both are working to preserve the stories of those who lived off and cared for the land, and both narratives are vital to our national identity.
Imagine walking into a retired grain shed, not to see static exhibits behind glass, but to experience living history.
Picture tractors restored to working order, roaring to life as they take a lap around the paddock.
Visitors could hear the engines, smell the diesel, and feel the grit of a time when farming was done with elbow grease and determination.
Even better, they could meet the people who once worked those machines, hearing their stories first-hand.
This kind of museum experience would be unique, something that draws visitors not just from across the country but from around the world.
For a fraction of what’s spent on yet another architecturally striking but sterile city museum, we could create a world-class experience in the bush, one that truly honours the people and stories that built Australia.
It’s time we stopped letting our farming history rust away and gave it the voice it deserves.