Australia’s High Commissioner to Malta, Jane Lambert, used part of her Australia Day speech on Tuesday evening to touch on the state of Australia Hall and the fact that she expects to see restoration commence soon.
Ms Lambert said that she expects to see that during the course of this year, a “new chapter in the history of the building” will begin.
She said: “I hope that my successors will be in the happy situation of having the option to hold the Australia Day Reception at Australia Hall”.
Ms Lambert explained that Australia Hall was important to Australians as it is intrinsically tied to the Anzac Corps of WWI and their connection to Malta, when many were brought here to convalesce following injuries suffered in the Gallipoli campaign.
“Australia Hall was built in 1915 from monies raised by the Australian Red Cross and officially inaugurated 100 years ago on 22 January 1916. The building passed into private hands in late 2014,” she said.
The current government dropped a €10 million claim against the Labour Party to revoke a permanent lease on the scheduled Pembroke building shortly after it was elected in 2013.
The agreement reached between the party and the government was first revealed by The Malta Independent on Sunday days after the case was dropped, without any publicity, on 30 October 2013.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat defended the decision taken by his government to withdraw the case which the Nationalist administration had instituted against the Labour Party to take over Australia Hall.
Australia Hall was given to the Labour Party in the 1970s in exchange for Freedom Press, which was transformed into Malta Shipbuilding.
In 2013, The Malta Independent on Sunday published the news that as a result of a court decree, the Labour Party was to retain possession of Australia Hall. In October 2009, the Commissioner of Lands sent a judicial letter to the party in which it warned that legal proceedings would follow if it failed to respect the terms of the lease and maintain the scheduled British-era property. That deadline was ignored, and a court case was filed on 9 February 2010. The Labour Party sold the hall and some surrounding land to A. H. Development Ltd for a sum of €582,343. This amount was described as "grossly far off the current market price" by property agents and the sale of the building has been described as controversial. This resulted in a court case, with the Labour Party appealing that it is exempt from paying the tax on the sale
Ms Lambert did not refer to the owners by name, but said: “The owners have very generously included me in discussions about the building, to understand its history and the wider Australian community interest in the building – which remains strong.”
She explained that the allure of the building can be exemplified by “Letters to our Prime Minister and other politicians, through to a year 9 class in South Australia undertaking a campaign to raise awareness of Australia Hall as the class’s WWI history project.”
She said that not surprisingly there was and remains considerable work to be undertaken to develop concepts and understand procedures and requirements for the restoration of the building.
“Contrary to some recent media reports that the building has been abandoned and left to be a canvass for graffiti, this is not the case. The owners are committed to the building’s restoration,” she said.