Director of the South Australian Museum, Mr Brian Oldman, thanked the Premier and Government of South Australia for progressing a project that will move the irreplaceable collections in the Museum’s custodianship out of their current inadequate storage.

“The Museum’s collection has been in ‘temporary’ facilities that have been inadequate for caring for the collection for over twenty years. It is wonderful to see this commitment realised and know that the State’s irreplaceable collections will now be properly cared for which will benefit future generations of South Australians,” said Mr Oldman.

“In 1999, a warehouse in the suburb of Netley was promised to be a ‘temporary’ storage facility for the Museum. After years of efforts to bring attention to this issue, we’re delighted to see action taken to mitigate what has been the biggest risk to the State’s collections,” added Mr Oldman.

The announcement responds to a priority in the Arts & Culture Plan South Australia 2019 – 2024 to provide appropriate storage of the State’s cultural assets and follows substantial collaborative work by the Department of the Premier and Cabinet and the cultural institutions to develop a range of scoped and costed options to address current issues with collection storage.

The storage project includes a capital build, plus relocation costs to provide collection storage for the South Australian Museum, Art Gallery of South Australia, State Library of South Australia and a portion of the collections held by the History Trust of South Australia.

Teri Whiting, Chair of the South Australian Museum Board, praised the budget announcement as a significant and positive step forward.

“South Australia’s cultural institutions hold globally recognised collections. I’m delighted that the team effort of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, South Australian Museum, Art Gallery of South Australia, State Library of South Australia and History Trust of South Australia has been rewarded by this budget commitment of the Government of South Australia. This will ensure at last the storage of their rich collections meet the international standards they deserve,” said Ms Whiting.

Only 5% of the Museum’s collections are on show at the North Terrace site. Most of the remaining 95% held in storage cover a remarkable spectrum of World Cultures and Natural Science collections. The Museum is custodian of the most significant collection of Australian Aboriginal material culture in the world, including secret/sacred objects, on behalf of Aboriginal communities.

A new storage facility is scheduled to be completed by 2024.