310 is the first and only Commonwealth-built outpatient facility constructed specifically for the care of returned service personnel and families. Built in 1936–37, it served veterans and their families of every Australian military campaign from the Sudan (1885) to Vietnam, for more than forty years.

Discovering this building in 2013 was the catalyst for ANVAM's establishment, and it remains the proposed future home of Australia's national veterans arts and cultural institution. The project is at a critical stage following the Governments announcement on 4th February 2026 to dispose of the property.

To lend your support to this initiative please consider:

• Writing to the Minister for Finance responsible for the property, Senator the Hon Katy Gallagher. (Letter template)

• Donating to ANVAM to support ANVAM’s work and ongoing lobbying efforts.

• Volunteering with ANVAM.

’Just as they stepped up for us, we must step up for them.’

Prime Minister Albanese

‘The arts are not a luxury. The arts are central to our very being.

The arts are central to our culture and it is through the arts that we build our identity as a nation and as a people.’‍ ‍

Prime Minister Albanese

Former Repatriation Clinic: a place built for veteran wellbeing.

“The building is exceptionally important. It tells an IMPORTANT story about the experiences of veterans and has strong connections with the Veteran Community.”

-Simon Ambrose, National Trust (Vic) CEO, 2020

A Place of Deep Cultural Meaning to the Veteran Community

The Veteran Community's connection to 310 St Kilda Road is not simply historical — it is living.

For more than forty years, the former Repatriation Commission Outpatients Clinic was a place where those who had served Australia came to be cared for, to recover, and to find companionship with others who understood what service meant. Veterans came not only for medical treatment including for GP consultations, the pharmacy, physiotherapy and the neurosis clinic. They also came because this was a place built specifically for them, by a Commonwealth that had made a promise to those who had answered the call.

At its peak, up to 340 veterans passed through the clinic each day. The Red Cross maintained a canteen where up to 250 veterans were served daily by volunteers, not because it was efficient, but because the social dimension of recovery mattered. The clinic understood, long before modern medicine formalised it, that healing from the wounds of war required community as much as clinical care.

The veterans who came to 310 St Kilda Road represented Australia's entire military history from colonial forces forward. Veterans of the 1885 Sudan Campaign, Australia's first overseas military deployment, sought care here alongside veterans of the First and Second World Wars, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. This building witnessed the full span of what Australian service means: the sacrifice, the damage, and the long road home.

The clinic did not close because its purpose had been fulfilled. It closed because new arrangements were established to support the need. The veterans of those earlier conflicts aged, and the Repatriation Commission itself was eventually absorbed into the Department of Veterans Affairs. But the place itself, its walls, gardens, position in the Melbourne landscape opposite the Shrine of Remembrance did not lose its meaning. For the descendants of those veterans, for those who served in subsequent conflicts, and for the broader Veteran Community, it remains a place of profound cultural and emotional significance.

Heritage Victoria, in its Statement of Significance, captured this enduring connection directly:

"The association between the Former Repatriation Outpatients Clinic and returned servicemen and women is particularly strong through the ongoing provision of medical services for more than forty years... The clinic closed in 1980, but still retains a strong association with present day veterans."

That association is not diminished by the period of vacancy that followed. Cultural and social significance does not require continuous physical access. It persists through collective memory, through the stories passed between generations, and through the community's ongoing identification with a place as part of its own history. For the Veteran Community, 310 St Kilda Road is not a forgotten building. It is a place that remembers them.

The clinic is also unique in a way that distinguishes it from every other site in Australia's commemorative landscape. The Shrine of Remembrance, which stands nearby, honours those who gave their lives. The clinic was built for those who came home; for the wounded, the traumatised, the men and women who carried the weight of service through the rest of their civilian lives. It is the only clinic in Australia built by the Commonwealth for that purpose that still stands. There is nowhere else like it.

The Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people, the traditional custodians of this country, have expressed their support for the Veteran Community's connection to this place. In their Letter of Support (October 2024), they noted:

"We hold the Veteran Community in the highest regard and hope that government supports ANVAM to, in turn, support veterans in this place through more innovative and culturally aligned approaches to wellbeing for the veteran community and community in general."

This convergence of First Nations and Veteran Community support for a shared cultural place is itself significant and recognition that place-based meaning, care for those who have sacrificed, and the importance of community belong together at this location.

Heritage Recognition

310 St Kilda Road carries formal heritage recognition at multiple levels, reflecting both its architectural distinction and its deeper cultural significance.

The former Repatriation Commission Outpatients Clinic is Commonwealth Heritage Listed as part of the Victoria Barracks precinct under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth). The Commonwealth Heritage List recognises places of natural, Indigenous and historic heritage significance on Commonwealth land. The clinic's inclusion reflects its architectural quality as an example of Art Deco Modernist design by architect George Hallendal, and its historic role within Australia's national repatriation system.

Importantly, the heritage significance of the clinic extends well beyond its physical fabric. The accepted national standard for heritage practice in Australia — the Australia ICOMOS Burra Charter — recognises that the cultural significance of a place includes not only aesthetic and historic values but also social significance: the qualities for which a place has become a focus of cultural, national or community sentiment. By this measure, 310 St Kilda Road carries heritage values that are inseparable from the Veteran Community's enduring relationship with it.

The clinic sits immediately adjacent to Melbourne's Domain Parkland and Memorial Precinct, which was entered on the National Heritage List, the highest domestic heritage recognition in Australia, under the emergency listing provisions of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 in February 2017. The National Heritage List recognises places of outstanding significance to the Australian nation. The Domain Parkland listing encompasses the commemorative and veteran-associated character of the broader St Kilda Road landscape, of which the clinic forms a historically integral part. The clinic is the only place in that landscape built specifically for the care and rehabilitation of returned service personnel, representing a heritage value that is complementary to, but distinct from, the commemorative focus of the broader precinct: a place not for remembering those who died, but for supporting those who returned.

A State Heritage nomination for the clinic is also pending, recognising that its significance extends beyond its Commonwealth ownership to the cultural heritage of Victoria.

Heritage Victoria's own Statement of Significance confirms that the heritage values of the clinic are not confined to its architecture. The ongoing association between the place and the contemporary Veteran Community is itself a recognised heritage value — one that cannot be preserved through physical conservation measures alone. Protecting the building's facade while severing its connection to the community it was built to serve would leave the physical structure intact while permanently eroding what makes it significant.

The clinic's heritage significance has been recognised at parliamentary level. In 2015, the Hon David Feeney MP addressed the House of Representatives on the importance of the site to the Veteran Community and the need to preserve its association with returned service personnel (Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, Hansard, 26 March 2015). The Australian Labor Party made a formal policy commitment in 2016 to support ANVAM's vision for the site as a national veterans arts and cultural institution.

“Thank you for sharing the ANVAM's proposal for a new national veterans arts & cultural institution by re-purposing the former Repatriation Commission Outpatient Clinic. I am always pleased to hear about local examples of innovative thought in place-based partnerships, and I thank you for your ongoing commitment to pursuing projects such as this, despite a long dialogue with the Dept of Defence.”

-Prof Glynn Davis AC, Secretary PM&C, 2024

“The main reason it is important is its cultural CONNECTIONS;
the synergies of its placement and the historical place it is, that will enhance veterans wellbeing and save lives.”

- Tanja Johnston, ANVAM Founder, 2020

The Benefits

ANVAM’s primary objective is to support the physical, social and mental health and wellbeing of the Veteran Community. In line with ANVAM’s objective are the further benefits the establishment of a public facing national arts and cultural institution for the Veteran Community within the former clinic will deliver. These benefits are linked to Australia’s National Defence and National Resilience, per the National Defence Strategy 2024, which emphasises that ‘People are Defence’s most important asset.’

Statements like ‘Defence is focused on recruitment, retention and skilling initiatives to grow the workforce and make Defence an even more attractive employer’ (para 5.8) point to the need for innovative initiatives that focus on positive multi-faceted engagement with ADF members. This includes the call for more diverse teams, which is precisely the benefit of the arts.

The Veteran Community, too, is an untapped national resource that could contribute to National Resilience. This one institution has the unique potential to provide additional benefits in strengthening the ex-ADF capability as a national resource towards the National Resilience imperative:

• taking a whole-of-government approach to advancing shared economic and security interests (para 2.5)

• partnerships will help address challenges that require effective coordination between all levels of government, including threats to… social cohesion (para 2.5)

• National resilience also requires the Commonwealth to work with states and territories to develop alternative capabilities for crisis response and recovery (para 2.5)

• use diplomacy to reduce tensions and create pathways for peace and stability (para 7.2)

Project History.

ANVAM Established. The vision to transform the former Repatriation Clinic was born in 2013, and from that ANVAM was founded. The Clinic’s history, size, location and availability make it ideal to be a national arts and cultural institution celebrating veterans creativity, facilitating veterans telling their stories and as centre of arts based wellbeing for the veteran community. Discussions with the Department of Defence in 2013 concluded that a lease was not viable due to refurbishment costs and claims from the department’s Joint Health Command that there is no value of the arts for veterans’ health and wellbeing. Just two years later in 2015 Defence established a twice yearly residential multi-medium arts based recovery program consistent with the program ANVAM had described to Defence in 2013 as part of its vision for the former Clinic.

Engagement. In 2013, on the basis that it was unable to offer support, Defence advised ANVAM to approach Government to pursue this vision for the former Clinic. On behalf of the Veteran Community ANVAM has engaged with ministers responsible for the Defence Estate including:

1. Hon Stuart Robert MP (Sep 2013 - Sep 2015)

2. Hon Darren Chester MP (Sep 2015 - Feb .2016) (4 Jun 2015, 5 Aug 2015, 20 Aug 2021)

3. Hon Michael McCormack MP (Feb 2016 - Jul 2016 & Dec 2017 - Mar 2018) (5 May 2016, 17 Jun 2016)

4. Hon Dan Tehan MP (Jul 2016 to Dec 2017) (16 Nov 2017)

5. Senator Hon David Fawcett (Aug 2018 - May 2019 (20 Mar 2019)

6. Senator Hon Linda Reynolds CSC (May 2019 - Aug 2019)

7. Hon Melissa Price MP (Aug 2019 - May 2022) (9 Dec 2019, 9 Dec 2019, 10 Dec 2019)

8. Hon Matt Thistlethwaite MP (Jun 2022 - Jul 2024) (5 Aug 2022, 14 Sep 2022, 22 Oct 2022, 21 Nov 2023, 6 Feb 2024)

9. Hon Richard Marles MP (Jul 2024 - Sep 2024)

10. Hon Pat Conroy MP (Sep 2024 - May 2025) (24 Sep 2024, 6 Nov 2024)

11. Hon Peter Khalil MP (May 2025 - ) (3 July 2025)

12. Senator Hon Katy Gallagher, Minister for Finance (Feb 2026 - ) (10 Mar 2026)

Other relevant correspondence related to 310 St Kilda Rd includes:

• Secretary of Defence (21 Nov 2021)

• Secretary of Prime Minister & Cabinet (16 Jan 2024)

Centenary of World War 1. In 2016, during the Centenary of World War 1, the Federal Government agreed to support the off-market concessional sale of this unique WW1 linked building to the Victorian State Government or Melbourne City Council. At the same time the Australian Labor Party announced its policy to support ANVAM’s vision with $10m funding support should it win the 2016 election. The State Government elected not to pursue the off-market sale in 2019.

Melbourne Council. Melbourne, Lord Mayor, Rt Hon Sally Capp, indicated in 2020 that Melbourne City Council may consider acquiring the property on a concessional basis in support of the veteran community and ANVAM’s vision for the property. In July of 2021 the Lord Mayor wrote to the Government requesting an extension of time for consideration, and highlighting the need for funding support to address a key risk to council. Unfortunately at its October 2021 meeting Council resolved not to make an offer for the clinic citing the level of deterioration due to low maintenance levels making the risk too high for Council.

Changing the Rules, and Proposing New Rules. A central position held by those advising Government, and in evidence to Senate Estimates on a number of occasions, is that they must follow the Commonwealth Property Disposal Policy in dealing with 310 St Kilda Rd. While a policy issued by a government department is, for all intents and purposes, to guide the bureaucracy in the event the Government does not have a position on a matter, this same policy has been changed over the years, effectively removing a potential avenue that ANVAM proposed to the Government in 2015. That was for the off-market concessional sale of the site. In 2020 the Department of Finance undertook a consultation into the relevant legislation, the Land Acquisition Act 1989. ANVAM made a submission to this review encouraging a framework that took the lessons learned in the case of 310 St Kilda Rd for the more appropriate use of Commonwealth land that has heritage values, and is not required by a government department as is the case with 310 St Kilda Rd.

The Government's Internal Review. Following Melbourne City Council’s decision to decline to acquire the Clinic the Minister, Hon Melissa Price MP, announced on 17 February 2022 the property was no longer surplus without an idea of what it would be used for. The Department undertook an options study for adaptive reuse of the clinic by commissioning heritage architect firm Lovell Chen. The Department indicated the best use it can identify is meeting rooms. Despite the strong community support for ANVAM’s proposal it was sidelined as an option to be considered with meeting rooms and childcare the only suggestions considered.

The Government undertook $5million of remediation works in 2022 to resolve issues of water ingress causing considerable damage greatly reducing the funding required to complete ANVAM’s remediation of the property once in its control.

During 2022 the new Albanese Labor Government came to power. Invitations to the new Government to honour its 2016 promise were not taken up. During the election campaign ANVAM was informed that the proposal was not supported by the ALP as an election promise because it was for a ‘museum’ despite other new museum’s receiving funding commitments from the ALP. Reassurances were offered that despite this, it would be supported once the ALP was in office.

Following the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) of 2022/23 the Government commissioned an Independent Defence Estate Audit in August 2023, to which ANVAM was required to re-submit its evidence of its sustainability to operate from the building. ANVAM provided this evidence and then met with the Estate Audit for 20 minutes on 14 December 2023. It was described to the Audit in the presentation and brief how the proposal would deliver in support of the DSR objectives including National Defence and National Resilience through support for current and ex-serving veterans, Defence’s people capability including recruiting, retention and the new cultural blueprint, veterans mental, physical and social health and wellbeing, veterans employment, the Government’s REVIVE cultural policy, Creative Australia’s arts and health agenda and Foreign Affairs cultural diplomacy program.

The uPPP Grant Opportunity (2024). In July 2024 the government announced the urban Precincts and Partnerships Program (uPPP) grant opportunity, that would potentially fully fund the remediation of 310 St Kilda Rd. ANVAM wrote to the government requesting a conditional letter of support that, should ANVAM be successful with a grant, would make the building available to ANVAM for the proposed purpose. The response on 10 September 2024 was “The Government’s consideration of the Defence Estate Audit remains ongoing. Defence will provide further consideration of ANVAM’s proposal once the outcomes of the Defence Estate Audit are finalised”. The Audit was submitted to the government in December 2023. A subsequent meeting with Minister the Hon Pat Conroy MP’s office in November indicated that the government was prioritising its focus on the DSR, and that the outcomes of the audit would be addressed later in 2025. ANVAM responded to this in writing indicating that the initiative achieved many of the DSR objectives with respect to the ADF people capability, and National Resilience.

First Nations support. On 17 October 2024 a Cultural Consultation was held with representatives of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation, Aunties Charley Woolmore, Gail Smith and Julieanne Axford. The outcome of this consultation was the support of the local traditional custodians towards ANVAM’s proposal for the site. In the Wurundjeri Woi Wurring Letter of Support it said “We hold the veteran community in the highest regard and hope that government supports ANVAM to, in turn, support veterans in this place through more innovative and culturally aligned approaches to wellbeing for the veteran community and community in general. The prospect of this place being used for other purposes does not appear to align culturally, nor for its best possible use.”

Consultation & Support.

An advisory committee has supported ANVAM to advise ARM Architecture in the development of a concept design for 310 St Kilda Rd. Committee members include:

• Chair - Dominik Kul (ANVAM Board Member & Head of Operations)

• Dr Graeme Blackman AO (former National & State President National Trust)

• John Castles AM (past President Royal Australian Institute of Architects)

• Robin Grow (President Australian Art Deco & Modernist Association)

• Tanja Johnston (ANVAM Founder, Head of Arts Programs & Visual Arts)

• Bruce Copland (ANVAM Curator)

• Emma Jackson (Performing Arts)

• Michael Godfrey (ANVAM Secretary, Technology)

• Observers - Melbourne City Council

ANVAM will use the concept design as a basis for consultation with the veteran and veteran arts community, to further mature the vision for a veterans’ cultural institution in the Melbourne Arts Precinct.

“It is probably the BEST SITE in town for an interface between a practicing artist and the community.”
Prof Ian McDougall, ARM Architecture, 2020