Southland Museum and Art Gallery (SMAG) board trustees are growing frustrated that the city’s precious taonga is still sitting in a closed museum building. 

Museum staff have been acknowledged for doing everything they can to protect the museum collection but in the last six months the roof has leaked and a rat has got in, damaged a display and eaten a tuatara. 

Collections manager Kimberley Stephenson updated the trustees on the manager’s report for August at a SMAG board meeting today.

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She said the team was doing everything it could to improve its monitoring capabilities and the building was checked every day.

There was now a complete set of bait stations around the building, as further evidence of rats had been found.

And during the cleaning of the gallery, some of the old lighting systems were also found to be hazardous.

“We had to get an electrician in to fix up that for us so we're actually very lucky to have found that… as he said that could have been a fire hazard,” she said.

SMAG chair Toni Biddle asked how safe the taonga was in the current building and asked if the collection needed to be moved quicker. 

Ms Stephenson said the collections team could work a lot faster, if they could be given the instruction to do so.

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"That’s how we work… it’s what we're trained to do,” she said.

The problem was that at present, there was nowhere – other than the new He Waka Huia Art + Museum – for the bulk of the collection to go. 

In June, it was agreed that Invercargill City Council owns the museum building, it is now a council-controlled organisation (CCO). The SMAG board is now solely responsible for the custodianship of the collection and must wait for the region’s councils to decide what to do regarding a new or rebuilt museum building. It does not have the finances to be able to independently source a new building.

Ms Biddle questioned whether it was time for the board to send a message to the collective councils about the storage facility.

"Just hearing about the new leak and now the rat over the last six months has been a bit uncomfortable for me," she said. 

“Because the storage facility isn't in our control, even though we are the trust board, we need to let those in control know that our taonga and our collection is at risk in that building now,” she said.

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She moved a resolution to have letters sent to the southern councils to indicate the board’s desire to have the collection storage resolved. 

It was seconded by trustee Christine Henderson.

However, fellow trustee Roger Eagles then voiced his frustrations, saying he felt the board was being held up by the council. 

"We’re not being informed about the progress of this whole major project with council and, as a result, we're sitting wondering what we do next just wishing we could make it happen. But we're not actually being asked to do anything."

He said elected council representatives on the SMAG board, should be communicating what was being discussed at council about the progress of the museum building to the board. 

"That's part of the reason why they are there."

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"We've got to know where council is at, what it's doing, what it's thinking of and that's the job of the people on this board."

Trustee Darren Ludlow agreed that better communication was needed between councils and the board however he said it wasn't the job of the councillors who also sit on the SMAG board to be "free-flowing conduits for council".

He empathised that SMAG was in a unique position of wanting to get on and secure a new building, but not having the power to do so. 

"We've had to put up with two years of not having a publicly accessible building.... but this trust board is not in a position financially to say ‘we build a new museum’, and nor will we be."

He said the SMAG board’s role must be around custodianship and advocating the councils to take action.

"We share your frustration, but please don't accuse us of not doing anything,” he said.

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Trustee Evelyn Cook endorsed the letter to councils and the Regional Heritage Trust.

"Gone are the days where ‘rough enough is good enough’, [the storage facility] has to be purpose-designed with all the different quarantine areas built into it.”

"We have to shout out loud, really loud, on behalf of the taonga because they can't speak for themselves," she said.

Ms Biddle put forward the motion that the board would send a letter to each council along with the regional Heritage Trust expressing its desire to have the collection storage resolved. 

The motion was passed unanimously.