Lisa Havilah, who has led the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS) since 2019, has stepped aside as chief executive 10 weeks before the A$915 million Powerhouse Parramatta was due to open. Arts Minister John Graham’s office announced on 27 August that Havilah had stood aside while “investigations into governance and procurement” at the institution were underway.

Havilah became closely identified with the institution’s transformation over seven years, defending its direction through parliamentary enquiries, overseeing the Parramatta delivery, and advancing a model that challenges conventional museum practice.

The departure is understood to stem from a protected whistleblower disclosure first reported in October last year. The precise allegations remain undisclosed. A spokesperson for the Department of Creative Industries confirmed the matters are “complex and involve multiple lines of inquiry” and that no formal findings or conclusions have been made.

Interim leadership from September 1

Former NSW Government Architect Abbie Galvin steps in as interim chief executive from September 1. Former Sydney Opera House chief executive Louise Herron joins as strategic adviser. Powerhouse Trust president David Borger confirmed the November 7 opening remains on schedule.

Havilah has said she still intends to attend the opening, watching from the crowd rather than leading the ceremony. Her stepping aside is not a finding against her, nor an admission of responsibility. A protected disclosure initiates a process, not a conclusion.

Parliamentary scrutiny

Procurement practices had drawn parliamentary attention before the departure became public. In March, Havilah was questioned in the NSW upper house over reported budget blowouts on the Parramatta build. She denied any overruns, stating both the Parramatta development and the Ultimo revitalisation were being delivered within the allocated budget.

A separate parliamentary question raised whether contracts had been split to avoid competitive procurement thresholds. The museum’s written response was “No.”

A decade of contested authority

The project has been contested since 2015, when the NSW government announced the Powerhouse would relocate from Ultimo, its home since 1988, to Parramatta. The move was framed as more than a relocation: redistributing cultural capital to Western Sydney would also drive urban regeneration.

The former Berejiklian government reversed course in 2020, retaining the Ultimo site while proceeding with the new Parramatta development.

At Parramatta, the 2021 dismantling of Willow Grove, a 19th-century heritage villa on the site, drew sustained heritage campaigning and a union green ban, with construction workers refusing to work on the site. Representatives of the Dharug Strategic Management Group, the area’s Traditional Custodians, argued they had been consulted only after key decisions were effectively made.

No permanent collection onsite

Powerhouse Parramatta holds no permanent collection onsite. Its half a million objects are housed at Castle Hill, with the building organised around flexible exhibitions, performance and cross-disciplinary collaboration. Havilah described this model as “upending the hierarchy of the museum”, a reordering that also produced friction. A $2.6 million artistic-associates program was wound down in June amid union criticism that it displaced curatorial expertise.

Leaders in the cultural sector hold distinct forms of authority simultaneously: organisational, professional, cultural, and social, the last granted or withheld by the communities an institution serves. The investigation now coincides with the departure of the leader who defined this project, marking the culmination of a decade of contested authority over what Powerhouse Parramatta should be.

Image: https://mcgregorcoxall.com/projects/powerhouse-parramatta-precinct/

Architecture & Design Team

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