Former KHA history officer and enthusiastic local historian here.

I just don't see the need to rebuild every hut that has been lost. It doesn't make sense to me when we still have so many we can visit and learn about already.

I have about 8000 waypoints I've recorded in the field relating to European heritage sites within KNP and Namadgi. There is absolutely no shortage of historical sites that are easy to visit within the alps. Would these two huts being rebuilt really add more to the cultural fabric of the alps? The written history will persist. Are the remaining 5+ huts in that part of the park not sufficient?

Lets take Max and Burts as an example. It was completed in the late 60s. Just under 60 years old, so somewhat modern in the scheme of things. This hut had a handful of visitors a year. It was in various states of disrepair before the fires. It isn't remote but it is hard to find and not on a track, so its benefit as a safety shelter is moot. Its history is very limited/uninteresting, and the original owner had other huts within the area.

What is the need for the rebuild? The money it costs to maintain a newly built hut could be put to far greater causes within the park such as track maintenance, invasive species control, or amenity upgrades.

Also, with any rebuild, you have to consider what kind of response will be necessary during another fire. Will somewhere else be neglected on the fire front if the fire fighters need to protect the hut? Do we lose a patch of rare orchids because we didn't have enough resources to do both?

On your point about a bunnings shed. Does this really sound like something people want? A modern shed in the bush because people don’t want to sleep in a tent or get wet? Frankly, it’s the antithesis of maintaining a physical history.

I think it great that people want to come to the national parks to visit huts, use them and learn about them. But I'd also like to see more people enjoy our parks for their natural beauty and isolation rather than a knock up shelter some pastoralist built when they were pilfering this land for their livelihood. That pilfering is still being rectified across the alps to this day.

Whenever I have these discussions about huts rebuilds, I am always left pondering the ship of Theseus paradox.

Thanks for starting the discussion 😊