The town that grew ‘on the back of a group of drag queens’

It was also a place of pilgrimage for those on an outback adventure or road trip, and for many people celebrating 50th birthdays. La Rovere said the movie had meant a “great deal to them, and their coming-out story.”

Broken Hill councillor Darriea Turley welcomed the news: “Who would’ve thought that the economy of a mining town would grow on the back of a group of drag queens?”

The newly renovated AMP building, now known as 33 Alfred Street, has also been added to the register in recognition of its groundbreaking contribution to the state’s architectural and cultural history.

Sharpe called it the “grand old dame of city skyscrapers”. It had transformed Sydney’s CBD and skyline, redefining urban design and influencing how workplaces were conceived.

At 26 storeys and 117 metres when completed in 1962, it was the tallest building in Sydney. For 60 years, legislation limited the height of Sydney buildings to 46 metres.

It was such a marvel of modernity that it was opened by the Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies.

Its groundbreaking technologies included ducted air-conditioning and the longest-span beams in an Australian office building at the time. An automatic document conveyor delivered mail between floors, and its bank of lifts travelled at the unheard-of 300 metres a minute.

Toganmain, near Darlington Point in the Riverina, is regarded as one of Australia’s most significant woolsheds, and largest at 93 metres by 46 metres wide. More than seven million sheep were shorn at Toganmain, and it holds the Australian record for shearing more than 202,000 sheep, by 92 blade shearers, in a month.

Christine Chirgwin, who has been fundraising to save the sheds, told the ABC that it was full of history. “There’s so much attached to this place. Banjo Paterson wrote about it in Flash Jack from Gundagai.”

Paterson’s poem then inspired a song by The Bushwackers.

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Operating in Mittagong from 1848 to 1877, the Fitz Roy Iron Works was a pioneering site of the iron industry in Australia and in a conservation project, some of its structure has been preserved in the carpark of a modern shopping centre.

The heritage listing covers the works archaeological site and its moveable heritage – the only known physical remains of 19th-century iron processing in Australia.

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