Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to acknowledge the passion, dedication and sheer hard work of the Friends of Woodman Point Recreation Camp, who, since 2001, have undertaken the preservation of the site and enabled greater public access to the important history and heritage of the old Woodman Point Quarantine Station in my electorate.

First used in 1852 to quarantine a shipload of passengers suffering whooping cough, Woodman Point was gazetted in 1886 as Western Australia's permanent quarantine station. This use of the site lasted until 1979, and during this time the site grew from eight hectares to 50 hectares.

A tour of the now faithfully restored isolation hospital reminds us of the misery and deadliness of afflictions such as smallpox and Spanish influenza. Indeed, the 1919 flu epidemic took the lives of four nursing staff and 29 military personnel as set out in Ian Darroch's books The Boonah Tragedy and Fremantle Tales. In 1943, meanwhile, six crewmen of the SS Suva succumbed to smallpox. Some of these victims remain buried on the site.

The heritage-listed ablution, fumigation and laundry buildings make plain and palpable the rigorous procedures and restrictions applied to quarantine passengers. These procedures and restrictions are described on the website of the Friends of Woodman Point Recreation Camp. Disembarking passengers were herded from the jetty across the narrow beach and straight into the barn-like shower block, where they were processed through three sections before emerging clean on the other side to commence an often long period of isolation.

This site of sombre significance, a somewhat hidden treasure, would not be in the excellently restored condition in which it stands today without the Friends of Woodman Point Recreation Camp. I thank their members past and present for their dedication to this important historical asset. (Time expired)