Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Geelong has a rich and proud history—from its beginnings as a port servicing the gold rush, to the centre of a wool industry at the time when Australia rode on the back of the sheep, to more recent times with our role in manufacturing. Geelong's story tells a really significant part of Australia's story, and there are some buildings associated with that history which are very much still a part of Geelong—some of which are very much celebrated. The best example of that is the wool stores on the waterfront, which now house the headquarters of the main campus of Deakin University.

But, by and large, we do not celebrate our heritage in Geelong as well as other places do. Certainly we do not do it like Ballarat and Bendigo, for whom their heritage is an enormous source of tourist attraction and a big part of their economy. If we did it, we could do it so much better.

A perfect example of this is the question of refrigeration. James Harrison, who was the first editor of the Geelong Advertiser, is also the father of modern refrigeration. His spark of genius occurred when he realised that the cleaning agent he used on the type set for his newspaper left the type cold when it evaporated. That was the observation about the heat exchange associated with evaporation which gave rise to modern refrigeration. That spark of genius—which has changed so much in the world—occurred in Geelong. A little bit of snooping on the Geelong Advertiser website, and an inquiry to the Geelong Heritage Centre, yields the likely site of that being on the corner of Clare and Malop Street, where the Whyte, Just & Moore law firm now resides. Yet there is nothing around that indicating that such a significant moment in global manufacturing history, let alone our own, occurred at that place.

I believe that there should be a system of plaques which celebrate this history. In that regard I am reminded of the blue plaque system in London. This is the oldest heritage model of its kind in the world which celebrates London's past, its people, its architecture and its achievements, bringing it all together to be discovered in the present. This is done through the construction of plaques which are erected at the relevant location to commemorate events which occurred there. The English Heritage blue plaques commemorate and assist tourists and residents to identify and commemorate over 900 landmarks, such as historical events, significant buildings and locations where famous people lived. In Geelong, a similar system would be welcome to shed light on our incredible history. I call on the City of Greater Geelong to instigate such a model with a view to implementing our own system of heritage plaques.