Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I am an extremely happy guy today. I have been waiting for this day for a long time. I can tell the chamber that at one o’clock the Premier of Tasmania announced the official go-ahead for the purchase of Recherche Bay, a peninsula in Tasmania that under other circumstances would now be the domain of the bulldozers and the chainsaws. I want to talk about a wonderful outcome for Tasmania, for Australia and indeed for the planet. Recherche Bay is now rapidly being recognised as the site of one of the most extraordinary events of positive human history in recent centuries.

To this beautiful little place right on the southern tip of Tasmania came the French fleet of D’Entrecasteaux—two ships laden with hundreds of sailors and scientists—in 1792. They returned, after circumnavigating Australia, in 1793. There has been a good deal written about the gardens that they built ashore and the observatories and the scientific work done there, which improved knowledge for the whole world. But of course the greatest cause for celebration was the meeting of the French with the Aboriginal Palawa people—the Lyluequonny tribe—at Recherche Bay in 1793. Two totally different cultures—people of different races, with different languages, religions and cultures, from opposite ends of the planet—very carefully put aside the potential for seeing difference as division and instead saw difference as something to be explored and celebrated. Over the following weeks, after that initial handshake one frosty February morning in southern Tasmania between the Chief of Lyluequonny and the botanist Labillardiere at Southport Lagoon, there followed feasts, athletic contests, musical interludes and a remarkable interchange of ideas between these people.

We do celebrate the great battlefields of the world where, through agony and bloodshed, human division has been fought out until conquest is had. But here we have the opportunity to celebrate a coming together of people of entirely different expressions of humanity, in this most beautiful and spectacular part of our nation, to explore and celebrate each other. It ended in utter sadness, as separation occurred when the French had to sail away. However, before that there was joy, happiness and all the best that there can be in celebrating the diversity of humanity.

It so happened that three generations ago the peninsula on which most of this was centred—the north-eastern corner of Recherche Bay, where the ships were anchored when the French arrived in 1792, under the snow-capped mountains of the now World Heritage area—had been sold, after many previous decades in private hands, into the Vernon family’s ownership. It was the proposal by the Vernons that they develop their property and that they realise its potential as an asset—like other landowners around the world would do, like we Australians would want to do to maximise the potential of such a magnificent asset. After the go-ahead for a road across the Southport Lagoon by then Premier Bacon some five years ago, the bulldozers did move in, and a road was under way. It was stopped by court action. That impediment was more recently removed. It might be remembered that the Minister for the Environment and Heritage here announced national heritage listing for the peninsula on the same day as the Vernons were given the go-ahead to capitalise on their asset. That was on 6 October last year.

The potential was there for yet another divisive, quite huge protest in Tasmania over our fantastic environment. But this time it was different: it was a fight not over a crown asset but over a private asset. Looking at that potential for legal action, for protest, for uproar, for unhappiness, I made contact again with Rob and David Vernon in October last year. I can tell you there have been a lot of ups and downs since then. The potential for a sale has been on, it has been off, I have had to withdraw offers in the process and so on. But two great entities moved in.

First of all, on 21 October last year the Tasmanian Land Conservancy put to me that they should be the recipient of the land, they should be the new owners of the land, if a sale could be made. That took out of contention a change of ownership and put it, potentially, to a neutral organisation which would protect the land forever. On 23 November last year there came a call from Dick Smith, this great Australian, saying he would put up the money if it would help save the land. On 6 January this year Dick spoke to Rob Vernon to make it clear that he was going to ensure that the money would be available if the sale could be worked out.

I have to say here that during this process the Vernon brothers quite magnanimously kept open the window of opportunity. Whereas the process to road and to log the area ought to have got under way in November—a bit of wet weather intervened, so then it would have been in January or February; it certainly would be under way now—they delayed that so negotiations could continue. I will not ever forget the honourable way in which the Vernons gave, at their expense, this opportunity for all Tasmanians and for everybody to gain out of this. I salute that generosity with which they allowed this outcome, which we can celebrate today, to unfold.

It was a bit daunting when I got a letter from the Tasmanian Minister for Environment and Planning, Judy Jackson, in December last year saying that the government there would not assist in any purchase, either dollar for dollar or in any other way. But things have changed this year with the sale proceeding. Thanks to the repeated good offices of Dick Smith, the Tasmanian Land Conservancy and the Vernon brothers, the Tasmanian government has come into this very positive equation and in recent weeks has converted what was a strained agreement because it meant both the parties having to give quite a lot away—the landowners, the Vernons, and the Tasmanian Land Conservancy, which is a small organisation without upfront the wherewithal to be able to get into the business of raising the money to pay back to Dick Smith over the coming 12 months and to manage the land. It is a big, big job that they have taken on. The Tasmanian government’s intervention—and Premier Lennon has announced some $680,000 to augment the $2 million upfront which Dick Smith has put forward and which has guaranteed this process—means that, instead of an outcome where people feel this is not as good as it could have been, there is now a very happy outcome. I want to thank the Tasmanian government for that and I want to thank everybody who is involved.

The generosity of the public kept my spirits going through some pretty trying times in the last few months. After the rally in Hobart, in which some 4,000 people turned out, on 5 November last year, we decided we would test the water and put out a pledge form for people to say, ‘Well, we’ll put in $1,000 if the land can be rescued.’ Within a week over 100 people had sent in pledges of $1,000 or more.

I can tell the chamber that, without really pushing it—because I felt it was not legitimate to push for more pledges except where the opportunity obviously arose when I spoke in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and elsewhere about this potential—$238,000 has been pledged at this stage. With the potential of the input from government legislation—which has come under the Howard government—for dollar for dollar matching of donations to protect this nation’s heritage and its important lands and wildlife, I think we are going to move rapidly towards raising the money that is required.

Let me say again that Dick Smith offered $100,000 upfront as a gift. He has forgone interest on his loan and he is going to top it up if we fail at the end. I feel honour bound to do everything I can to return the money to Dick because he is a philanthropist and he has other ventures that he wants to be involved in. But thank glory for this great Australian who has made this happen. Thank glory for the Vernon brothers, who said: ‘The door is open.’ No matter how tough the negotiations were, when I rang Rob Vernon, he said: ‘Our door is still open. We’ve got plans and we are going to go ahead with those plans but for now the door is still open to you.’ We both come from the bush but we come from different sections of it. His and his brother’s magnanimity in talking about this issue to get this result is a terrific thing.

I will be celebrating this for as long as I draw breath. This is a fantastic outcome for Australia. It is a fantastic outcome for the community of nations, not the least France. I am looking forward to speaking to the French ambassador tomorrow to detail how we got to this outcome, and I will be going to Paris to talk about it when the opportunity arises because I think the French would love to hear this story. What a great outcome. What a wonderful outcome from everybody who has been involved.

What a great community, government, private enterprise and non-government organisation outcome—an outcome that is going to ensure the future of one of the great historic landscapes of the world. Professor John Mulvaney, who has been such a tireless worker for this outcome and is the doyen on the archaeological history and the knowledge of contact between the Europeans and the Indigenous Australians, says that Recherche Bay is without doubt a World Heritage landscape in its own right and it should become part of the western Tasmanian World Heritage area. It is just such a great outcome. Everybody involved needs a pat on the back—and I add to that the government, which brought through the legislation that means that people who donate to this historic outcome and to ensuring it for the future will get a tax break to enable that to happen.

I am just so happy about this. I hope that I have been able to share some of that happiness. I say to any senator who has not seen one of these little books on Recherche Bay that it is the French diary of this contact with the Indigenous people. It is a fantastic book. Please come and take one off my desk—and you will experience some of the joy that I have got today out of this outcome.