Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion. As my colleague the member for Macquarie has just outlined, Thompson Square is located in the heart of Windsor, the third-oldest place of British settlement on the Australian continent. It lies 55 kilometres north-west of Sydney and is a little over an hour away from the CBD by car or train. Thompson Square is Australia's first public square. It is the only town square that remains from the original five towns planned and designed by Governor Macquarie. Australia has a long-lived history that long pre-dates European settlement of this country, and capturing and maintaining its history—all elements of its history—is vital to our cultural identity as a nation. You may find it passing strange: what's the member for Lyons in Tasmania doing commenting on this in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales? I have a former history, having lived in Fremantle in Western Australia for many years. That, too, has a long, proud, built architectural history. I know just how important it is to retain what Tim Winton once referred to as a sense of place. Professor George Seddon made similar comments—that a sense of place is so vitally important, because if we don't have that sense of place, that sense of belonging to a past, it's difficult to contemplate where we head to in our future.

There is much built heritage in my own electorate of Lyons, a lot of it built by convicts, many of them Fenian political prisoners. Thompson Square, as the member for Macquarie alluded to, pre-dates Port Arthur, and Port Arthur has had a magnificent restoration. I can't imagine a Tasmania without Port Arthur and the incredible restoration work that has gone on there. Port Arthur hasn't been modernised, or, for want of a better word—and I hope this is not used as an expletive—bastardised. The heritage of Port Arthur has been respected. I think the least we can do is do the same with Thompson Square. We need to respect our heritage in all its forms. I will just come to this point: I'm a big believer in taking a fresh look at history through contemporary eyes. I don't think history is a fixed thing.

Mr Christensen interjecting—

No, it's not a fixed thing. The member for Dawson laughs at this. He thinks that somehow what he learned in primary school is all there is to history. But the fact is that history is contextual.

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