George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The SS Yongala had a proud history in a young Australia and continues to be a key player in the history of North Queensland. The Yongala steamed out of Mackay, at the southern end of my electorate of Dawson, on 23 March 1911, bound for Townsville, at the northern end of Dawson electorate. It was a journey the Yongala would never complete. She steamed into a cyclone and sank 12 nautical miles off the coast of Alva, in the Burdekin. All 122 passengers were lost.

One hundred years ago, steamships were a vital link between North Queensland settlements and the southern capital cities. Mackay's port, in those days, was a hive of activity as passengers and freight were arriving and departing with the tides. The Yongala was named after a small South Australian town because she was built in England, in Newcastle upon Tyne, for the Adelaide Steamship Company at a cost of £102,000. Originally working across the southern half of the continent, she linked Melbourne and Sydney in the east with the goldfields of the west. Having been launched in 1903, she was assigned the Brisbane to Fremantle route in 1906 and was the first ship to complete the then-record direct trip of 5,000 kilometres. In the quieter months, the Yongala was assigned to the east coast passage between Cairns and Melbourne.

In 1911, she set out on her 99th, and fatal, voyage. On departure from Mackay, carrying 49 passengers, 73 crew, and a racehorse called Moonshine, the Yongalawas still within sight of land when the cyclone warning came in. Unfortunately, it was too late to relay the message to the Yongala. Although wireless was available in some ships of the time, the Yongala's wireless was still in transit from England. The Yongala steamed ahead northward along the Coral Sea, oblivious to the mounting storm ahead. It was not until several days later that concerns were raised about the late arrival of the Yongala. Although wreckage was soon washed up on beaches from Bowen to Hinchinbrook, the actual wreck was not detected until 1943 and it was not until 1958 that two skin-divers dived the wreck and retrieved the ship's safe. The safe was positively identified, by serial number, in 1961.

Today, the wreck of the Yongala is considered one of the best diving attractions in Australia and plays a major role in the tourism industry of Townsville. This tragedy is strongly tied to North Queensland in more ways than through historical event alone. The passenger and freight ship is itself a reflection on the lifestyle of those families who built North Queensland in the early years. The North Queensland communities are intrinsically tied to the Coral Sea and are always aware of the prevalence and the dangers of tropical cyclones. No doubt a ship placed in a similar position would have a much greater chance of survival today. The modern equipment we use to monitor the weather and to maintain communication would provide enough warning for a ship like the Yongala to seek refuge from the impending storm. Sadly, for the friends and families of those on board, such equipment was not available in 1911. Those friends and families will forever have a connection with our North Queensland coastline, and their loved ones hold a special place in our memory and in this parliament's memory 100 years on.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion moved by the member for Dawson, noting the circumstances 100 years ago in which 49 passengers and 73 crew perished on board the SS Yongala. The SS Yongala is unlikely to be a name known to many Australians, other than serious scuba divers. Today, the wreck of the Yongala lies approximately 48 nautical miles south-east of Townsville and 12 nautical miles east of Cape Bowling Green in relatively shallow waters at a depth of 16 metres below the surface. The Museum of North Queensland, which manages the conservation of the SS Yongala wreck, recognises it as the largest, most intact historic shipwreck known in Australian waters apart from the modern Australian Navy warships intentionally sunk for recreational diving purposes.

Of course, the loss of the Yongala was a tragedy unparalleled in its time, having claimed 122 lives. Communities throughout eastern Australia and South Australia commemorated the tragedy in churches and village halls. Donations were offered to the Yongala distress fund, begun in March 1911 for the relief of families in distress. Other than the sheer tragedy of this story, I was intrigued by another dimension altogether. That was the role that technology and innovation played in the loss and finding of the Yongala. On the fateful last voyage, Yongala departed Mackay bound for Townsville and Cairns and, while the Yongala was still in sight of land, the signal station at Flat Top received a telegram warning of an approaching cyclone. Although the first Australian shore-based wireless station capable of maintaining communication with ships had been established in Sydney in 1910, few ships carried wireless in 1911. Ironically, a wireless destined for installation in Yongala had recently been dispatched from the Marconi company in England. Five hours later, the lighthouse keeper on Dent Island in the Whitsunday Passage watched Yongala steam past into the worsening weather. It was the last sighting.

Of course improvements were made to technology, and continue to be made, to make shipping safer for the generations that followed. Technology also played its part in the rediscovery and later identification of the Yongala. Despite its shallow resting place, Yongala remained undiscovered for 36 years. In 1947, the Royal Australian Navy hydrographic vessel HMAS Lachlan stopped to examine an obstruction reported four years earlier, using antisubmarine equipment and an echo sounder. The obstruction was thought to be a sunken ship, and was presumed to be the SS Yongala, but no further action was taken.

In 1958, a shell fisherman came upon this obstacle once again and, being fascinated by the mystery of the Yongala, spent the next few weeks dragging the sandy seabed with grapnel. The fisherman, Bill Kirkpatrick, commenced a salvage operation using a hardhat diver but this was unsuccessful. A second salvage attempt was made some time later, this time with Kirkpatrick and the Queensland Underwater Research Group hoping to positively identify the wreck as the Yongala. During this salvage operation, a safe was recovered and brought to the surface. In the presence of Customs officers, the safe was smashed open but it contained only sludge. Positive identification of the wreck only occurred after a photo of the safe was published in the Townsville Daily Bulletin and seen by the Chubb safe dealer who identified it as one of their safes.

In another irony, it was much older technology which helped identify the wreck. The partial serial number found on the door tongue was sent to England for identification, where Chubb confirmed that it matched the serial number of the safe which had been supplied to the ship builder Armstrong, Whitworth and Co. for the Yongala, and which had been installed in the purser's cabin.

Today, there are more than 10,000 recreational dives on the Yongalaevery year. The site is protected under the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 and managed through the Museum of Tropical Queensland, Townsville—a beautiful part of the world. The museum controls access to the site through permit only. There is strictly no access to the internals of the wreck but the artificial reef Yongala is now home and provides a great haven for sea life and wonderful viewing to those who dare to venture beneath the surface. I thank the member for Dawson for moving this motion.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Dawson for moving this motion on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the SS Yongala. We have heard tonight that the ship was built in South Australia, and I am reliably informed that the actual name of the vessel is pronounced 'Yongulla', whereas the actual name of the building in Townsville is the Yongala Lodge—there are always arguments about pronunciation. It is an Aboriginal word, although I am not sure of the meaning. All 122 people were lost as the ship sailed into a cyclone, and that was a great tragedy. The racehorse Moonshine almost made it to Townsville. It was washed up; it never made it to shore alive. It had an undistinguished racing career and it did not win its last race either. What I would say is that since finding the Yongala in 1958 it has turned into not just one of the great dives in Australia but one of the top five dives in the world. The member for Flinders is a very avid and very keen scuba diver—he keeps his tickets low. He has dived with the great whites in South Australia. He has dived all over Australia and yet he has never done the Yongala. I had the member for Flinders in Townsville just prior to the 100th anniversary, but the weather was such that he was not able to make the dive.

On Saturday, 26 March this year, there was a celebration for the 100th anniversary at Yongala Lodge. Yongala Lodge was built by the Rooney family in Townsville who lost one of their family members in the sinking of the Yongala. The Rooney family built the lodge and they also built the massive and beautiful altar in St Joseph's Church, the Strand, which is directly across the road and home to Father Mick Peters, one of the greatest blokes in the history of the world, even if he is a Warwick boy and a Nudgee boy.

There was a dinner at Yongala Lodge for 122 people and everyone's place card marked with a crew member, passenger or racehorse that was on the ship. It was a fantastic evening. It was hosted by Stephen Price the local breakfast radio host and I was lucky enough to be called upon to do the auction that evening where we raised some valuable funds for the coastguard and other local charities.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Were you moonshining?

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was not moonshining; I was actually a stoker in the thing. Natalie and Bob Flecker are now the owners of Yongala Lodge. Natalie has been nominated in the Townsville Chamber of Commerce Young Business Achievement Award. Natalie and Bob are truly wonderful people. They work hard. They have reopened the restaurant six nights a week to provide great food and welcoming service to people who stay there, as well as to the locals in Townsville. Shivaun, one of the waitresses, is a personal friend of mine and always gives me great service and slips me the occasional free beer.

Government members interjecting—

I have declared it on my pecuniary interests—it does go down with those sorts of things. Natalie and Bob organised the evening on a shoestring. It was a great evening. I congratulate everyone involved with it. They had a number of people there related to those who lost their lives on that fateful day.

I would finish by saying that if you ever have the chance to dive the Yongala you should take that opportunity. It is a truly beautiful dive. The water is crystal clear. You will see tropical fish the like of which you have never seen before. It is so close to Townsville—you leave first thing in the morning and you are back by five o'clock in the afternoon.

Tourism in North Queensland has suffered some terrible blows and the tourism sector in Townsville particularly is suffering. The dive and tourism operators are doing it very, very tough. I would urge everyone who has a current scuba diving ticket to get out there and dive the Yongala now. Anyone who has not got a scuba diving ticket should get up there, do a scuba diving course and then do the dive. Stay in Townsville, stay at the Yongala Lodge, and eat up and drink up big.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the motion put forward by the member for Dawson and I congratulate him for the motion. I would also congratulate my colleagues the member for Herbert and the member for Chifley for speaking on this private member's motion. It is great that you have drawn our attention to the tragedy and wish to extend the sympathies of the chamber to the families and friends of those who suffered in that tragedy.

Just on the pronunciation—'Yongala' or 'Yon-gala'. Can I go for Yongala? We have the same thing in Canberra. Some people call it 'Can-berra' and it is actually 'Canberra'. I must admit that I am not necessarily the most knowledgeable person on Australia's shipwrecks .However, the story of the SS Yongala is a fascinating and important part of Australia's maritime heritage. Those opposite and also my colleague here, the member for Chifley, will probably wonder why the member for Canberra is speaking on such an issue, given that Canberra is landlocked. I remind those in the chamber that the division of Canberra also includes Norfolk Island and that the electorate of my colleague the member for Fraser also includes Jervis Bay, because, when Canberra was set up as a city in 1927, every Australian city had to have a port. That is why we have Jervis Bay. That is why the member for Fraser has his own little part of the electorate down in beautiful Jervis Bay.

On 14 March 1911, the SS Yongala embarked on its 99th voyage in Australian waters, under the command of Captain William Knight. It would be his last voyage. On 23 March that year, the Yongala departed Mackay at 1.40 pm with 617 tons of cargo, 49 passengers and 73 crew bound for Townsville, but it never made its destination. One hundred and twenty-two passengers and crew lost their lives when the ship sank in a cyclone 12 nautical miles off the coast of Cape Bowling Green in the Great Barrier Reef on 23 March 1911.

The exact details of the sinking are to this day unknown, and they may never be known. A board of inquiry following the sinking could not render a judgment due to the lack of eyewitness evidence. It was believed at the time that the Yongala hit the reef or a rock and sank. Present research suggests that, given the absence of life rafts, it happened quickly. What is known is that the Yongala, absent modern-day technology such as radar, sailed blindly into a cyclone. If she had had a wireless—which was waiting on the wharves in Cairns—it could have warned her of the impending bad weather.

By the time of World War Two, the Yongala and its fate had all but faded from memory. In fact, it had become the subject of ghost stories, becoming a mysterious ship that travelled the waters around Townsville. How exciting! It was not until 1947 and the end of the war that the Navy gave serious consideration to an obstruction that had been noted some years earlier. The HMAS Lachlan determined that this obstruction was most likely a large steamer, but no further investigation was made. The location of the Yongala was only discovered in 1958, when divers recovered a safe whose only identification was a serial number, the contents of the safe having long ago been destroyed. However, further investigation of the serial number revealed this safe to be the one installed in the purser's cabin on the Yongala during its construction in 1903.

The story of the Yongala does not end with its sinking and rediscovery. Out of this tragedy a century ago, a new life and purpose has emerged for the wreck of the Yongala. Today it acts as an artificial reef and major dive location, bringing tourism to the area. It is a microcosm of the greater barrier reef, and it is said that it has a greater spectrum of corals and fish than can be seen on the barrier reef. These features have made the Yongala one of Australia's most popular destinations for divers, with over 10,000 divers visiting the wreck every year. At 110 metres long, the Yongala is one of the largest intact historic shipwrecks in the world and the largest in Australia. The wreck is a significant part of Australia's maritime history, and I urge all Australians to learn more about it and our maritime heritage.

In closing, I would like to extend my sympathies and those of the people of Canberra to the families and friends of those who perished in the sinking of the SS Yongala 100 years ago. This significant part of Australia's heritage is protected by the Historic Shipwrecks Act and it is a heritage site, so it has a very special place in our hearts.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allocated for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.