Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a most exclusive and beautiful list that the stump is quite undeserving to be associated with. In the Heritage Council’s annual publication they wax lyrical about the tree’s size and historical importance and glorify the so-called historical connection between the shearers sitting under the tree and the Labor Party. But the question rightly asked of the council is: what is the truth? Well, I finally received a reply to that question from the Australian Heritage Council. The council as good as acknowledged the tree was not a meeting place. Nevertheless, it says in its letter to me, ‘The tree is a symbol.’ If you say it enough, a lie becomes the truth. I guess that old saying comes to life in this situation—very much Labor’s creed and modus operandi.

It is probably all too hard under a Labor government for the council to extract the stump of knowledge from the National Heritage List. But it ought to be extracted if Australia is going to have a heritage list that is credible, devoid of political bias and of genuine consequence, including such sites as Mawson’s Hut, Old Parliament House in Canberra and the Australian War Memorial. These are heavyweight listings and are diminished by the stump. This is an issue that very much sums up modern Labor—fake and always milking the public purse. I regret that so many people have played along with Labor’s scam, which would be funny except for the millions of taxpayers’ dollars involved.