Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I also want to contribute to this condolence motion and to remember Bob Hawke. I want to pass my sympathies on to his family to begin with—to Blanche; to his children, Sue, Rosslyn and Stephen; and to their children, Bob Hawke's grandchildren.

Hawke has been a public figure throughout my life. I grew up with Bob Hawke basically there on the television from pretty much as early as I can remember, from when he was ACTU president. I remember this craggy-faced black-and-white figure, so powerful and outspoken, speaking up for workers. From there, of course, he became an MP, in 1980, then opposition leader and finally Prime Minister, in 1983. A lot of words have already been spoken today about his broad range of achievements and the things that we remember Bob Hawke for. I want to focus on one in particular, and that's his contribution towards our environment, particularly his contribution towards protecting the Franklin River in south-west Tasmania.

We need to remember how huge that campaign to protect the Franklin was and how significant and important Hawke's position—to be protecting the river—was, both for the protection of the river as it was but also as an iconic, symbolic and movement-shaping moment in terms of the protection of natural heritage here in Australia and indeed around the world. We also need to think about the importance of that Franklin campaign to Labor winning the 1983 election.

The campaign began when the announcement was made in 1978 by the Tasmanian government that it was going to dam the Gordon River above the Franklin River. It was when I was just leaving school—I began uni in 1979—and it shaped me like it shaped so many other people. The campaign grew and grew and grew, and for a long time there was no political support. We had already seen many hydroelectricity schemes in Tasmania. Many bits of the south-west Tasmanian wilderness had been lost to large dams. Then there was the damming of Lake Pedder, which was such a massive loss in terms of natural heritage.

The campaign to protect the Franklin began. It began to grow and it began to swell. Fairly early on there was the support of the Australian Democrats, right from their formation. But, in terms of the Labor and Liberal parties, at the beginning of the campaign they were resolutely pro the damming of the river.

Then the campaign grew. It drew people from around the world. It certainly drew people from across Australia. It drew people from all backgrounds and all walks of life, from ordinary people through to celebrities. It drew people who knew the importance of protecting our natural world, our inspirational wild landscapes and our precious animals and birds, and what a travesty it would be to see them lost for 180 megawatts of power. They were people who banded together for a better, cleaner future. They campaigned together and they built a movement.

During this time, between 1979 and 1983, as I said, the political support from the Labor and Liberal parties initially just wasn't there, but then things started to shift. There were the divisions within the Labor Party. There were those who were pro dam. There were those who were anti dam. There were the different positions that different states took and different positions of the Labor Party in different states. By 1983 we had Malcolm Fraser as Prime Minister offering considerable compensation to the Tasmanian government to not build the dam, which was then rejected.

What that meant was that there wasn't a clear political voice. There wasn't the translation of that movement, that groundswell, into our political sphere with any power until Bob Hawke. Bob became a member of parliament in 1980 and became opposition leader on 3 February 1983, the very day the election was called. Bob came to that position with a personal position of protection for the Franklin. That had been his position at a Labor Party conference four months earlier when the person he succeeded, Bill Hayden, had been pro dam. Bob was pro the river. Labor changed their position at that conference to being in favour of saving the river and Bob's position of being pro river was instrumental to that. It wasn't until he became opposition leader—beginning on 3 February 1983, and then in that election campaign—that there was a clear political outlet for that movement.

We had Australian Democrat senators here in this parliament who had been campaigning for the Franklin, who did not have the power to protect the river on their own. We needed the support of one of the major parties. It wasn't until Bob was elected Opposition Leader going into that election campaign that the environment movement knew that they could wholeheartedly get behind supporting the Labor Party in that election campaign, and they did. I was part of that. The massive campaign, and the translation of that huge movement, really did cross all of Australia. They were then be able to focus that and say, 'If we're going to protect the Franklin River, we need to vote Labor.' I was proudly a Labor voter at that 1983 election. It was a landslide victory. The courageous leadership that was shown was so significant in taking that stand and then in enabling the translation of all of that campaigning into power here in our parliaments. It meant that Labor could be seen as speaking unequivocally, not sitting on the fence, and doing what was right, to be not just protecting that one precious bit of wilderness but sending a sign that these environmental issues, our precious animals and birds, our precious natural places, need to be protected in their own right.

So, when the Hawke government was elected in March 1983, the Franklin campaign was won. We did then have a battle; it was taken to the High Court. But, because of the World Heritage listing that had been previously put in place, the High Court decision meant that the Franklin was won. It was such a powerful moment for so many people. It was certainly pivotal for me in that time, from 1979 to 1983, being increasingly involved in environment campaigns—and also having learned about climate change. That factor of having been part of a campaign that was a massive movement of people fighting for what was right and then winning was pivotal. And Bob Hawke was central to that win. It was a pivotal moment that led to my journey to being here in this place, because it led to me being an environment campaigner.

My time as an environment campaigner employed in the environment movement almost perfectly coincided with Bob Hawke's time as Prime Minister. So I was there when he led a government that was the most pro-environment government in Australia's history. But there, once again, the achievements were through Hawke, as the Labor leader and as Prime Minister, being a reflection of the movement in the community and listening to the people in the community who wanted to see, who knew the importance of seeing, protection for our precious natural places.

The list of places that were protected during the Hawke government includes Kakadu and Daintree; the protection of the Antarctic, the protection of rainforests; and Uluru-Kata Tjuta and Shark Bay. But they were all on the back of big campaigns, of the community banding together, of roaring, of needing support but knowing that there were actually people that were listening here in Canberra. Of course, we didn't get everything that we wanted. Each one of those campaigns was still hard fought, but at least we knew that there was actually the potential for getting the change and the potential for getting good outcomes if people roared loudly enough.

It was also the time—here, it's almost incredible, when we're still having these debates about our climate crisis—of the initial beginnings of action from the Australian government. I remember in particular the Greenhouse '88 Conference that was supported federally; that was actually laying on the table what needed to happen to tackle our climate crisis. As I said, with Hawke as Prime Minister, we still didn't get everything we wanted. During that time, I was campaigning on forest protection—right up until the 1990 election.

That 1990 election, with Hawke, and with Graham Richardson as environment minister, was portrayed as being the 'election for the environment'. In fact, Labor used the iconic Franklin River poster as material for that election. I was working on protecting East Gippsland's forests, for which, despite all those environmental wins I mentioned, we were still having to fight really hard to try and get protection—for some of the most magnificent forests in the country. We had protest actions in the forests that we knew, in the lead-up to the election, were likely to result in some interest from the federal Labor government, who didn't want this conflict at the time. The lead-up to the election was meant to be all about how good the Labor Party were at protecting the environment. So, pretty quickly, we found ourselves in negotiations with Graham Richardson's office—and, I know, with Bob Hawke's office listening very closely—to see what could be done to get us to no longer be protesting in the forests in East Gippsland in the lead-up to that election.

We reached a deal that basically said, 'All right; we will stop protesting as long as, post election, there's a genuine process to determine whether it is appropriate to log those forests.' It was enough of a deal that for me, as a campaigner, I was happy to say: 'Okay, we will step aside. We'll stop the protest actions.' And then the election came and went, and, very sadly, that deal that I thought we had actually fell apart, and we did not get the outcome for those forests that I was expecting. The logging of some incredibly precious forests went ahead post that 1990 election. That was enough for me to realise that, yes, although we had just experienced this period of time that had the greatest protections for the environment, led by Hawke, there was still a lot more in terms of political voice that was needed. That actually led me to say, 'Well, if we've still got a government that, despite those protections, is willing to sell out our forests, we need to have people in our parliaments who would be an even stronger, uncompromised voice for the environment.' And it led me to throw myself into being one of the founders of the Greens.

I think the legacy of Hawke, if you look back now at what was achieved in that period from 1983 through to 1993 by him as Prime Minister, was extraordinary in terms of those environmental protections. It was leadership that we have not seen since then and that we had not seen up until then. And it's leadership that we desperately need now. His support for the Franklin River was important. It was an iconic campaign, but it was also symbolic and a motivation for environment campaigning around Australia and around the world. It changed the movement and it changed attitudes. But, ultimately, it was only protecting a small part of south-west Tasmania. What we are facing now—and the leadership that we need now—is an extinction crisis going on and a climate crisis going on. Precious natural places all around the world, including all of those precious natural places that gained protection during the 1980s, are under threat from our climate crisis and from our extinction crises. These are the challenges that we are facing now, and the leadership that Hawke showed in the eighties is what we need now—people having the political courage to stand up for the protection of our precious natural world, because these are existential crises that the world is now facing.

What better way to remember Bob Hawke than to remember the leadership that he showed on the environment and for us, as parliamentarians, to take a similar stand and to say, 'There are precious places that are under threat; there are precious places that need protecting,' and to take action to deal with our climate crisis. We need to take the action that is necessary and to have the political courage not to prevaricate, not to sit on the fence, not to say, 'Oh, well, there are short-term economic benefits to some powerful people in our society, so they are going to prevail.' That is selling out. That's not the sort of leadership that we need now. I think the memory of Bob Hawke means that we need to take the actions that are necessary—to transition out of coal and gas and oil, and to +do it in a way that protects workers, that protects ordinary people. We need to have the courage to take that action. My memory of Bob Hawke and what I think the legacy of Bob Hawke needs to be is a reminder to ourselves to take that action, to move forward from here and to continue to protect those precious places that he was so pivotal in saving.