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BATTLE FOR THE FRANKLIN by Roger Green

(Introduction)

Roger Green is a writer and conservationist. He presented the Australian

Conservation Foundation's case for preserving South West Tasmania to

politicians and bureaucrats in Canberra in 1982 and 1983. After the Liberal-

National Government of Malcolm Fraser decided not to save the Franklin River,

Roger worked on the conservation movement's plans for electing a new Federal

Government in 1983.

Roger's involvement in wilderness conservation began with the Colo Committee

in Sydney in the mid-1970s. Later he convened the Pittwater Branch of the

Tasmanian Wilderness Society. Roger has worked as a freelance journalist for

many newspapers and has also written for radio and television. He is currently

writing about politics in Canberra.

Geoffrey Lea is a photographer who lives in Hobart. In 1976 he was drawn to

Tasmania by accounts of Olegas Truchanas' journeys on the western rivers. He

Liloed down the Gordon River and travelled much of the South West. In 1979

he returned to Tasmania and worked briefly for the Hydro-Electric Commission

on investigations at the Gordon-below-Franklin dam site. Soon after, he joined

the Tasmanian Wilderness Society and began working full time to protect the

area.

Dedication

To the thousands of people around the world who have

kept the Franklin River flowing free.

BATTLE FOR

THE FRANKLIN

Conversations with the combatants

in the struggle for South West Tasmania

Interviews by Roger Green

Photographs by Geoffrey Lea

Fontana/Australian Conservation Foundation

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Map page 7 by Anna Warren

Photograph page 8 by Melva Truchanas

Photograph page 275 by Russell Bastock

Photograph page 301 by Ross Scott

[Cover photograph: Sir John Falls, near Gordon-below-Franklin dam site

(Geoffrey Lea).]

This edition Australian Conservation Foundation 1981 [sic, actually 1984]

First published jointly by Fontana Books (the paperback division of William

Collins Pty Ltd), Sydney, and the Australian Conservation Foundation,

Melbourne, 1981 [sic, actually 1984].

The views expressed in this book are not necessarily those of the Australian

Conservation Foundation.

National Library of Australia

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Battle for the Franklin.

ISBN 0 00 636715 1.

1. Conservationists—Tasmania — Interviews.

2. Conservation of natural resources —

Tasmania. I. Green, Roger. II. Lea,

Geoffrey. III. Australian Conservation Foundation.

333.78'2'0922

Typeset by Post Typesetters

Printed by Dominion Press-Hedges & Bell, Maryborough, Victoria.

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Introduction

At the beginning of 1972 the Serpentine River snaked across a highland valley in South West

Tasmania and flowed into a placid lake lying between ranges of jagged mountains. The lake was Lake

Pedder. A breeze blowing across its surface would stir a sea of diamonds, or as clouds covered the sun

the sharp reflections of mountains would disappear into the lake's dark waters.

Paddling children run from the water up the wide white moon of sand. The rapidly-changing

atmosphere brings cries from families and the clicking of cameras from photographers like Olegas

Truchanas trying to record the swirling mists on the lake.

That was the last summer of Lake Pedder. No photograph could capture the beauty or the magic of

that singular place, the excitement of those whose eyes beheld the scene, who whiffed the reaction

between the weather and the lake, who heard the wind play the bent trees on the sandhills and the

rain patter on the water. Lake Pedder disappeared under steadily rising water in the middle of 1972. A

dam down the Serpentine River impounded water that rose to cover the river's banks, the swamps on

either side, the lake, the beach and the dunes. A layer of the water at the top of the impoundment

would later make hydro-electricity.

In 1972 Australia was changing. The people elected a reforming Labor Government whose first act was

to pull troops out of the Vietnam War. There was hope for a prouder, independent Australia that cared

for its people, its culture and its landscape.

In Tasmania little had changed. Doubts about the way things were done met a concrete-solid

Establishment: for more than forty years the State's Hydro-Electric Commission had directed

Tasmanian development. The colony built on mining, logging and agriculture in the nineteenth

century discovered, in the twentieth, that cheap electricity generated from fallen water could attract

the industries that smelted the ores and pulped the wood. From the 1920s that single idea, propagated

by the Hydro-Electric Commission, mesmerized the governors of Tasmania. In the 1960s its pursuit

stirred environmental protest, but that opposition could not save Lake Pedder. Ten years after Pedder,

in 1982, with the largest conservation battle in Australian history reaching its peak and with power

demand below predicted levels, the Tasmanian Hydro-Electric Commission began work on another

dam on the lower Gordon River, a dam that would flood the Franklin.

The Gordon, the mightiest river in Tasmania, was dammed once in association with the flooding of

Lake Pedder. Downstream the river surged through slots in mountain ranges before winding a course

between steep banks covered with rainforest. From the north entered the Franklin, the last major river

in Tasmania surrounded by wild country and flowing free from its source to the sea. The Franklin and

lower Gordon Rivers were at the heart of the Wild Rivers National Park, later inscribed on the World

Heritage List. Below the junction of these rivers the Hydro-Electric Commission picked a site for the

Gordon-below-Franklin dam, the last great dam site in Tasmania.

Late in 1982 conservationists from Tasmania and the mainland began arriving in the fishing village of

Strahan on the windswept West Coast of the island. From Strahan a four- hour boat trip took

protestors across Macquarie Harbour and up the Gordon River to their camp near the dam site. In

mid-December conservationists started a blockade of dam work. The conservative government of

Malcolm Fraser in Canberra, which had earlier said it would not intervene in the dam dispute, in

January approved an offer of $500 million to Tasmania to leave the Gordon River and build a power

station elsewhere.

The offer from Canberra was closely followed by a Federal election campaign and while the blockade

continued the Tasmanian dam was a major election issue. Bob Hawke, leading the Labor Party,

promised to stop the dam, using legislation if necessary. The Labor Party won the election and

attempted to negotiate a settlement with Tasmania. However the Tasmanian Premier, Robin Gray,

continued to refuse Federal offers so the Federal Government passed legislation which was

subsequently tested in the High Court. On 1 July 1983 the Chief Justice announced that work on the

dam must stop. After five years' campaigning for the Franklin and more than fifteen years' battling

hydro-electric development in the wilderness of South West Tasmania this was the Australian

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conservation movement's greatest victory.

Still, in Tasmania little had changed. Within weeks of the decision stopping work on the Gordon-

below-Franklin dam, the Tasmanian Parliament approved the construction of seven more dams in the

highlands and river gorges of South West Tasmania.

What makes the Hydro-Electric Commission want to keep doing it?

Building dams can be fun. Then, after a few times, it becomes a habit.

In Tasmania it must have been a terrific challenge to trek the wilderness in search of the perfect dam

site. Once the place was found trails would be blazed, an access route built across rugged country and

then a dam would be designed and built by the highly-skilled and ambitious young engineer keen to

leave a mark on the world. Such activity would be even more satisfying for one convinced of the

necessity of the project, convinced of the economic and moral good of the work being done. The joys of

engineering could capture many a young graduate.

Some are hooked for life. In 1947 Russell Ashton graduated in civil engineering from the University of

Sydney and began working with the Hydro-Electric Commission of Tasmania. The next year he was on

the banks of the Franklin River in the wild South West, investigating its hydro-electric potential. Since

1977 Russell Ashton has been the Commissioner of the Hydro-Electric Commission. For more than 35

years he has been planning to build a dam on the Franklin River: no wonder he has been so keen to

finish the job. He is still keen. For many in the Hydro-Electric Commission the 1983 High Court

decision stopping the dam is just a temporary setback. When the government changes in Canberra

they believe work will resume on their Gordon-below-Franklin project. What is three or six years after

thirty-five?

Why didn't the 1983 decision shatter the HEC world view and bring their world tumbling after? The

Hydro-Electric Commission, like many other large institutions, has developed the resilience and

survival instincts of a living organism. It has a life and destiny quite independent of the government

that is nominally running Tasmania. This corporality, more than anything, sustains the Commission's

enthusiasm for projects where the economics are unsound, the energy is unnecessary and the

environmental effects are disastrous.

The HEC is more resilient than other institutions. No other authority operating 'under' a popularly-

elected government could have survived so much public criticism, so many charges of impropriety and

so many embarrassments without major structural changes. The Hydro-Electric Commission has

been secretive, party-political during election campaigns, hostile to public review and unresponsive to

changing needs. It has refused to carry out government policy, indeed lobbied for the removal of its

Minister and the State Premier; but still it survives unchanged. There have not even been significant

shifts of personnel.

The Hydro-Electric Commission sees itself above politics, it has a mission. The only reason that the

Commission has survived so long is because a belief in the destiny of dams has infected more than the

employees and their relatives; many Tasmanian people have succumbed to the condition, variously

known as Hydro-philia or Dam-mania. How could Australia's natural or archaeological heritage be

allowed to subvert such a reality?

The HEC is a dinosaur in its death throes, ransacking its own tiny island, cutting off its own life-

support system. The Tasmanian dam builder is now an endangered species: its habitat is being

destroyed as the State's dammable rivers and streams are progressively choked with rocks and

concrete. With many of the surviving wild rivers now in reserves under Federal protection the species

must migrate, mutate or face extinction.

Why do conservationists oppose the Hydro-Electric Commission's dam building? Why fight for years

against the powerful forces of the State to save a trackless wilderness?

A love of beauty. Rows of glacier-gouged mountains fade into a misty distance. Water drips onto a

quivering fern frond. An azure kingfisher flits along riverbank lighting on the fine, scaly branch of a

huon pine. Nearby rapids crash on worn rocks.