The People’s National Park: Working-Class Environmental Campaigns on Sydney’s Georges River, 1950-67

Labour History: A Journal of Labour and Social History (2010), 99, (1), 17–36.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/labourhistory.99.1.0017
Language: English
Pages: 20

Abstract

The prevailing narrative of official and academic environmental histories has been that campaigns to protect native bushland and establish national parks were initiated by middle-class advocates of distant wildernesses. Yet in the 1950s in south western Sydney, working-class activists on the Georges River were demanding conservation for native bushland and accessible greenspace at the same time as they identified industrial pollution as a severe effect of postwar industrial development. In fact, these working-class campaigners identified conservation of native bushland through a national park as a key recognition of working people in the nation. This article argues this firstly by showing that the massive post war impact of industrialisation and population expansion on the working-class area of the Georges River not only increased pollution but at the same time rapidly decreased the area of native bushland there. Secondly, it uses oral history on the life stories of individual campaigners to trace how interaction with the local river and bushland environments shaped working-class identities, just as much as did employment and factory contexts. Thirdly, this article examines the core demands of the campaign, identifying how native bushland was used as a central emblem of working-class interests, in what became a definition of a ‘national park’ which was very different from the ‘Yellowstone’ model. Finally, the course of the campaign is followed through its wins and losses, showing how tensions were generated among the working-class campaigners as they tried to implement their goals of an accessible ‘people’s national park’.

FormatArticle

£25.00

If you have private access to this content, please log in with your username and password here

Endnotes

1.Libby Robin,Libby, Defending the Little Desert: The Rise of Ecological Consciousness in Australia,Melbourne University Press,, 1998;Martin Mulligan andStuart Hill, Ecological Pioneers: A Social History of Australian Ecological Thought and Action,Cambridge University Press,, 2001. Google Scholar

2.R. White, ‘Place and nation: how “national” were the first national parks?’,paper delivered at the Australian Historical Association Conference,Melbourne,July 2008. Google Scholar

3.Karen R. Jones andJohn Wills, The Invention of the Park,Cambridge,, 2005;Kalamandeen, Michelle andLindsey Gillson, ‘Demything “wilderness”: implications for protected area designation and management’, Biodiversity Conservation, 2007, 16, pp.165-82;NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, Georges River National Park Plan of Management,,NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, 1994. Google Scholar

4.Lois Gibbs, ‘Citizens’ Activism for Environmental Health: The Growth of a Powerful New Grassroots Health Movement’, inSylvia Hood Washington,Paul C. Rosier and Heather Goodall (eds), Echoes from the Poisoned Well: Global Memories of Environmental Injustice,Lexington,, 2006, pp.3-16;Stephen Darley, ‘But the Working Class Don’t Care about the Environment … Do They?’, Social Alternatives, vol.13, no.2, July1994, pp.37-41. Google Scholar

5.Meredith Burgmann andVerity Burgmann, Green bans, red union: environmental activism and the New South Wales Builders Labourers Federation,UNSW Press,, 1998. Google Scholar

6.This close focus is consistent withStephen Darley‘s argument(‘But the Working Class Don’t Care’, p.37) that working-class populations take environmental action because their everyday lives allow opportunities for close observation and ‘active monitoring’ of environmental change. This is just as true of natural environments as it is of levels of contamination and environmental health damage. Google Scholar

7.NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water website, accessed April 2010,http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/NationalParks/parkHeritage.aspx?id=N0080. The site describes the previous management briefly but disparagingly: ‘Prior to [1992], it was a state recreation area under the management of a trust. During this period, the trust licensed sand mining along the shores of the reserve and used the proceeds to develop the park. Grassed flats were created over former mangrove swamps, and facilities and seawalls were installed’. Google Scholar

8.Heather Goodall andAllison Cadzow, Rivers and Resilience: Aboriginal people on Sydney’s Georges River,UNSW Press,, 2009. Google Scholar

9.See, for example,Joe Anderson, recorded onCinesound News Review, no. 100, 1933, discussed inGoodall andCadzow, Rivers, pp.135-65. Google Scholar

10.Ibid. Google Scholar

11.Glennys Barhnam, Riverside Reflections: memories of Lugarno,self published,, 2003;Sue Rosen, Bankstown: A Sense of Identity,Hale & Iremonger,, 1996;Andrew Molloy, The History of Padstow,Australian Media,, 2004;Andrew Molloy, The History of Panania, Picnic Point and East Hills,University Publishing Services,, 2006;Beverly Earnshaw, The Land Between Two Rivers,Kogarah Historical Society,, 2001, ch. 6;Lynne McLoughlin, The Middle Lane Cove River: A History and a Future,Centre for Environmental and Urban Studies Macquarie University,, 1985. Google Scholar

12.Jaqueline Davies,Dorothy Mulholland andNora Pipe, West of the River Road,Towrang Publications,, 1979;Robert J. Haworth, ‘Bush tracks and bush blocks: the aerial photographic record from south-west Sydney, 1930-1950,’ Australian and New Zealand Journal of Person-Environment Studies, no.49, 1995, 32-42, pp.37-38. Google Scholar

13.J.J. Cahill, Premier, NSW Parliamentary Papers, Votes & Proceedings, (hereafter NSW V&P)28August1957, vol.21, pp.166-67. Google Scholar

14.Winston, Denis, Sydney’s Great Experiment: The Progress of the Cumberland County Plan,Angus and Robertson,, 1957. Google Scholar

15.R.J. Kelly, NSW V&P, 31May1956, vol.16, p.230. Google Scholar

16.President’s Report, Padstow Park Progress Association, 1957, cited inM. Garside, Padstow Park Progress Association, 1913-2001, The Padstow Park Progress Association, Padstow, p.26. Google Scholar

17.Dan Huon Coward, Out of Sight: Sydney’s Environmental History 1851-1981,Department of Economic History, Australian National University,, 1988, pp.240-42. Google Scholar

18.N.G. Butlin, (ed.), Sydney’s Environmental Amenity, 1970-1975.Australian National University Press,, 1976, p.133. Google Scholar

19.Coward, Out of Sight, pp.245-52;Butlin(ed.)Sydney’s Environmental Amenity, pp.140-49and176-183demonstrates both the disproportionate historical pressure on the Georges River and that it had continued until this survey in the early 1970s. Google Scholar

20.Peter Spearitt, Sydney Since the Twenties,Hale & Iremonger,, 1978, p.93, citing 1954 Census. Google Scholar

21.Carolyn Allport, ‘Castles of security: the New South Wales Housing Commission and home ownership 1941-1961’, inMax Kelly(ed.)Sydney: City of Suburbs,UNSW Press in association with the Sydney History Group,, NSW, 1987, p.103. Figures fromOfficial Year Book of NSW, no.58, p.56. Google Scholar

22.Coward, Out of Sight, p.249;Butlin(ed.)Sydney’s Environmental Amenity, p.139. Google Scholar

23.Coward, Out of Sight, pp.248-52. Google Scholar

24. Ibid, p.251. Figures drawn from NSW Statistical Register, cited inMetropolitan Water Sewage and Drainage Board, 1960. Google Scholar

25.Ibid. Google Scholar

26.Myles Dunphy bought a home at Oatley on the Georges River. His son Milo Dunphy, also a keen conservationist, grew up on and around the river. He recalled taking a Bren gun up the Georges River in a boat with friends shooting at trees on shore, also shooting in the Oatley Park bush and swimming. SeePeter Meredith, Myles and Milo,Allen and Unwin,, 1999, passim, and pp.149, 151;Mulligan andHill, Ecological Pioneers, pp.136-63. Google Scholar

27.Regarding the campaign for a national park in Blue Mountains, seePatrick Thompson(ed.), Myles Dunphy: Selected writings,,, 1986. Google Scholar

28.This sketch of George’s life is drawn from PPRA papers held by Alf Stills and from an interview recorded with three of George Jacobsen’s children (Col Joye, andKevin andCarol Jacobsen), 12June2006, conducted byHeather Goodall,Surry Hills. Google Scholar

29.Interviews with PPRA members, 22March2006, conducted byHeather Goodall andAllison Cadzow, Panania. Those present included Alf andEileen Stills,Esme Smith,Joy Cornwall,Eileen Birch andCarol Jacobsen. Google Scholar

31.Ibid. Google Scholar

32.Ibid. Google Scholar

33.Spearitt, Sydney Since the Twenties, p.95;D.E. Rose, A Study of Juvenile Delinquency in NSW,Department of Labour and Industry, Government Printer,, 1942. Google Scholar

34. Tribune, 19October1945, 23October1945, 12March1952. Google Scholar

37.Karen R. Jones andJohn Wills, The Invention of the Park,Polity Press,, 2005pp.64-91. Google Scholar

38.Davies, West of the River Road, p.38. Google Scholar

39.Local Progress Association papers, discussed inGoodall andCadzow, Rivers, pp.152-57; Progress Associations’ papers published in various local histories, including Andrew Molloy, The History of Padstow. Google Scholar

41. St George and Sutherland Leader(hereafterLeader), 8March1962;Propeller, 15March1962.R.J. Stephens himself was an employee of the Department of Lands. Google Scholar

42. Leader, 7August1968. Google Scholar

43.Georges River Parklands Trust Annual Report no.8, 1969. Google Scholar

44.There are many parallels between this situation in 1950s Sydney and the popular understanding of environments that was common in the USA in the same period. SeeDonald Worster, Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, (2nd edn)Cambridge University Press,, 1997, 1985, 1994, Part Five:‘The Morals of a Science: Ethics, Economics and Ecology’, pp.255-315. Google Scholar

45.Kevin Howard, An Essay on Contemporary Change and Prospects of the Georges River, unpublished thesis,Diploma of Environmental Studies, Macquarie University,, 1973. Google Scholar

46. Leader, 3April1963. Google Scholar

47.Davies, West of the River Road, p.38. Google Scholar

48.Spearitt, Sydney Since the Twenties, p.95, pointing out that the new suburbs of the Georges River, including the Housing Commission Hostels, were widely publicised to be the origins of many young men who came before the courts as ‘juvenile delinquents’. Google Scholar

49.Meredith, Myles and Milo, pp.126-28, reflecting Myles’ frustration at wider public access to ‘primitive’ areas he wished to reserve for only a few ‘walkers’. See extensive discussion on the 1932 decisions by Myles Dunphy and the Sydney Bushwalkers Club to set severe limits on membership, based on walking ability and ‘sociability’, inMelissa Harper, ‘The battle for the bush: bushwalking vs hiking between the wars’, Journal of Australian Studies, June1995, no. 45, pp.41-52. Google Scholar

50.PPRA papers, including Report 1959; Alf Still interview with PPRA members, 26March2006. Google Scholar

51.Jacobsen family interview, 12June2006;Carol Jacobsen andAlf Still interviews with PPRA members, 26March2006. Google Scholar

52.R.J. Kelly, Member for East Hills, andJ. Renshaw, Deputy Treasurer, Minister for Lands, NSW V&P, 22February1961, vol.35, pp.2555-556. Google Scholar

53. Leader, 3April1963;8May1963. Google Scholar

54. Ibid, 29October1991. Google Scholar

55.Douglas Cross, Member for Georges River ALP, NSW PP, 26September1956, vol.18, p.2608;Douglas Cross, 15October1957, vol.21, p.1131. Google Scholar

56. Leader, 5April1962; decision made byKevin Howard withH.C. Hunt, the Council’s senior Municipal Health Surveyor, a role Howard later took up. Interview withKevin Howard byHeather Goodall andAllison Cadzow, 13February2006. Google Scholar

57.Leader, undated photocopy although internal dating indicates 1962, held in Hurstville Local Studies Collection, Hurstville City Library;Leader, 3April1963. See alsoHoward, An Essay on Contemporary Change and Prospects, p.8, citingDon Whitington, The Effluent Society,Thomas Nelson,, 1970. Howard’s reference is important, considering his long-serving role as a Trustee on the Georges River Parklands Trust from 1975. Google Scholar

58. Leader, 3April1963. Google Scholar

59.Georges River National Park Annual Report, no. 5, 1966, Sutherland Shire Local Studies Collection. Google Scholar

60.Kelloggs Employment Officer to Mr Thompson, NPWS and GR Trust, 19August1982, National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) Archives, Georges River Trust SR, file 109/49. Google Scholar

61. Leader, 4January1967, 23August1967;Torch, 23August1967. Google Scholar

62. NPWS Table of Reserves, generated12October2005,NPWS Archives. Google Scholar

63. Leader, 4January1967. Google Scholar

64.Ibid. Google Scholar

65. Torch, 29April1992;Leader, 29October1991;Express12November1991. Google Scholar

66.R. Buchanan toChris Hartcher, NSW Minister for the Environment, 26August1992, NPWS Archives, A 1732 Correspondence, Enquiries, ministerial representations Georges River National Park; Canterbury resident W. Aitken to Pat Rogan, Member for East Hills, 10December1991, NPWS Archives, A 1732, Correspondence, Enquiries, ministerial representations Georges River National Park;Torch, 29April1992, 5August1992, 31March1993;Leader, 7August1968. Google Scholar

67. Torch, 29April1992and5August1992. Google Scholar

68. Express, 12November1991. Google Scholar