Georges River Blues

Front matter

GEORGES

SWAMPS, MANGROVES AND RESIDENT ACTION, 1945-1980

GEORGES RIVER BLUES

Part I: Introducing the Picnic River 1. A City River and its Bush ... 0... ee 3

Part Il: Initial Shock So Hop- Fear and Planning. vnc dee ew eels Wael EEE 59 4. A Tale of Two National Parks... 0.0... 00.0000 0 00 cc eee 79

Part Ill: Death of the Picnic River

5.~ Outlooks and Oysters ews Hata ee en eR aa a eRe ee 103

Part IV: The ‘Mangrovites’ Fight Back

13. Atoms and Airports: Towra Point naaa aaas aaa 231

Part V: Conclusions

Usage and Spelling

Terminology: The collective terms ‘Aboriginal people’ (as a noun, with ‘Aboriginal’ as an adjective), ‘Indigenous and ‘First Nations’ are all in use currently. Each term presents problems but I have used ‘Aboriginal people/Aboriginal’ most often as this has generally been preferred by the Aboriginal people I have interviewed. However, I have used the other listed terms at times and I recognise that usage and preferences change over time and context. Most recently, for example, the term ‘First Peoples’ has been chosen in Victoria where the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria is negotiating with the state government on a future treaty. Initially used in British Columbia, Canada, in the First Peoples’ Cultural Council, this term has less historical baggage, but has not yet become widely used in Australia.

Spelling. While Aboriginal languages are known to have a number of consonants not familiar to English speakers, there are three consonants that have voiced and unvoiced pronunciations. These pairs — t/d, k/g (hard ‘g’) and p/b — do not have different meanings in any Aboriginal languages, leaving written users to choose to use either the voiced or the unvoiced option. Early English recorders used various conventions for transliterating what they heard, and so early spellings vary widely. For consistency, this book uses the voiced option of each pair: d, g and b. So Dharawal rather than Tharawal; Bidjigal rather than Pitjikal; Gandangara rather than Kantankara; and Dharug rather than Tharuk.

List of Maps

Map 1.1: A city river.

Map 2.1: The Picnic River: pleasure grounds, parks and golf courses to 1950.

Map 2.2: Locations of military sites along the Georges River. Map 2.3: Mangrove expansion on Salt Pan Creek, 1930-86.

Map 3.1: County of Cumberland Plan section showing proposed green belt from Royal National Park to Georges River.

Map 3.2: Sewerage infrastructure, southern Sydney, 1961. Map 4.1: Georges River National Park, 1961-67.

Map 5.1: Oyster farming areas in Georges River estuary, 1945-78.

Map 8.1: Locations of the five resident environmental campaigns discussed in the following chapters.

Map 9.1: Little Salt Pan Creek.

Map 10.1: Lugarno and the Moon bays.

Map 10.2: Mangrove expansion at Half Moon Bay.

Map 11.1: Lime Kiln Bay and neighbouring waterways. Map 11.2: Mangrove expansion at Lime Kiln Bay.

Map 12.1: Oatley Bay, Renown and Poulton creeks. Map 13.1: Towra Point and Botany Bay.

Map 15.1: Saving Lime Kiln Bay.

List of Figures

Figure 1.1: Within a Georges River mangrove stand, low tide.

Figure 1.2: Mangrove pneumatophores, the upright roots allow the plant to bring in oxygen.

Figure 1.3: Georges River saltmarsh at Mill Creek (Guragurang), 2009.

Figure 1.4: Looking downwards, showing inundated roots of saltmarsh.

Figure 1.5: Georges River seagrasses: Zostera capricorni (foreground) and Posidonia australis (at rear).

Figure 2.1: The 1920s entrance to East Hills Park.

Figure 2.2: Swimmers and picnics at East Hills Park, c. 1920s. Figure 2.3: Rowboat picnic group at East Hills Park, c. 1920s. Figure 2.4: Sunday school picnics at East Hills Park, c. 1920s. Figure 2.5: Buses at East Hills Park, c. 1920s.

Figure 2.6: Refreshments at East Hills Park, c. 1920s.

Figure 2.7: Parkesvale, 1906.

Figure 2.8: Hollywood Park on Prospect Creek, north of Milperra, c. 1920s.

Figure 2.9: The Vale of Ah Park, c. 1920s.

Figure 2.10: Lambeth Street Wharf Pleasure Grounds, c. 1920s. Figure 2.11: Lessons at the Oatley Pleasure Grounds pool, 1928.

Figure 2.12: Flying fox at Cuttings Pleasure Ground on Salt Pan Creek, c. 1920s.

24 35 35 36 36 37 38 38

40 40 41 4]

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Figure 2.13: Younger members of Anderson family, Salt Pan Creek, 1925.

Figure 2.14: Bocce at Horsley Park, 1952.

Figure 2.15: Panorama view of Holsworthy military camp and training ground, 1914-18.

Figure 2.16: German internees in 1916 on pick and shovel work.

Figure 2.17: National servicemen march past at their passing out parade at Holsworthy, 1954.

Figure 3.1: Levingston family golf course, undated c. 1940. Figure 3.2: Herne Bay Military Hospital, 1944.

Figure 3.3: 1945 poster for the coming County of Cumberland Plan, showing the inner city as crowded and polluted — and dangerous.

Figure 3.4: Clothes lines at rear of flats, Herne Bay hostel, June 1946.

Figure 3.5: “Wet Day at the Herne Bay Hostel’, 1950. Figure 3.6: Herne Bay hostel nursery school, 1947. Figure 4.1: Family picnic at the old East Hills Park, 1920s.

Figure 4.2: Esme Clisby, Eileen Birch, Joy Cornwell, East Hills activist reunion 2006.

Figure 4.3: Eileen Stills, Carol Jacobsen, Alf Stills, Alan Parnell, East Hills activist reunion 2006.

Figure 4.4: Alf Stills, East Hills activist reunion 2006. Figure 4.5: Eileen Stills, East Hills activist reunion 2006.

Figure 4.6: George Jacobsen with his racing dogs, in the backyard of his East Hills home, undated c. 1960.

Figure 4.7: Sally Smith with her children, Janny, John and Judy, 1963, soon after moving from the Herne Bay hostel to Green Valley.

Figure 5.1: Gwawley Bay oyster farming workers in 1958.

Figure 5.2: Oyster farmers Reg and Ken Humbley and Norm Pilgrim, Woolooware Bay, 1966.

45 45

47 48

49 60 60

72 72 73 81

82 83 83

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 5.3: Cover image, Australian Fisheries Newsletter, July 1966.

Figure 6.1: “Georges River is POISONED’, Propeller, 26 September 1963, front page.

Figure 7.1: An unidentified Sydney municipal rubbish tip.

Figure 7.2: The impact of ‘reclamation’, seen here at Homebush Bay on the Parramatta River, c. 1950s.

Figure 7.3: Duck Creek, Granville, 1939, ‘reclamation’ to turn creek into playing field.

Figure 7.4: Goal posts erected after swamp ‘clearance’.

Figure 7.5: Aerial photograph of Kelso Swamp, 1 May 1951, showing extent of the wetlands in that year.

Figure 7.6: Aerial photograph of remains of Kelso Swamp, 1 January 1970.

Figure 8.1: Bill White, Vietnam War conscientious objector.

Figure 8.2: Green bans banner, carried by Builders Labourers’ Federation activists, Bob Pringle (left) and Jack Mundey (right) in the 1973 May Day March.

Figure 9.1: Padstow Heights residents, Mrs J. Pethyridge and daughter, 1973, showing mangrove views.

Figure 10.1: Speedboats on the Georges River.

Figure 10.2: Dr Don Francois, first director of New South Wales Fisheries.

Figure 10.3: Aerial photograph of the Moon bays and Lugarno, 1 January 1970.

Figure 10.4: Recent aerial photograph, looking from Illawong in the lower foreground towards Botany Bay and the coast.

Figure 11.1: Ruth Staples at Thredbo, 1966.

Figure 11.2: Lime Kiln Bay Preservation Committee founding activists Ruth Staples and Dave and Tricia Koffel.

Figure 11.3: LKBPC election flyer: ‘Don’t Rubbish Our Bush’, September 1974.

126 138

141 143

174 183

190 198 xiii

Figure 11.4: “Oatley is Our Suburb’, David Thorp election flyer, September 1974.

Figure 12.1: Save Poulton Park Campaign Committee stickers.

Figure 12.2: Cover, Bad Luck, Dead Duck: The Report of INSPECT 1970, by Roger Gifford and Peter Ellyard.

Figure 12.3: Boat trip, organised by Evol Knight, allowing oyster farmers and Poulton Creek campaigners to view river problems together.

Figure 13.1: Bernie Clarke in 1975 demonstrating how dredging was damaging the foreshore of the ‘important estuaries of south Botany Bay’.

Figure 13.2: Bernie Clarke with migratory wading birds at Towra Point in 1990.

Figure 13.3: Bernie Clarke showing Towra Point mangroves to local primary school students, 1989.

Figure 15.1: Ruth Staples, bank regenerator, 2009.

Figure 15.2: Australia Day, Burrawang Reach, Georges River National Park, 2005.

Figure 15.3: The Towra team in 2005.

Figure 15.4: Mangrove sunrise, Cabbage Tree Bay.

209 220

239 261

264 268 270

CRIL CRVA EIS GROLPA LGA LKBPC MSCEU NCC NPWS OFF PPRA SPCC SSRS TEC UNSW WWI WWII

Abbreviations

Australian Conservation Foundation Australian Labor Party

Builders Labourers Federation

County of Cumberland Plan

Communist Party of Australia

Coalition of Resident Action Groups Cooks River Improvement League

Cooks River Valley Association Environmental Impact Statement

Georges River Oyster Lease Protest Association local government area

Lime Kiln Bay Preservation Committee Municipal and Shire Council Employees’ Union Nature Conservation Council

National Parks and Wildlife Service Oatley Flora and Fauna Society

Picnic Point Regatta Association

State Pollution Control Commission Society for Social Responsibility in Science Total Environment Centre

World War I

World War II

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Acknowledgements

Dharawal and Dharug lands on the estuary of the Georges River have seen many histories. This book is about a brief period along that estuary — from 1945 to 1980 — when Aboriginal people continued to live along the estuary but were seldom consulted in its events. Instead, the majority of the population for this brief period were Irish and Anglo settlers, with increasing numbers of even more recent immigrants from Asia and the North Africa/West Asia area (also known as the ‘Middle East’).

This book is built on memories — the memories of those recent settlers and immigrants, but also those of the Aboriginal people who continued to live on the river. I have been particularly grateful in all my Georges River work to have had the interest and insights of Aboriginal people who had been involved with the river, including those who have passed away: Jacko Campbell, Gubbu Ted Thomas and most recently Ellen James and her granddaughter Tracey Whetnall. I have continued to draw on those who remain today, like Shayne Williams and Denis Foley, while analysts of colonialism Peter Read and the late Tracey Banivanua Mar have been continuing inspirations.

My own memories of growing up on the river, in an Irish-Scots family in the 1950s, drew me back there, but I have now learnt far more from the many non-Indigenous Georges River people who gave their time, their memories, their interest and their support to the project. I want to thank Carol Jacobsen, Dave Koffel, Laurie Derwent and Alexandra Knight who have each been so patient in answering my many questions and in digging around for photographs and papers.

The book arose initially from a project shared with Denis Byrne and Stephen Wearing, begun in 2004, researching the Georges River National Park, on which we worked with inspired and inspiring researchers Jo Kijas, Allison Cadzow, Hesham Abdo, Stephen Gapps, Joy Suliman, Wafa Zaim, xvii xviii

Alison Phan and Huy Pham. We drew on the advice and continued interest of the Muslim Women Association and Hajeh Maha Abdo. From this work, Allison Cadzow and I published Rivers and Resilience (2009, UNSW Press), following the continuing histories of Aboriginal people along the Georges River to the present.

Georges River Blues has since drawn further on the ecological insights and the personal experiences on the river of Neil Saintilan and Jeff Kelleway, while those from further afield, like Alan Reid, Peter Fairweather and Philip Sutton, each contributed to the campaigns in the book and to the project itself. I continue to learn from William Gladstone, who not only has an endless knowledge of marine biology and conservation but is also a brilliant photographer.

The field of environmental history and humanities has been nurtured by a community of analysts and activists in Australia, India and Europe. I have learnt from all of them and particularly thank Haripriya Rangan, Emily O’Gorman, Mahesh Rangarajan, Meera Oommen, Libby Robin, Tom Griffiths, Katie Holmes, Andrea Gaynor, Kartik Shanker, Ruth Morgan, Margaret Cook, Gunnel Cederlof and Thom van Dooren.

Local knowledge has been fundamental to Georges River Blues. The skills of local studies and heritage librarians at Bankstown, Canterbury, Hurstville and Fairfield libraries have been invaluable. I particularly wish to thank John MacRitchie of the Georges River Council Library and Marilyn Gallo at Fairfield Museum. Inspiring research and creative outcomes have been achieved at the Bankstown Arts Centre by Vandana Ram, its director, while collaborations initiated by Tim Carroll (Out Loud) with school students have generated important oral histories. Just as important has been the work of local writers, researchers and archivists like Esme Clisby and Alan Fairley, without whom the stories of local campaigners would be lost forever. Dave Koffel gave me generous access to his valuable archive of the Lime Kiln Bay Preservation Committee, and Alexandra Knight, who has gathered her family’s extensive records and unique slides of the environmental and educational work around Oatley Bay, shared her archive with me.

Douglas Coles, my cousin, introduced me to the Milperra history he knew from his father who had struggled to farm a soldier settler block there after returning from World War I. I am grateful to local analyst and historian Andrew Molloy, who has worked tirelessly to record local people's

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS memories and to gather and protect their archives. I have learnt too from the boys with whom I shared my Salt Pan Creek childhood — my brothers Mark and Craig and our friend, Glenn Goodacre — who remembered the river mud and mangroves that I missed out on. Christine, my best friend and Glenn’s sister, and their parents, Val and Elliott, could share more about the river from living at Picnic Point. My daughters Emma and Judith, even though they are inner-city girls, have supported this project over many years (especially Judith who deserved a Brownie badge for her fortitude on a really tough Georges River bush walk). My husband Paul Torzillo was on hand to rescue me from the river when I was young — but has unfailingly encouraged me to return to make more sense of it in later years.

Bringing the book into being has needed many hands. Friends and researchers Helen Randerson and Allison Cadzow have brought new insights to still more research and editing. Sharon Harrup has crafted fine maps that tell these stories. Rani Kerin has been an invaluable copyeditor, while ANU Press manager Emily Tinker and the series editor, Brett Bennett, have been supportive and consistently optimistic, even when I wasn't.

My special thanks are to the whole Haworth family. Especially to Ruth, who passed away recently, but whose inspiration and tenacity sustained this book. And to Bob, for his endlessly inquiring curiosity, patient teaching, eloquent maps, esoteric (but always apposite) literary quotations, incisive political analysis, rarely ruffled good humour, great bushwalkers’ lunches and amazing memories of a life dedicated to social and environmental justice.

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