ROB and I have recently returned from two weeks travelling around Tasmania. Taswegians everywhere were so warm and welcoming. Tourism is critical to their livelihoods and their survival.
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Tasmania is environmentally stunning, pristine, yet in parts heartbreakingly poor. In the west, communities are locked into areas where work has long ceased, mines are no longer active, and there are no opportunities for communities to work or move... where they have no choice but to stay until copper prices rise sufficiently to entice back investment and therefore jobs.
Stanley is a place of utter charm, as are Evandale, Richmond and Freycinet Bay on the east coast.
Strahan is dedicated to tourism, and a ferry trip down the Gordon River recalled vivid television images of a young courageous Bob Brown fighting alongside his passionate youthful followers to preserve the Franklin River. How brave were those young people as the area was wild and untamed. They camped for months, in the depths of Tasmania’s bitter winters, fighting the government every inch of the way, successful in the end.
Part of the Gordon River trip included a visit to Sarah Island, surely one of the most terrible penal colonies ever established. Punishments were cruel. It was a desolate outpost of despair.
Hobart has the Mona Gallery. The building itself is an architectural magnificence, a building of monumental elegance and style. The collection held within these mighty walls is generally very contemporary which we find difficult to fully comprehend, but it is so worth a visit to appreciate the brilliance of the architecture and building, creating such a stunning edifice.
The history of Tasmania’s occupation by colonial England is unrelentingly sad and tragic. Genocide of the entire Aboriginal population is beyond imagination. Its cruel and brutal treatment of convicts is heartrending.
Richmond had its gaol and isolation cells and daily lashings with the cat o’ nine tails. Hobart had its women and children’s gaol. Babies were removed from their mothers and placed in the Queen’s Orphanage and many died there. Port Arthur will always be a part of past and present tragedy.
History has taught us nothing. It is a simple jump to look at the refugee camps in isolated settlements off the coast of Australia today, of lone children without care or support, a lack of schooling, families living in makeshift tents. This is 200 years later and we appear to have learnt nothing about compassion. The lash has been replaced with detention and punishment involving deprivation. Stories are not surprisingly emerging of sexual abuse and the swapping of sexual favours for personal needs by desperate refugee women today.
We must return to Tasmania. We have only begun to discover its beauty, and its tragic history.