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Wednesday 25 January 2023

The Goldfields: World Heritage, or a Legacy of Shame?


The Specimen Gully dredge in action at Barkers Creek in 1885. The diggings extend over ten metres into the ground.

Two former premiers are the face of a World Heritage bid for the Central Victorian Goldfields. All thirteen local councils have supported the bid.

 

The push raises important questions about our history and how we value it.

 

World Heritage is reserved for places of ‘outstanding universal value to humanity‘. Australian places inscribed on the World Heritage List include the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru-Kata Tjuta, and the Sydney Opera House

 

Are the goldfields in this category? Do we want to celebrate what was done in the mid-nineteenth century, which caused so much lasting damage? It is a question of what we value.

 

Heritage and history should not be confused. The Victorian gold rush is a fact of history. It brought some good things – including fine buildings of that era. It brought population and wealth to the fledgling colony of Victoria. It produced the Eureka stockade and similar movements that helped shape our democracy. 

 

But it also brought massive environmental and cultural devastation. The damage done by the gold rush is still with us – almost the whole of central Victoria was dug up, often to a depth of several metres, and turned over. This created what is often called ‘upside down country’ – with hydrology deranged, the topsoil gone, and depauperated soil unable to retain moisture and hosting only a fraction of the biodiversity that once flourished here.

 

Central Victoria was home to Box-Ironbark woodlands. According to the 2001 Victorian Environment Assessment Council study into Box-Ironbark:

 

'Old growth forest', as defined in most other Victorian forests, is virtually absent from Box-lronbark forests, because of their history of clearing and heavy use in the gold rushes, followed by intensive selective harvesting.

 

One and a half centuries on, we are seeing the disappearance of species once common across the area, while others, such as the swift parrot, the squirrel glider and the tuan, are just hanging on. It is a dire legacy.

 

The heritage bid focuses on the immigration that brought a new society to central Victoria – for both good and ill. But it airbrushes away the catastrophic trashing of the environment and minimises calamitous destruction of indigenous culture. You can read the documents in vain for any acknowledgement of the damage done to the environment. This makes the document disingenuous – downplaying as it does the shameful side of the era it seeks to celebrate.

 

Although a mere flicker in the long history of this region, there is no doubting the significance of the gold rush. But chapters in history can be significant without amounting to heritage: the White Australia Policy was significant, but who would elevate it to the status of heritage? 

 

Castlemaine was briefly the most productive gold-producing region in the world. The damage is still obvious, with denuded soils, mullock heaps and mine shafts, and old junk left by miners. The promotional documents for the bid disingenuously states:

 

Castlemaine Diggings, scene of the 1852-54 Mount Alexander Goldrush, was the first major goldfield in Australia to attract a huge influx of voluntary immigrants. Its landscape provides exceptional testimony to the early-rush individual ‘miner-adventurer’, and eloquently captures the human goldrush spirit in material form. Diggers’ small claims, across the goldfields in gullies and flats, surrounded by regenerating Box-Ironbark forest, yielded the greatest concentration of the largest gold nuggets the world had ever known; a catalyst for hundreds of spontaneous rushes by large populations.

 

Really? First of all, the striking fact is that the Box Ironbark forest is not regenerating, except where intensive intervention has enabled this to happen. And the ‘small claims’ are marked by erosion, infestation of weeds, old junk, and the sad legacy of destruction.

 

Community groups are working to restore Box-Ironbark. This requires repair of water retention features, and management to allow the woodland to regrow. On public land, each step requires consultation and permission. Prioritising gold mining historic values will retard this work, imposing a further layer of restriction.

 

The bid trumpets its (questionable) value to tourism, but tourism values and heritage values are distinct.

 

Publicity material lists other values in the bid, including First Nations values, but inevitably the bid will prioritise gold rush history over other values.

 

For me, living near Castlemaine, the legacy of the gold rush is a matter of shame. So much was lost for such ephemeral gains. There are many features of this area which would justify World Heritage status – but not the tragic legacy of the gold rush. We should never include those values as part of any bid for World Heritage.

 

 

Saturday 21 January 2023

Thursday 22 December 2022



The great people at Northern Books are organising a launch for Treason.

It will be at the Taproom, Shedshaker Brewing, at the Mill in Castlemaine, on Tuesday 10 January at 6 pm.

I will be in conversation with the wonderful Helen Symon KC.

You will need to book your attendance here.

Look forward to seeing you there!


Wednesday 5 October 2022

Treason is now available around the world



Last year, during the pandemic, the hard copy of Treason was published here in Australia. 

However, postage costs made it awkward to distribute this internationally. 

This has now been sorted, and Treason is now available internationally through Blurb.

If you live in Australia, the Blurb version will not be cheaper, but anywhere else, it is.

Incidentally, I was very pleased with the endorsements given on the back cover!



Tuesday 23 August 2022

Counterpoise


This week's 'Music Show', with Andrew Ford, on ABC's Radio National, opened with Hugh Crosthwaite's 'Counterpoise', a haunting work for solo violin.

The piece is played by Sarah Curro, who is interviewed, along with her husband Paul Davies, a luthier, about the different qualities of violins. It's a fascinating interview.

Hugh's piece was inspired by my poem, also called 'Counterpoise', published in my first book of poems, Angels, like laundry.

Counterpoise

 

Behind, beside, before;

once, nonce, hence – 

time pools in the present

tense; deeps of now brim– 

never to be reclaimed,

ever flowing silently away.

Mulch, mushroom, messmate;

foundation, footings, framework –

building begets spaces,

earth cleaves to sky;

light brings forth shadow,

action yields to rest – 

stone, plank, tile,

myrtle, moss, manure.

 

 

Pulse, breath, blink;

bone, flesh, hide –

inner engenders outer,

launches soaring dreams;

summer’s gold garnered for 

fecund swelling fall – 

pith, pulp, peel;

never, nigh, next -

New grows old, old

gives way to new.

On time’s curving arc, end-

ing is beginning –

former, forthwith, final:

past, present, prospect,

was, is, ever.


Mothlight




My third book of poems, Mothlight, has now been published.

Mike Vernon has done a wonderful job with the photographs through the book, making it a beautiful production.


Here are some things that others have said about it – for which I am very grateful:


    In 'Mothlight', Brian Walters reveres both the natural world and the power of the clear poetic line. One poem at a time, he edges us closer to seeing, to captivation, to wild play, to progress. At a time of renewed environmental awareness, this collection invites the reader to do the only thing that is left for us to do – a gentle moving through the world.

–      Amanda Anastasi, poet

 

    I love these poems, the surprise of them, the wideness and range of vision, the delicate precision of the lens shifting from the personal, the heart, to the glory of the world. The exultation and celebration of the natural world is a constant and marvellous echo of Hardy. There is too, a similar humane heart.

–      Helen Elliott, literary critic and writer

 

    A Brian Walters poem is a walk in fair weather and good company in the high country in winter; it is an act of kindness and courage you wish had been your own. His voice is a forest of Old Testament timbers—the Cedars of Lebanon transposed well south and reborn as a sclerophyll woodland. His lines are an elegant eucalypt elegy, a vote of thanks, a currawong choir.

            Mark Tredinnick, poet

 

I will be reading my poems at the Poeticas gig, 2 pm this Saturday 27 August 2022 at the Northern Arts Hotel – 359 Barker Street Castlemaine. 


It would be great to see you there!

Thursday 18 August 2022

I was banned by Facebook

 


On 20 August 1944, Count Schwerin von Schwanenberg was brought before the Nazi ‘People’s Court’, charged with treason. He was unshaven and wore no tie. Prominent in the July plot against the Nazi regime, he knew he was about to hang. 

When Nazi judge Roland Freisler angled for an apology, Schwerin would not be cowed, but spoke out about the ‘many murders’ of the Nazi regime ‘at home and abroad’ – drawing Freisler’s apoplectic ire. Hoping they would obtain useful propaganda footage, the Nazis filmed this exchange, and the film has survived – a powerful example of a person speaking truth to power.

 

I posted this clip on Facebook, with some background information, as part of a regular series of posts promoting my book Treason, which recounts the German resistance to Hitler.

 

I have posted the clip a few times before. 

 

This time I received a notification from Facebook that my post was blocked, because it violated Facebook’s community standards. 

 

I was plunged into the Kafkaesque realm of Facebook’s processes.

 

The notification stated ‘this is because you previously posted material that violated Facebook’s community standards’. The previous week, Facebook had notified me of such a breach, but when I asked for a review, they overturned this and apologised for getting it wrong. According to Facebook’s retraction, there was no previous breach. But there was no way for me to point out this mistake to Facebook.

 

The notification set out Facebook’s standards – all laudable – but did not say which standard was breached, nor how. 

 

Despite failing to specify what was wrong, Facebook required me to select from a menu my reason for saying that the post should not be blocked. This is like someone on trial being told to defend themselves when they are not told the charge.

 

Despite this absurdity, I asked for a review and marked the option ‘The post does not violate Facebook’s community standards’.

 

Facebook then advised that they try to have a person review the decision, but could not guarantee this, because of staff shortages due to Covid. 

 

Really? There are plenty of people they could hire to do this task, even during Covid. It’s a task that could readily be performed online. The excuse was specious.

 

Having asked for a review, I received a prompt response. Facebook had reviewed the post (evidently by its algorithms, not by a person, who would scarcely have had time to watch the video clip and read the post). Facebook stated that they had reviewed the post and confirmed that the post violated Facebook’s community standards. Again, they did not say why.

 

One thing is clear: Facebook’s algorithms are incapable of distinguishing an anti-Nazi post from a Nazi post.

 

Facebook then asked me whether the communication from them had been helpful. When I marked that it had not, they thanked me and said they used responses to improve their service.

 

Facebook notified me that there was a right of appeal to Facebook’s ‘Oversight Board’. 

 

This ‘right’ of appeal is illusory. According to Facebook’s own figures, in 2021, the Oversight Board received over a million appeals, but the Board published just 17 decisions, overturning Facebook 11 times. Opting for an appeal was like buying a lottery ticket.

 

Even though a waste of time in terms of reversing the decision, I decided to lodge an appeal anyway. When I tried to click on the link, nothing happened – just the wheel of death as the attempt to log in timed out. I did this several times. Even getting to the Oversight Board was blocked.

 

This was not the first time I’ve had trouble with Facebook’s ‘standards’, with the same opaque processes.

 

Over several years I built up an earlier page promoting my book. I paid Facebook money to promote it, and the page grew to have over 11,000 followers. Then Facebook closed it down (and the linked Instagram feed), without any recourse, saying it violated their community standards, and again failing to say which standards, or how it breached them. Just before publication of my book, I lost all the investment of time and money made in building up this following.

 

As I emailed Facebook (of course, there was no reply) the page 

 

did not violate Facebook’s published community standards. Nor does it violate community standards as any reasonable person would understand them. The content, dealing with the bravery of those who stood up to the Nazi regime, usually at the cost of their lives, is entirely in accordance with the highest community standards.

 

It is important that the events of the Nazi regime, the mass murders which have given us the terms ‘genocide’ and ‘crimes against humanity’, are widely discussed and known. The efforts of those who struggled against that regime should also be part of our shared discourse.

 

I can’t speak truth to Facebook, because they are not listening. Bizarrely, the business takes a perverse pride in its refusal to support its customers. Who knows how Facebook’s processes are intended to work – but it is clear that this platform is not a safe place to invest. It is only capable of dumbing down our shared discourse and, as a result, diminishing our community.