Garboard Strake Franklin`s Working Waterfront: A Template for

THE LIVNG BOAT TRUST INC
No. 14
Special Edition
Winter 2011
Franklin’s Working Waterfront:
Garboard Strake
A Template for Sustainable Prosperity
This is a Special Edition of the Journal of The Living Boat Trust Inc, a community
association based in Franklin, Tasmania. It is also a discussion paper for general
publication. It deals with the future of the Franklin Waterfront, which has become a
place of importance to the future of Franklin as a whole as well as just the Living Boat
Trust. This is because of the uncertainties, and opportunities created by the news in
2010, that both our neighbouring properties, Franklin Evaporators to the south , and
the Tasmanian Wooden Boat Centre to the north were for sale at the same time. The
lack of a successful completed sale of either property for more than a year creates an
opportunity for the Franklin community to have a say about the future of a site of
great historic significance that could become an engine of regional prosperity. This
paper explains the historical importance of this unique place and how it can provide
opportunities for authentic development for the benefit the local community and the
Huon Valley region.
Photo: Bob Brown
Solutions Inc.
Franklin’s Working Waterfront:
A Template for Sustainable Prosperity
This is how Franklin looks from the air; It‟s
grown up at the head of sea-going navigation
on the Huon River. It‟s a town whose
geography has shaped its history, and whose
history, these last 175 years, has shaped its
geography.
Photo: Charles Zuber
An anonymous “Old Resident” wrote to the
Huon Times in 1923 describing Franklin when
he first arrived as a small boy in the 1870s.
“Readers of the “Huon Times” might be
opposite Mr Moore‟s store, and at Old Kent
Road the Messer‟s Hawkes did their building.
Mr Wm Thorp built the Amy Louise. Several
vessels including the Trucanninni and
Hawthorn were built at the New Jetty.
The Swallow was built by Messrs H and B
Griggs opposite Howards Ltd” 1,
This is the area he‟s talking about.
The industry was concentrated
between the present day Eldercare
building and New Road. The New Jetty
at the end of New Road was new in
1858, when the steamer Culloden
commenced her twice weekly service
between the Huon and Hobart.
Until the 1920s steamers provided the
most convenient and often the quickest
way to travel or carry cargo between
the two places. The Huon River was the
life blood of what was then an outpost of
colonial civilisation. Ketch-rigged sailing
vessels and steamers carried fruit,
potatoes, wheat and timber to the
metropolis, and tools, machinery, building
materials, alcohol, firearms and people with
new ideas, back to Franklin and the other
Channel and Huon ports.
interested to know what great changes have
taken place in such a comparatively short
period. It must not be assumed that even 50
years back, Franklin was the proverbial one
horse village. It was really a
Photo: Archival Collection
thriving community, for ship
building was carried on so
intensively that the clang of
hammers from the building of
several vessels at the same time
lent an air of importance to the
place, and caused it to be regarded
as a hive of industry.....Ketches and
schooners were constantly being
built and many of them are still
trading. The most notable sites for
boat-building were near Mrs
Gallagher‟s residence at North
Franklin, and opposite Mr William
Cuthbert‟s. Several vessels were constructed
here by Messrs Robert and William Cuthbert
2
1
Huon Times 26 January, 1923
that ensured a continuous flow of
cultural fertilisation that created the
“thriving community” of the 1870s and
beyond.
In 1860 a new stone Mechanic‟s
Institute building was constructed
near the bottom of Old Road in the
middle of the town, to be replaced
eventually in 1912 by the Town Hall,
Photo: David Sales
which housed the Mechanic‟s Institute
Library, and later became the Palais Theatre.
This is what remains of the New Wharf,
It was the river, and the ships and boats
built in 1858. On it stood a building known
that plied its waters that brought the people
as Culloden‟s Shed, built for cargo
that made these things happen, and made the
storage, but for a short time, it was the
Franklin that was fondly remembered in
only multi purpose public building in
1923.
Franklin. Soon after it was built it was
After the First World War Franklin‟s history
used for the inaugural meeting of the
was one of relative decline. But it remained a
Huon Mechanics Institute. This was a
place with an atmosphere of past importance.
local branch of a widespread self
The northern entrance to Franklin used to be
education movement; the ancestor of the
a sudden transition from a tree-lined road
Workers Education Association, and Adult
with glimpses of water between the
Education of modern times. Educated,
branches, to a dramatic entrance with houses
trained or experienced individuals took
close together on both sides of the road at
turns at pooling their knowledge, and a
once. Federation style on the west and an
library was established to build a source
older Tasmanian gothic style between the
of reference and a working knowledge of
road and the river.
public affairs. The local Member of
Parliament, John Balfe spoke at the
opening meeting. “All who wish to leave an
inheritance to their children and country”
he said, “must have their names
associated with some work like
the present, wherein the
advantages and benefits of the
public are provided for in
preference to the interests and
objects of individuals”2. It was
here then that the seeds of a
civic society were sown in the
unpromising soil of the largely ex
-convict community of the Huon
Valley, and this was the wharf
In 1987, when I first visited Franklin, they
were tearing the pre-federation cottages
down, to widen the road, as they were not
Photo: Archival Collection
2
Mercury, 20 February 1858, cit. John Martin,
John Donellan Balfe and the collective
experience of the Huon, BA hons thesis,1970
History Department University of Tasmania.
3
Photo: David Sales
Heritage listed.
But as I sailed
There were no
closer, the aspect
plans to replace
changed. I felt I
the cottages with
was witnessing a
anything else and
fragment of the
the area soon
general tragedy
became a
of declining
sanctuary for
regional
snakes and weeds.
Australia, the
The second visit I
Ghost Towns, the
remember was in
chronic instability
1991, in a boat.
of dependent
This is the best
economies, the
way to arrive, as
unemployment,
most people did
stagflation and
for most of
collapse of
Franklin‟s history,
community. I
both before and
remembered the
after British
graffiti I‟d seen
occupation.
an hour before,
As you approach Jackson‟s point, the gaily
scrawled on the wharf sheds at Port Huon,
painted houses are foreshortened because
“Crims of Port Huon, Cops can‟t catch us” and
of the angle you‟re coming from, and though
“Tourists Get Out”. Then I saw a slogan
they are stretched out along a kilometre or
stretching the length of the old toilet block
so of road, they seem, from the south, to
facing the river. “How will I laugh tomorrow?‟
nestle in a homely little cluster at the foot
it asked, “when I can‟t even smile today?” On
the downstream end of the block a huge
Photo: John Young
revolver pointed at the children‟s
playground. The slogan beside it read,
“Eat My Lead”.
of the “Sleeping Beauty”. It‟s easy to
imagine the busy cheerful little port, that
awaited the visitors of earlier times, with
its wharves and warehouses, ketches and
steamers loading local produce. Soon you
pick out the impressive Palais Theatre, with
an audience capacity of 600, in a town with
a present population, of about 400.
4
Shortly after that experience, in 1991,
the pulp mill at Whale Point near
Geeveston, closed, again, this time for
good, putting 116 workers out of a job.
Depression descended on the town like a
river fog, and people began to leave; but
some stayed, especially a small group of
both old and new residents, led by Garry
Barnes and Nonie Carr, who constituted the
rump of a recently revived Franklin Progress
Association. Some of us were new and some
came from the most ancient families in the
Huon. But this crisis did not have the normal
divisive consequences. In Franklin itself it
brought out the sense of place that we all
shared rather than the ideological
differences that might otherwise have
divided us.
Photo: Ruth Young
We instinctively turned to the river for
inspiration, and for a collective activity
that might increase membership. An
accidental meeting at the northern end of
the foreshore, led to a decision to build a
public wharf next to what remained of New
Wharf. We grasped the geographical
importance of the conjunction of a highway,
a historic town, and deep water as an
explanation of the past and a unique asset
for the future.
Jayne Mackay, a new arrival from the
mainland organised a fair on the foreshore,
in the middle of winter 1991, to raise
$2000 for the sawn timber. Blue gum piles
were donated by Peter Shield, whose family
had owned wooded land above Franklin for
four generations. Garry Barnes, chairman
of the recently revived Franklin Progress
Association was a professional tree faller,
and gained the support of out of work
contractors Arlen Phillips and Royce
Burgess to bring the timber to the water‟s
edge and place bed logs in the bank of the
river.
In August 1991, before construction
commenced, Lady Bennett, the Governor‟s
wife at the time, was invited by the
Progress Association to emulate her
predecessor, Jane Franklin, by opening the
new public wharf on 23rd November. She
accepted, and the Huon Council supported
us by providing planning and building
approval at short notice and putting on a
lunch for volunteers and our visitors.
Membership of the Franklin Progress
Association jumped to about 30 and
volunteer building parties of up to 20
people, met most evenings and weekends
over a six week period to get the job done.
With the support of local members of
Parliament Judy Jackson and Fran Bladel,
pile driving was donated by the Department
of Construction. Lady Bennett duly arrived,
appropriately, in a small steamer owned by
Peter Tremlett, a Huonville restaurant
owner. She climbed up a ladder onto the
wharf, made a gracious speech and
declared the public wharf open.
This event was followed by significant civic
recovery in the last decade of the 20th
century and the first decade of the
present one, in which the Palais Theatre,
the largest public building south of Hobart,
100 years old in 2012, was saved from the
alternatives recommended by Council‟s
consulting engineers, of demolition or
conversion to a truck park with a couple of
big roller doors on the side. Council
reasoned it had to go because the toilets
didn‟t comply with modern regulations, so
volunteers worked at weekends for six
months and built new ones. Eventually it was
reopened as a working theatre. After some
years of tenuous survival Council recognised
the heritage value of the theatre, and
established a sub-committee to look after
it. Since then it has prospered as a multipurpose cultural asset for the whole Huon
Valley region.
5
The art of wooden
boatbuilding was revived by
the establishment, on land
leased from the Crown,
close to where the
Cuthberts had their yard,
of a nationally accredited
school of wooden
boatbuilding, now called the
Tasmanian Wooden Boat
Centre. Soon it was
attracting both male and
female students, 10 at a
time, for two year diploma
courses in Wooden Boat
building, from Tasmania,
interstate, the United States, Britain and
Japan. Some of them brought wives,
partners and children with them, who went
to the local school. Others joined local
sports teams. Strong links were made and
students and their families injected much
needed youth and energy into the local
community.
Restaurants and Tourist accommodation, a
waterfront camp site, a number of small
businesses, 8 community associations,
including a new History Group, now
invigorate civic society and supplement the
primary production on which Franklin once
depended.
The demographic gap between the ages of
16 and 40 is closing now, as young families
move into the area. Transition Town
movements that aim to turn the twin crisis
of peak oil and Global Warming into an
opportunity for sustainable living, have been
formed in Geeveston, Franklin and Cygnet,
inspired by a new generation of young blowins, and the atmosphere of the town has
changed.
Consultants ever since 1987, ( and there
have been several),3 have re-iterated the
6
Huon News 5/3/98
recommendation that the northern part of
the Town should become a Heritage
Precinct in view of its Maritime
associations in the past, it‟s large
assemblage of ancient wooden buildings, its
strategic position, and its current use.
In 1998 the idea of building a community
Boat Harbour was taken up by the Franklin
Progress Association, as the first stage of
a redevelopment of the northern foreshore
area in line with the recommendations of
Council‟s successive consultants, and
presented to a public meeting. At that
meeting, world-wide precedents for the
authentic re-development of old ports were
discussed. Places like Mystic Seaport in the
North American state of Connecticut, Port
Townsend in Washington State, the
Hardanger Ship Preservation Centre in
Norway, Maldon in Essex, England, and
other examples in France. The meeting was
attended by Council‟s planning officer, Tony
Ferrier.
3 Latona, K. National Trust Urban Areas Study,1978,
Gulson L. Franklin Heritage Study, 1997, (Vol 2 by Michael
Shield and Associates. Puustinen, James. Franklin Heritage
Study, 1997.
After the meeting on 13th March 1998 he
wrote to John Noaks, The Secretary of the
FPA:
“FRANKLIN BOAT HARBOUR
Thank-you for allowing me the opportunity to
speak to your Progress Association last
Wednesday evening. I felt the meeting had a
successful outcome and indicated strong local
community support for this important project.
The next twelve months will be extremely
critical and the decision to form an advisory
body to steer this project is a good one. I
agree that such a committee should have
representatives from the Franklin Progress
Association, The Living Boat Trust, the
Franklin Foreshore Committee and Council. I
personally would be happy to represent
Council on such a Committee. It may also be
important to involve Franklin Evaporators at
various stages.” 4
With this positive encouragement the FPA
went ahead. Funding was obtained from the
Commonwealth Government‟s Federation
Community Projects Program, and local
sponsors. With volunteer support and the use
of Labour Market Programs managed by
STEPS Inc, a community Boat Harbour was
built to accommodate twenty vessels. It was
opened by Deputy Premier Paul Lennon and
Harry Quick, Federal member for Franklin on
24th March 2000 as part of Tasmania‟s
contribution to the celebration of the
centenary of Federation.
Speakers explained that this was to be the
beginning of a community–based development
of the area, and a notice informed the public
of its significance .
It said:
“The Construction of the Franklin Community
Boat Harbour was initiated by the Franklin
Progress Association and is the first stage of
a redevelopment of this foreshore area”. The
sources of public funding and private
sponsorship were listed in detail,
demonstrating widespread business and
community support.5
Unfortunately, however, the donated Blue
-gum piles had been grown for pulp, and
were rapidly attacked by Teredo worm.
Two years later, they began to fall over.
To avoid an impending catastrophe, with
the whole structure and the attached
vessels going down the river at the next
flood, STEPS, which had completed the
restoration of the Palais Theatre through
a Work for the Dole scheme, and had also
purchased the Wooden Boat School, came
to the rescue at the request of the
Franklin Progress Association and took
over ownership and management of the
Harbour. In exchange they spent a large
sum of money re-piling the two jetties and
berths with treated timber.
Photo: LBT Collection
Another decade has now passed. Franklin
has continued to develop in a positive
direction with a growing population, new
businesses, more visitors, and more public
interest in the river as a source of
recreational opportunity and inspiration.
In 1998 a graduate of the Wooden Boat
School founded another Community
Association, The Living Boat Trust, which
leased Crown land to the south of the
Wooden Boat Centre, built a public
4
Ferrier (Planning Officer, Huon Valley Council), to Noaks.
(Hon Sec, Franklin Progress Association, )13 March. 1998.
5
The original notice has been removed.
7
workshop, a replica of a
piner‟s punt, and
Swiftsure II; a replica
of the last remaining
Tasmanian whaleboat.
The Trust also took over
the management of the
fleet of small traditional
wooden boats that had
been built by the
Wooden Boat School in
partnership with local
schools. These have
been used for rowing and sailing classes for
children, and Adult Education for the past
twelve years, and since 2009, for the interschool, State funded, „On the Water Program‟,
which reintroduced many
families to local
waterways,
including the Egg
Island canal. It
culminates in an
annual Swiftsure
regatta each
November, in
which local
schools and
community
organisations, including Huon Valley
Council, compete in dinghy races and
whaleboat time trials.
The result was that when, in early 2010,
it was proposed to build a large noisy
Photos: Living Boat Trust Collection
pump house across the road from the
Palais Theatre, and the integrity and
heritage value of the 127 year old canal
was threatened by a plan to place a
water pipe into it, the scheme was
strongly and effectively opposed by the
Franklin community.6
6
It was noted by the Heritage consultant to Council‟s
engineering contractor, that there was already a 1960s
concrete block changing room and toilet building, with
8
which the pump house would, of course, blend nicely!
their own maritime history, the importance
of the Egg Island Canal to the survival and
development of their community, and the
river as an essential ingredient of that sense
Photo: Martin Riddle
of place, which Council now puts at the forefront of its planning policy.
Photo: Lynette Goodwin
The pipe line was to cross the river from
the south of the oval, and lie in the centre
of the 127 year old Egg Island Navigation
Canal. It was also to be weighed down into
the mud with concrete blocks 80 cm high,
which would have brought an end to the
canal as a recreational asset and destroyed
its heritage value as the oldest navigation
canal in Australia. A lot of energy, money
and time was put into a successful planning
appeal. An out of town site was found for
the pump house. It was agreed that the
pipe will be buried below Lowest
Astronomical Tide, at one side of the canal.
This will make it possible to keep it open by
careful small scale
dredging.
When the drama about the canal and the
pump house was over, a hard core of locals
continued to discuss the waterfront in the
light of a new situation created in 2010 by
Photo: Lynette Goodwin
the simultaneous appearance of two key
waterfront properties on the market. The
Wooden Boat Centre, and the Franklin
Evaporators.
Plans were discussed to
pool personal savings to
buy the Franklin
Evaporators site, not
primarily as an
opportunity to make
money, but rather as a
defensive strategy to
preserve the integrity
The research needed to
discover the historical
facts about the canal, led
to the discovery of more
information about
Franklin itself. The result
is that Franklin people
have now learnt about
Photo: Lynette Goodwin
9
of the place we live in by facilitating a
community–based Heritage Working
Waterfront. The 1998 strategy of creating a
representative community body to own and
manage the waterfront was revived. Council
was approached, and we were told that it had
no fixed position on the future of the area in
Photo: Martin Riddle
Ralph‟s Bay was fortunately opposed
successfully, but it would be a mistake, we
believe, to go for the kind of maritime
precinct favoured by Port Adelaide, for
example, where the last working
boatbuilding sheds have been demolished to
make way for harbour side town houses and
privatised walkways. Though such places
stimulate consumer culture and encourage
economic growth, they contribute little to
local communities and detract from
authenticity. A Maritime Precinct without
ships is like Sir Humphrey Appleby‟s
Hospital without patients. Franklin does not
need to go down that path. 8
The educational, recreation and community
question and that if a concept design were
ingredients of the most successful overseas
prepared and a business plan developed, it
examples of revitalised old ports already
would be put to Council for consideration.7 So
exist. With the acquisition of the Franklin
we are doing what we can to make that
Evaporators site, there would be space to
happen. Our problem is that Consultants have
round out the tourist experience by
been serially employed to advise on
replacing the existing corrugated iron
appropriate development of the streetscape
cladding with vertical board, a few windows
and much of the foreshore, but as far as the
and perhaps some balconies, and to house,
northern part of the town is concerned, “The
more things change, the more they stay the
same”. While The Tasmanian Wooden
Boat Centre and the Living Boat Trust
have individually continued to provide
essential components of a working
waterfront, the co-ordinated vision
of 1998 has failed, so far, to obtain
further Commonwealth Funding and
has been put on the back burner.
The inevitable consequence was that
when the sale of the Franklin
Evaporators was announced, over a
year ago, the planning initiative fell
to the real estate industry. Where
Tasmanian Private Realty 2010
this has happened in other places, the
results have been destruction to
communities and eco systems.
7
General Manager Glen Doyle to John Young 1 st December
2010. Both of these will have costs. Council is not in a good
financial position to provide them and the community will
attempt to raise the funds as soon as possible.
10
8
I refer to a famous scene in the BBC‟s ”Yes Minister”
Program. The recent Ralph‟s Bay proposal was for a
Queensland style canal and housing development in an
ecologically sensitive wetland area near Hobart.
within the existing buildings, the essential
ingredients of the most successful overseas
examples, including the primary creative
ingredients of an active maritime culture,
and the educational, recreational and tourist
facilities that such activities can support.
The decline of small maritime communities
was an incessant feature of the twentieth
century in the western world, but not all of
them took the path of real estate expansion
and foreshore privatisation, together with
the obliteration of commercial and maritime
infrastructure as the recipe for economic
recovery. An alternative strategy is to build
on the existing presence of Franklin‟s famous
and venerable Rowing Club, the Tasmanian
Wooden Boat Centre and The Living Boat
Trust, the Boat Harbour, the new Franklin
Marine retail establishment and the
Transition Town inspired market stall that is
set up at weekends on the vacant crown land
south of The Living Boat Trust.
Southern Tasmania needs a place where its
substantial fleet of historic vessels can be
maintained and repaired, new vessels built,
skills developed and records kept. It would
also provide a context for educational
tourism, student accommodation and
recreation.
for Tasmanian boatbuilding timbers, a
specialist maritime book shop, a cargo store,
a slipway built preferably out of timber, for
hauling ancient craft with long straight keels.
The recent demise of the Belle Brandon, 116
years old, on this site proved to be a major
tourist attraction, as she was being broken
up by an excavator, so we figure that
watching old vessels being professionally
restored would be even more interesting.
These working elements could also provide a
context for a conference centre, restaurant,
dockside fish market, hire of the existing
fleet of wooden boats, local produce market
and student accommodation.
Fortunately, Franklin has now attracted the
interest of professionals who have donated
their services in the hope of eventually
seeing these ideas implemented. These
drawings are the work of Duncan Gibbs, a
landscape architect and urban planner from
northern New South Wales who has worked
chiefly for commercial projects but wants to
find more satisfying work based on
community aspiration and ecological
sustainability, and that complements his
interest in wooden boats.
Plans: Duncan Gibbs
A sail loft, for
example, would be
needed. And the
existing 1st storey
floor in the
Evaporator‟s main
building is ideal. A
rigging workshop, a
small scale, solar
powered, bronze
foundry, making
classic boat fittings,
a workshop
specifically designed
for marine
engineering, a store
11
The art of Wooden Boatbuilding has now
been substantially re-established in
Franklin. The time has now come for the
next stage, the re-establishment of wooden
Ship-building. The centrepiece of the whole
idea is the public construction and
community based operation, of a ketch
rigged tourist and cargo carrying sailing
vessel. Tourists will be able to participate in
the revival of commercial sail as a positive
response to the twin crises of Peak Oil and
Global Warming. The vessel will visit
Recherche Bay, Southport, Dover, Franklin,
Cygnet, Gordon, Woodbridge, Bruny Island
ports, Kettering and Margate on her way to
Waterman‟s dock, Hobart, to unload her
mixed cargo for the Salamanca market at
the end of each week. The vessel will be
about the same size and appearance as the
Lenna or the May Queen,9 but to a design
that will comply with modern survey
requirements. She will carry 12 overnight
Plans: Duncan Gibbs
Plans: Duncan Gibbs
passengers, or 36 day passengers and will
need a crew of three professionals. Once or
twice a year she‟ll take a cargo of honey to
Williamstown, Victoria and come back with
empty containers and backpacker
passengers. This scheme is called Project
Understorey on account of the message it
contains about the good sense of
ecologically sustainable management of
production forests containing boatbuilding
timbers rather than the bleak alternatives
of human exclusion or clearfelling.
The business plan for this, by Michelle
Durbin, a Grove business woman, and Ellen
Witte, who works for SGS Economic
Planning in Melbourne, but lives in Franklin,
so far indicates that the tourist passenger
trade alone will be a profitable exercise,
with a surplus arising from local freight,
9
12
Now restored and afloat in Constitution Dock, Hobart, but
built at Franklin in 1867 by Alexander Lawson.
cradle will remain to serve as a slipway
for the maintenance and restoration of
large timber vessels. Experience of
building the timber “One and All” in
South Australia has shown that a wooden
sailing ship under construction becomes a
tourist magnet that has flow-on effects
far beyond the immediate site, and can
raise a considerable part of the cost of
construction at the same time.
Photo: Lynette Goodwin
which will provide a unique focus of visitor
interest. It will also suggest an alternative to
continued dependence on a diminishing,
increasingly expensive, and polluting source
of energy for our transport needs. The
interior arrangements will be flexibly
designed because, as the cost of fuel rises,
so the ratio of passengers to cargo will
change.
Adrian Dean (above), a craft historian and
one of Tasmania‟s best known and respected
boatbuilders, is working with Naval Architect
Murray Isles on the design and we now have
a preliminary half model as a base for
calculations.
Building this vessel close to the road in an
open-sided temporary hay shed will
encourage people to stop and learn about
wooden ship building. After launching, her
Lenna 1903 trading ketch. Model by Greg Guy
Fortunately the Huon Valley of the 21st
century is once more enriched with the
kind of expertise that will be needed.
Southern Tall Ships is a business collective
of people who live in the Huon but make
their living largely on the mainland, building,
servicing, repairing, manning and managing
Australia‟s fleet of “Tall Ships”, such as
Alma Doepel, Endeavour, Bounty,
Enterprise, Windward Bound, Falie, One
and All, Duyfken and Leeuwin. They also
provide planning and logistic services in the
southern hemisphere, to the Tall Ships of
the European “Eastern Bloc”.
Honorary C.E.O, Captain Dewy Buttenshaw,
of Waterloo, points out the convenience of
being able to find this kind of work closer
to home. He also emphasises the need for a
training ship for young people who wish to
qualify as masters, mates, and crew aboard
Australia‟s Tall Ship fleet. The project will
thus provide continuing opportunities for
specialist employment and make use of
existing talent that may otherwise be
lost to Tasmania.
Just as Project Understorey is a part
of a wider vision of a working
waterfront, so a restored waterfront
is part of a wider vision of sustainable
communities that can collectively
create a sustainable society.
13
While the Global Financial Crisis forced
governments throughout the developed world
to resort to traditional stimulus remedies
aimed at the perpetuation of economic growth,
the stagflation phenomenon of late capitalism
has forced a new breed of economists to
consider that, in the context of a finite planet,
any positive effect on the well-being of
humanity, that conventionally measured
economic growth will have, must be
temporary.10
We need to understand that growth dependent
on non-renewable resources can‟t continue
indefinitely. We need to perceive that
undifferentiated growth of GDP that does not
distinguish between good growth, like better
education, and bad growth, like more poker
machines and cluster bombs, creates more
inequality and makes an increasingly
interdependent world a more dangerous place.
We need to understand the difference
between consuming more stuff and leading
better lives. We need to comprehensively rethink the way we run our financial markets and
economies, and the relationship between
private and public jurisdictions. As President
Sarkoszy of France put it last year, “The Crisis
doesn‟t only make us free to imagine other
models, another future, another world. It
obliges us to do so”.11
Right now political leadership in Europe, the
United States, China, Australia and New
Zealand is ahead of public opinion. Except on
the old right, where they still talk of the
10
The bibliography grows apace, e.g. John Young Sustaining The
Earth, Harvard University Press, 1991; Hugh Stretton
Economics: A New Introduction, University of New South Wales
Press 1999; Paul Ekins, A New World Order, Grass Roots
Movements for Global Change, Routeledge 1992; Richard
Douthwaite: The Growth Illusion, Green Books 1992; Paul
Hawken, The Next Economy, Angus and Robertson 1983; Paul
Ekins, Wealth Beyond Measure: An Atlas of New Economics,
Gaia Books Ltd 1992; Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies
Choose to Fail or Survive, Penguin Books, 2005; Tim Jackson,
Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet:
Earthscan 2009.
11
Quoted by Tim Jackson on the dust cover of his book.
14
“Birthright of cheap fuel.” Having pushed
people for four decades along the lines of
“Greed is Good”, it‟s difficult to go into
reverse and persuade us that a carbon tax,
for example, is good for us in the long run.
Rationing might be better still. It worked
in wartime and was good for the
environment as well, but like the collapse
of the Soviet Union, or the end of
apartheid, big ideological changes require
a conjunction of good leadership and a
change in the public mood to overcome the
kind of legislative constipation that
afflicts us now.
The Franklin Working Waterfront won‟t
change the world, but it could help to move
public perception in the right direction.
The preservation and re-development of
skill is a primary requirement for
sustainability. With skill you can use
renewable and recyclable materials and
sources of energy. You can repair and
restore things. A working waterfront is a
place where skill predominates. It makes
work a source of personal satisfaction, and
wages a desirable bonus, instead of a
compensation for lost leisure.
Unlike new forms of renewable energy
that require expensive research and
development, sail power already has
centuries of this behind it, and its ability
to shift people and freight around has
been tested over thousands of years. It
could only be beaten, and then only for
about 80 years of human history, because
of cheap coal and then cheap oil. And
they‟re now things of the past.
Project Understorey is designed to be a
successful business, supported by the
traditional 64 local investors in a small
ship so as to include the local community in
her fortunes. That way it can play an
important part in civic development and
sustainable living.
Meanwhile, interest has been shown by several
enquirers about both waterfront properties I
have discussed, the Tasmanian Wooden Boat
Centre on a Crown lease to the north, and the
freehold Franklin Evaporators site to the
south. It is quite likely that a deal with
purchasers of one or both of the
properties will be concluded in the near future.
I have written this paper in the hope that any
buyers will give consideration to these ideas
and will consult closely with the local
community. Otherwise, if purchasers do not
materialise, I hope that the Franklin
community will gain Local Government support,
as well as that of State Government, which it
has already,12 for an application for Regional
Infrastructure funding from the
Commonwealth Government to achieve the
same objectives. With that support, the State
Government could purchase the freehold
Franklin Evaporators, thus bringing the whole
historic waterfront area under public control
12
David O‟Byrne to John Young 30th November, 2010 “ The
Living Boat Trust‟s proposal for the creation of a „Maritime
Precinct‟ in Franklin is one that, ……………………., would be
of obvious benefit to Franklin and the wider Huon Valley
region”.
as Crown land. This would enable a plan
based on community aspirations and
authenticity, as foreseen in 1998, to be
implemented.
In the context of Floods, Earthquakes,
Tsunamis, Nuclear meltdown, revolution in
the Middle East, as well as the now
familiar problems of global warming and
peak oil, Franklin‟s problems seem
relatively unimportant. But breaking out
of what Tim Jackson calls the “Iron Cage
of Consumerism”13, recognising the social
significance of place, and focussing on
fundamental human values and needs are
prerequisites for both local and global
prosperity. Franklin provides an unusual
opportunity to test the impact of local
action on global thinking. Today, we can
smile once more. With your support, we
can laugh tomorrow, as well.
John Young
13
Jackson, Tim, Prosperity Without Growth: Economics
for a finite Planet, Earthscan , 2009 p.87-102.
Joel Pett - Political Cartoonist
15
www.lbt.org.au
where www stands for
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
&
QUIZ NIGHT
Saturday,30th July
6pm Palais Theatre
(upstairs)
ALL WELCOME
MISSION STATEMENT
To maintain traditional maritime skills through
facilitating community activity small boat
handling, building, restoration, maintenance and
the use of traditional wooden boats.
Contacts for information:
John Young President, Editor & Sailing Master
Ros Barnett Secretary
John Walduck Treasurer
Peter Laidlaw Committee
Greg Guy Workshop
Alistair McCrae - Committee
Pieter Lunsteadt - Committee
Jilly Archer Committee
Lea Morgan Accountant
Chris Wilson Co-ordinator (On The Water Program)
Lynette Goodwin - Publisher
16
The Living Boat Trust Inc.
P.O. Box 79,
Franklin,
Tasmania 7113
youngzjr@southernphone.com.au
sec@lbt.org.au
treasurer@lbt.org.au
ptrlaidlaw@hotmail.com
deepbayboats@bigpond.com
alimcrae@dodo.com.au
pieterlunstedt@gmail.com
archie@intermode.on.net
lea@lbt.org.au
coord@lbt.org.au
lynette.j.goodwin@education.tas.gov.au