WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.860 We're missing a panelist, so I'm just going to choose someone at random. 2 00:00:09.840 --> 00:00:14.300 We're taping this. It'll probably go out as a wireless program as well, 3 00:00:14.340 --> 00:00:15.780 so you've got to be on your best behavior. 4 00:00:17.140 --> 00:00:20.800 Otherwise, we'll have to get Rose White to smack your bottom. 5 00:00:23.880 --> 00:00:24.620 There you go. 6 00:00:30.660 --> 00:00:38.980 Welcome to Elder Hall, one of the final sessions of this year's Adelaide Festival of Ideas. 7 00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:43.700 The theme, Paradise Regained, Environmental Futures. 8 00:00:44.900 --> 00:00:49.800 A few years ago, the Commission for the Future held a series of hall meetings around Australia 9 00:00:49.800 --> 00:00:55.800 which were all interconnected by satellites and big screens and all those sorts of gizmos, 10 00:00:55.860 --> 00:00:59.860 and we brought out from principally the UN, 11 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:08.200 a whole lot of computer modelers and sayers of scientific suits to talk about greenhouse, 12 00:01:09.120 --> 00:01:12.700 which was a new word in our local vocabulary. 13 00:01:13.160 --> 00:01:15.720 And I noticed a strange thing that took place. 14 00:01:15.900 --> 00:01:20.460 The audience wanted a religious more than a scientific experience. 15 00:01:21.060 --> 00:01:26.160 If the modelers said that the sea was only going to rise nine feet, that simply wasn't enough. 16 00:01:26.680 --> 00:01:29.900 They were almost hissed if they said it was going to rise 20. 17 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:35.680 And completely flood all the expensive real estate around Sydney Harbour. 18 00:01:35.740 --> 00:01:36.520 That was terrific. 19 00:01:37.260 --> 00:01:43.620 If they said that the problem was Detroit and capitalism, cheers to the rafters. 20 00:01:43.640 --> 00:01:51.160 If they said that cows belching and termites farting and methane rising from rice paddies 21 00:01:51.160 --> 00:01:54.720 was a significant contributor, once again, that wasn't too popular. 22 00:01:54.860 --> 00:01:59.980 And I think that's one of the dilemmas in this whole issue about environmentalism. 23 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:00.640 And I think that's one of the dilemmas in this whole issue about environmentalism. 24 00:02:00.940 --> 00:02:06.000 On the one hand, there is our emotional feelings and almost our emotional needs 25 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:12.000 for some sort of apocalyptic outcome versus our desire to fix the problem. 26 00:02:12.980 --> 00:02:16.780 So we've got four people to attack familiar issues, 27 00:02:16.980 --> 00:02:23.680 but I suspect that they will attack it or come to it in slightly unfamiliar ways. 28 00:02:24.020 --> 00:02:25.780 So let's welcome the panel. 29 00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:29.980 Herbert Giroudet is, of course, the inaugural editor. 30 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:31.380 He's the Adelaide thinker in residence. 31 00:02:31.780 --> 00:02:33.900 He usually adopts the Rodin pose. 32 00:02:37.340 --> 00:02:40.020 But, of course, the weather's far too cold for nudity. 33 00:02:42.180 --> 00:02:47.640 Herbert's role as thinker in residence is focusing on developing a strategy for Adelaide as a green city 34 00:02:47.640 --> 00:02:53.640 and addressing issues of better waste management, energy use, water management, et cetera. 35 00:02:54.120 --> 00:02:59.380 And he's telling me behind the black curtain that he's given at least 50 addresses already. 36 00:03:00.260 --> 00:03:01.220 So I'm going to turn it over to him. 37 00:03:01.380 --> 00:03:05.400 So I'll tell you what Mike Rand's getting his money's worth. 38 00:03:06.180 --> 00:03:09.080 Also, we're joined by Clive Hamilton. 39 00:03:09.320 --> 00:03:13.320 Now, Clive's an interesting bloke in that he's the executive director of, would you believe, 40 00:03:13.480 --> 00:03:16.940 a progressive think tank, the Australian Institute. 41 00:03:17.400 --> 00:03:23.240 He's also a visiting fellow in the graduate program in public policy at the ANU 42 00:03:23.240 --> 00:03:27.820 and is an adjunct professor at the University of Technology in Sydney. 43 00:03:29.220 --> 00:03:29.980 Margaret Sattler. 44 00:03:29.980 --> 00:03:30.420 Margaret Simons. 45 00:03:30.420 --> 00:03:32.380 Margaret Simons, extraordinary woman. 46 00:03:32.760 --> 00:03:40.360 She came to the knowledge or the awareness of her profession because of sterling work she did 47 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:44.360 in and around the Fitzgerald Inquiry in Sydney. 48 00:03:44.540 --> 00:03:50.260 She followed it up with, I thought, a really profoundly interesting analysis of the goings-on 49 00:03:50.260 --> 00:03:52.520 and the quality of the press gallery. 50 00:03:53.180 --> 00:03:59.520 But these days, of course, she's best known for her non-fiction book about the Hindmarsh Island, 51 00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:06.180 The Bridge Affair, which it's a book which I think Christopher Pearson likes to burn publicly. 52 00:04:08.440 --> 00:04:10.260 Redmond O'Hanlon. 53 00:04:10.420 --> 00:04:15.500 Well, Redmond's born in 47, so he's pretty old. 54 00:04:15.580 --> 00:04:19.620 He was educated at Marlborough and Merton College, Oxford. 55 00:04:19.720 --> 00:04:20.880 It sounds very blue chip. 56 00:04:21.120 --> 00:04:21.700 Doesn't it? 57 00:04:21.880 --> 00:04:23.360 Yes, very toffee. 58 00:04:23.920 --> 00:04:27.160 He was a member of the literature panel of the Arts Council of Great Britain, 59 00:04:27.240 --> 00:04:29.400 but, of course, he's, in a sense, better. 60 00:04:29.520 --> 00:04:29.680 He's a great man. 61 00:04:29.800 --> 00:04:33.500 He's a great man these days for his natural history and royal geographic work, 62 00:04:33.660 --> 00:04:39.180 and I'm sure that during the course of the afternoon he will admit some loud animal noises. 63 00:04:40.200 --> 00:04:43.400 So, ladies and gentlemen, environmental futures. 64 00:04:43.800 --> 00:04:44.960 What is happening? 65 00:04:45.120 --> 00:04:46.260 What can happen? 66 00:04:46.400 --> 00:04:47.720 What should happen? 67 00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:49.100 What must happen? 68 00:04:49.240 --> 00:04:51.520 And to begin, Herbert. 69 00:04:52.100 --> 00:04:54.140 Thank you very much. 70 00:05:00.040 --> 00:05:03.100 Well, thank you very much for those kind words. 71 00:05:03.760 --> 00:05:08.840 Yes, I have been here for two months and it's been a fascinating experience trying to get 72 00:05:08.840 --> 00:05:15.020 to know a city, trying to get to know the context of that city in Australia and in South 73 00:05:15.020 --> 00:05:15.380 Australia. 74 00:05:16.060 --> 00:05:20.500 But I've primarily concerned myself with local issues here, of course. 75 00:05:21.180 --> 00:05:26.960 Much of my work over the last 20 years or so has, however, been concerned with global 76 00:05:26.960 --> 00:05:27.360 issues. 77 00:05:27.360 --> 00:05:33.100 And when it comes to looking at the theme, Paradise Regained, I think it's a very pertinent 78 00:05:33.100 --> 00:05:33.480 issue. 79 00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:38.400 But, first of all, we have to ask ourselves, have we lost paradise? 80 00:05:39.060 --> 00:05:40.980 Have we ever had paradise? 81 00:05:41.920 --> 00:05:46.260 So I would just like to start briefly with looking at some of the evidence of what we 82 00:05:46.260 --> 00:05:52.680 have been doing to paradise and whether or not there is actually a case to be made for 83 00:05:52.680 --> 00:05:55.400 trying to regain it, and if so, how we might do so. 84 00:05:56.300 --> 00:05:56.740 Well. 85 00:05:57.360 --> 00:06:00.820 Well, the starting point would be that, of course, the Bible talks about paradise and 86 00:06:00.820 --> 00:06:02.480 so do many other creation stories. 87 00:06:02.640 --> 00:06:03.720 And what is this paradise? 88 00:06:04.060 --> 00:06:08.640 What is basically a lovely bit of land with lots of trees, with water running through 89 00:06:08.640 --> 00:06:16.060 it, with people having a good time until sort of Adam and Eve have this little problem about 90 00:06:16.060 --> 00:06:18.200 the snake and the apple and all this kind of stuff. 91 00:06:19.080 --> 00:06:25.780 But basically you could say probably paradise was the place where we all come from in the 92 00:06:25.780 --> 00:06:27.340 sense that we all started to live in paradise. 93 00:06:30.760 --> 00:06:33.020 America, 94 00:06:45.440 --> 00:06:49.880 when we have finished harvesting and not much is left locally, you move on and go somewhere 95 00:06:49.880 --> 00:06:56.660 else. And that is also the story of pygmies in the rainforests of Africa who have wonderful 96 00:06:56.660 --> 00:07:04.240 stories of the beauty of nature, the beauty of the forest, and there are some great ceremonies 97 00:07:04.240 --> 00:07:09.580 that have been described for how pygmies in the rainforest sing to the forest, sing to 98 00:07:09.580 --> 00:07:15.860 the beauty of the forest around them and cherishing it, cherishing its goodness and 99 00:07:15.860 --> 00:07:22.500 being, feeling sorry when they have to move on to another place. Similar stories are also 100 00:07:22.500 --> 00:07:29.120 being told by Amazonian Indians and the rainforests in those nine countries in South America that 101 00:07:29.120 --> 00:07:34.060 have a patch of it. There is a wonderful book recently published called The Forest Within 102 00:07:34.060 --> 00:07:39.560 describing how people living in those rainforests have, again, these wonderful experiences and 103 00:07:39.560 --> 00:07:45.440 extraordinary attachment, but also taking nature as a teacher, having animal spirits 104 00:07:46.320 --> 00:07:53.840 teach them about how to use plants, how to use the rainforest resources as a basis for 105 00:07:53.840 --> 00:07:55.980 living in that environment. 106 00:07:56.440 --> 00:08:01.480 And so those kind of stories are told by people who are hunter-gatherers all over the world. 107 00:08:01.480 --> 00:08:09.480 Even the bushmen in the Kalahari Desert in Africa talk about the beauty and the wondrous 108 00:08:10.020 --> 00:08:12.580 qualities of that environment around them. 109 00:08:12.680 --> 00:08:16.700 And if it isn't looking at the environment itself, they look to the sky and there's these 110 00:08:16.700 --> 00:08:23.560 extraordinary stories of how they relate to Sirius and to other star formations up in 111 00:08:23.560 --> 00:08:23.900 the sky. 112 00:08:24.100 --> 00:08:31.460 And when their children are born, they bless them with the acknowledgement of that understanding. 113 00:08:31.480 --> 00:08:37.660 So we have a history of something like four million years or so of being hunter-gatherers 114 00:08:37.660 --> 00:08:38.300 on this planet. 115 00:08:38.460 --> 00:08:44.480 And only about 12,000 years ago did we start plowing up the land, did we turn digging deeper 116 00:08:44.480 --> 00:08:49.820 into the earth, starting to take resources such as metals from the body of the earth 117 00:08:49.820 --> 00:08:53.360 itself and starting to transform our relationship to it. 118 00:08:53.840 --> 00:09:00.340 And so we have today a completely different world than that which we started off with, 119 00:09:00.460 --> 00:09:01.260 this world of... 120 00:09:01.480 --> 00:09:02.260 hunting and gathering. 121 00:09:02.440 --> 00:09:04.460 It's no longer just a world even of peasant farming. 122 00:09:04.760 --> 00:09:10.380 And that too, of course, historically speaking, was a relatively stable world where paradises 123 00:09:10.380 --> 00:09:17.460 were being created at the local level by people living off the fertility of the planet, that 124 00:09:17.460 --> 00:09:19.220 bit of the planet that they inhabited. 125 00:09:19.740 --> 00:09:22.060 Well, today it's an urban civilization. 126 00:09:22.140 --> 00:09:25.400 It's also a civilization of global ecological footprints. 127 00:09:26.040 --> 00:09:31.220 And today, when you live somewhere like in Adelaide or in London or Paris or New York, 128 00:09:31.480 --> 00:09:35.920 basically, you do no longer talk about having a local hinterland from which you draw your 129 00:09:35.920 --> 00:09:36.780 resources primarily. 130 00:09:37.220 --> 00:09:42.460 It's this global hinterland that is available to us as a result of our transport technologies 131 00:09:42.460 --> 00:09:47.460 again drawing resources, fossil fuel resources, from somewhere deep in the earth's crust, 132 00:09:47.640 --> 00:09:49.960 burning them as though it was not tomorrow. 133 00:09:50.140 --> 00:09:55.320 It's an extraordinary speed in which we've been using up these non-renewable resources 134 00:09:55.320 --> 00:09:59.340 right there deep in the body of the planet. 135 00:09:59.720 --> 00:10:01.460 So, that is the basis for today. 136 00:10:01.460 --> 00:10:08.740 for our life today. And so we ask ourselves, what has become of paradise as we burn down forests, 137 00:10:08.820 --> 00:10:15.240 as we cause soil erosion, as we cause the siltation of rivers, as we cause massive damage to the 138 00:10:15.240 --> 00:10:20.800 atmosphere, and so on and so forth. Well, a lot of people have chosen the way out, which is to kind 139 00:10:20.800 --> 00:10:26.260 of create local paradises around their own homes, making beautiful gardens, making beautiful 140 00:10:26.260 --> 00:10:32.020 environments that they can call their own and finding a way of being at peace in those places. 141 00:10:32.180 --> 00:10:38.720 And that's a wonderful thing to do. But then when you start thinking about, think beyond the garden 142 00:10:38.720 --> 00:10:43.320 fence, again, there's this concern, what are we doing to the world out there? What are we doing 143 00:10:43.320 --> 00:10:50.300 to the global environment as a result of our enormous and unprecedented consumption of resources? 144 00:10:50.860 --> 00:10:56.200 Of course, when you look at the statistics, the changes have been simply extraordinary in 145 00:10:56.200 --> 00:11:02.400 the last century. Our human numbers went up fourfold, but the consumption of resources went up 146 00:11:02.400 --> 00:11:07.820 16-fold or more when it comes to fossil fuel resources. It went up thousands of fold because 147 00:11:07.820 --> 00:11:12.560 we'd never done that before. We'd never burned coal or oil or gas before. And so we've become 148 00:11:12.560 --> 00:11:19.600 something different from what we used to be. If I stand next to an Aboriginal, he will recognize me 149 00:11:19.600 --> 00:11:25.160 as somebody who is biologically similar to him or her. But in reality, I'm a different person. I am 150 00:11:25.160 --> 00:11:26.180 an unbiased person. I'm an unbiased person. I'm an unbiased person. I'm an unbiased person. I'm an 151 00:11:26.180 --> 00:11:33.180 amplified man, an amplified person, amplified through the uses of technology. My feet are no 152 00:11:33.180 --> 00:11:41.320 longer feet, really. They are wheels. And my muscles are motors. And my arms are the airplane 153 00:11:41.320 --> 00:11:47.760 wings and the shovels of bulldozers. And my eyes have become the telescopes and the microscopes of 154 00:11:47.760 --> 00:11:55.880 science. And my ears have become amplified by loudspeakers and by all the technologies 155 00:11:55.880 --> 00:11:56.160 that we use. And I think that's a very, very important thing. And I think that's a very, very 156 00:11:56.160 --> 00:12:02.380 significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, 157 00:12:02.380 --> 00:12:08.440 a significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, 158 00:12:08.980 --> 00:12:10.540 a significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, 159 00:12:10.620 --> 00:12:14.300 a significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, 160 00:12:14.300 --> 00:12:14.320 a significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, 161 00:12:14.320 --> 00:12:14.360 a significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, 162 00:12:14.360 --> 00:12:18.320 a significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, 163 00:12:18.740 --> 00:12:26.140 a significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, and a significant thing, 164 00:12:26.140 --> 00:12:32.280 this paradise, and that ultimately means a global, a new consciousness of full understanding 165 00:12:32.280 --> 00:12:37.260 of, on the one hand, impacts that we have, on the other hand, the beauty and the magnificence 166 00:12:37.260 --> 00:12:39.080 of nature all around the planet. 167 00:12:39.700 --> 00:12:44.700 You probably heard some of you, George Monbiot speak this afternoon about species consciousness, 168 00:12:45.360 --> 00:12:50.220 among other things, saying that today in the age of globalization, it's of critical importance 169 00:12:50.220 --> 00:12:57.360 for us all to understand each other as human beings about our needs, how to collectively 170 00:12:57.360 --> 00:13:03.720 change the way we create power structures, what types of architecture of international 171 00:13:03.720 --> 00:13:04.820 systems we build. 172 00:13:05.060 --> 00:13:09.820 Well, I think that's a wonderful thing that he's been talking about for the last couple 173 00:13:09.820 --> 00:13:10.200 of days. 174 00:13:11.280 --> 00:13:14.220 We do, however, also need to possibly go beyond that even. 175 00:13:14.300 --> 00:13:17.900 We need to ultimately develop what we might call a Gaia consciousness. 176 00:13:18.460 --> 00:13:20.200 And Gaia, I'm sure you've already heard about. 177 00:13:20.220 --> 00:13:24.960 You've all heard about the concept of the living interactive planet, where, as James 178 00:13:24.960 --> 00:13:30.620 Lovelock, the British scientist who came up with this term, says, there's profound interactions 179 00:13:30.620 --> 00:13:34.900 between the lithosphere, between the biosphere, and the atmosphere. 180 00:13:35.900 --> 00:13:44.540 And these interactions add up to an extraordinary whole of a living planet that is unique, that 181 00:13:44.540 --> 00:13:49.120 is extraordinary, that is beautiful, but is also vulnerable to our interference. 182 00:13:49.120 --> 00:13:55.780 And that is today the great challenge that we have, creating a consciousness that ultimately 183 00:13:55.780 --> 00:14:00.400 goes beyond the human interests, which have been so strong in our history, concerning 184 00:14:00.400 --> 00:14:06.460 ourselves primarily with our own short-term human needs, holding families together, holding 185 00:14:06.460 --> 00:14:11.120 tribes together, holding nations together, and making sure that we're all well off. 186 00:14:11.200 --> 00:14:18.720 Ultimately, today, unless we understand the whole, we need to look at destruction, ultimately, 187 00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:23.180 with ultimate total destruction in the face, because we are well on our way to doing that 188 00:14:23.180 --> 00:14:24.140 at this moment in time. 189 00:14:24.520 --> 00:14:28.780 So, in my view, the great chance that we have today is through new communication systems 190 00:14:28.780 --> 00:14:34.720 that we do have available to us, to have international networks of understanding of 191 00:14:34.720 --> 00:14:41.080 communication that help us not only to understand each other's needs across the world as people, 192 00:14:41.240 --> 00:14:47.120 but also to understand the needs of nature to continue to exist with us together. 193 00:14:47.520 --> 00:14:48.700 At the moment, you are in a moment of crisis. 194 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:53.900 Humanity, just one species, controls over half of nature's production every year. 195 00:14:54.380 --> 00:15:00.840 Every year, what nature comes up with in terms of new growth is 50% of that is simply absorbed 196 00:15:00.840 --> 00:15:03.960 by human needs and demands at this moment in time. 197 00:15:04.200 --> 00:15:08.640 But there happen to be another 20 or 30 million species there beyond that. 198 00:15:08.860 --> 00:15:15.840 And yet we only allow, even in the most progressive thinking, that maybe 10% of nature might be 199 00:15:15.840 --> 00:15:16.920 left to its own devices. 200 00:15:17.380 --> 00:15:18.640 Well, that's not good enough. 201 00:15:18.720 --> 00:15:24.140 In my view, in the end, unless there's genuine and honest interaction between ourselves and 202 00:15:24.140 --> 00:15:30.200 nature in a new way, starting at the local level and looking at the whole planet, ultimately, 203 00:15:30.320 --> 00:15:31.760 we are now hiding to nothing. 204 00:15:32.060 --> 00:15:38.120 So, regaining paradise at this moment in time is a very, very tall order, a very great enterprise 205 00:15:38.120 --> 00:15:43.920 that we ultimately need to become engaged in, but ultimately one that is for all our 206 00:15:43.920 --> 00:15:48.700 benefits, because let's face it, if we lived with a desert, a desert, a desert, a desert, 207 00:15:48.720 --> 00:15:53.700 a poison desert at that around us, as we are in danger of doing if we continue what we 208 00:15:53.700 --> 00:15:56.800 are currently engaged in, we are not going to enjoy our lives. 209 00:15:56.920 --> 00:16:00.860 We are not going to see the beauty of nature as a companion to our daily lives. 210 00:16:01.020 --> 00:16:07.000 It is of fundamental importance to find a new way, find a new approach to living sustainably. 211 00:16:07.120 --> 00:16:10.780 And that is one of the great challenges of the 21st century. 212 00:16:10.920 --> 00:16:11.420 Thank you. 213 00:16:18.780 --> 00:16:19.720 Thanks, Herbert. 214 00:16:20.440 --> 00:16:23.140 Herbert mentioned James Geyer Lovelock. 215 00:16:23.220 --> 00:16:26.240 I love having dear old James on my program. 216 00:16:26.500 --> 00:16:28.820 We often chat about every three years he comes on. 217 00:16:29.180 --> 00:16:30.480 Not because I'm... 218 00:16:30.480 --> 00:16:32.600 Well, for one particular reason. 219 00:16:32.680 --> 00:16:34.900 James came up with the most extraordinary fact. 220 00:16:35.560 --> 00:16:39.840 He's in his middle 80s now, and he says it is a statistical truth. 221 00:16:40.560 --> 00:16:42.800 Is that an oxymoron? 222 00:16:42.900 --> 00:16:47.040 He said that however old you are, you will live another three years. 223 00:16:47.680 --> 00:16:48.700 Now, I take gratitude. 224 00:16:48.720 --> 00:16:49.760 Great nourishment from that. 225 00:16:51.260 --> 00:16:56.600 No matter how old you are, you live another three years, which means I might make it to 67. 226 00:16:57.360 --> 00:17:01.900 Ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome someone who's got much more than three years to live 227 00:17:01.900 --> 00:17:05.900 and a huge contribution to make, Margaret Simons. 228 00:17:13.960 --> 00:17:18.700 It's strange to be at this session because I don't find it very easy to say things that 229 00:17:18.700 --> 00:17:21.480 we have come to refer to as the environment. 230 00:17:22.500 --> 00:17:27.580 I take it as given that in this country in particular, if we've learned anything, 231 00:17:27.780 --> 00:17:31.360 we've learned that we can't move without picking up the environmental key, 232 00:17:32.180 --> 00:17:35.340 and that there are no easy answers, and that our tenure here, 233 00:17:35.480 --> 00:17:41.060 which is largely dependent on agriculture still, is fragile and may well be unsustainable. 234 00:17:42.580 --> 00:17:47.880 But stuck with having nothing easy to say beyond that, nothing proselytizing to say, I guess. 235 00:17:48.700 --> 00:17:53.880 I'd like to tell you a little bit of the journey I've been on and how that's collided 236 00:17:53.880 --> 00:17:59.040 with what I think is one of the really big stories of figures in the Australian landscape, 237 00:17:59.340 --> 00:18:03.500 and that's the story of the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Affair and the subject of my latest book. 238 00:18:04.500 --> 00:18:09.240 I was thinking earlier today about that word environment and what's implied by it. 239 00:18:09.940 --> 00:18:15.900 Environment means that which surrounds something, that which contains it, the place in which we live. 240 00:18:17.360 --> 00:18:18.680 And by implication, of course, I think that's important. 241 00:18:18.680 --> 00:18:20.120 Of course, it's our environment. 242 00:18:20.160 --> 00:18:21.660 It's a human-centered word. 243 00:18:22.060 --> 00:18:25.080 And we could extrapolate it to say that when we use that word, 244 00:18:25.140 --> 00:18:29.660 we are implying that the natural world is for our use and enjoyment, 245 00:18:29.760 --> 00:18:31.640 to quote the Residential Tenancies Act. 246 00:18:34.020 --> 00:18:37.440 Extrapolating again, we could say that if we're to preserve and protect the environment, 247 00:18:37.600 --> 00:18:41.820 then it's not for its own sake, but in order to protect our tenure. 248 00:18:43.380 --> 00:18:46.860 Nature is perhaps a better word, and indeed William Lyons, 249 00:18:46.920 --> 00:18:48.040 the environmental historian. 250 00:18:48.680 --> 00:18:50.800 has suggested that nature might be a better word. 251 00:18:51.220 --> 00:18:55.720 It's used by the deep greens, as they're called, who extol nature for its own sake. 252 00:18:56.240 --> 00:18:57.680 And I've tried using it. 253 00:18:58.300 --> 00:19:02.900 But I'm afraid it puts me in mind of nature walks that I used to take as a child in England. 254 00:19:03.420 --> 00:19:07.720 We went from our school in suburban London to a park, 255 00:19:08.360 --> 00:19:11.020 and it was a very damp and well-peopled nature walk. 256 00:19:11.820 --> 00:19:16.300 We brought back crushed autumn leaves and greasy feathers and polished chestnuts. 257 00:19:16.720 --> 00:19:18.440 And I remember one day, 258 00:19:18.680 --> 00:19:21.660 when we were meant to write a poem based on our experiences of nature, 259 00:19:22.360 --> 00:19:26.900 another child in the class wrote about the look of oil on a puddle of water in a gutter, 260 00:19:26.920 --> 00:19:28.400 and all the colours it made. 261 00:19:29.100 --> 00:19:31.000 And that, of course, was nature as well. 262 00:19:31.120 --> 00:19:34.000 The behaviour of oil and water is surely part of nature. 263 00:19:34.620 --> 00:19:36.560 Certainly, it was our environment. 264 00:19:37.500 --> 00:19:40.860 So both the words nature and environment, I think, are problematic. 265 00:19:42.220 --> 00:19:44.420 But just a few months after that nature walk, 266 00:19:44.900 --> 00:19:48.420 my family and I emigrated to Australia and to Adelaide. 267 00:19:48.940 --> 00:19:52.400 And on one of the first weekends, we drove out through the Adelaide Hills, 268 00:19:52.680 --> 00:19:54.880 a drive which I'm sure is familiar to most of you here, 269 00:19:55.020 --> 00:19:57.080 to the top of Accommodation Hill, 270 00:19:57.220 --> 00:20:01.200 where you can see that great plain that stretches all the way to the Simpson Desert. 271 00:20:01.940 --> 00:20:04.880 I'd never seen anything so vast that wasn't the sea. 272 00:20:05.520 --> 00:20:08.540 And, of course, it was just about the biggest sky in the world. 273 00:20:08.800 --> 00:20:10.440 And we were very small under it. 274 00:20:11.420 --> 00:20:14.700 But this environment didn't enclose us in any cosy way. 275 00:20:14.820 --> 00:20:17.380 It was, from the very beginning, a challenge. 276 00:20:18.800 --> 00:20:22.480 That plain is, of course, bisected by the loops of the Murray River, 277 00:20:23.060 --> 00:20:24.520 which brings me to my present story, 278 00:20:25.360 --> 00:20:29.080 that one way or another has obsessed me for most of the last five years, 279 00:20:29.220 --> 00:20:34.040 the story of Hindmarsh Island and the bridge at the mouth of the Murray. 280 00:20:35.240 --> 00:20:38.320 Now, I know that many people, I think, shamefully, 281 00:20:38.320 --> 00:20:40.860 have forgotten what the Hindmarsh Island affair was about, 282 00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:42.540 so I'll remind you briefly. 283 00:20:43.240 --> 00:20:48.160 In the early 1990s, there was a plan to build a bridge from Goolwa to Hindmarsh Island. 284 00:20:48.680 --> 00:20:51.440 But Aboriginal women claimed the island was special to them 285 00:20:51.440 --> 00:20:52.940 for reasons that couldn't be revealed. 286 00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:57.040 They applied to the then Keating government for an order prohibiting that bridge. 287 00:20:57.640 --> 00:21:01.320 As part of that process, some of the women's secrets were written down 288 00:21:01.320 --> 00:21:06.080 and sealed in two envelopes marked confidential to be read by women only. 289 00:21:06.620 --> 00:21:08.120 And the women were successful. 290 00:21:08.320 --> 00:21:09.980 The federal government did ban the bridge. 291 00:21:11.240 --> 00:21:15.460 About a year later, though, another group of Aboriginal women came forward 292 00:21:15.460 --> 00:21:18.660 and said the claim of what had become known as secret women, 293 00:21:18.660 --> 00:21:21.820 a rather inadequate term, was a hoax. 294 00:21:22.380 --> 00:21:26.120 A royal commission was called and held just a few city blocks from here. 295 00:21:26.420 --> 00:21:31.400 And in December 1995, it found that the secret women's business was a fabrication. 296 00:21:32.280 --> 00:21:35.880 Lies, lies, lies was the headline on the Adelaide Advertiser. 297 00:21:37.180 --> 00:21:41.580 And so the Hindmarsh Island story is a story of the Murray-Darling Basin, 298 00:21:41.600 --> 00:21:42.520 the Murray River. 299 00:21:43.260 --> 00:21:45.640 Most of us, in one way or another, depend on it. 300 00:21:46.100 --> 00:21:47.540 It's a complex system. 301 00:21:47.620 --> 00:21:48.460 A vast, 302 00:21:48.660 --> 00:21:49.480 shallow drainage basin. 303 00:21:49.660 --> 00:21:51.740 It covers more than a million square kilometres. 304 00:21:52.140 --> 00:21:53.840 And there is only one exit, 305 00:21:54.560 --> 00:21:56.600 the mouth of the Murray at Hindmarsh Island. 306 00:21:57.380 --> 00:21:59.100 I think there's no better symbol, 307 00:21:59.160 --> 00:22:00.920 and indeed no better reality, 308 00:22:01.720 --> 00:22:05.120 that sums up the Australian dilemma than the Murray-Darling Basin. 309 00:22:05.860 --> 00:22:07.580 And as most Adelaideans know, 310 00:22:07.720 --> 00:22:10.440 if only with some dim and uncomfortable recess of the mind, 311 00:22:10.620 --> 00:22:11.320 it's dying. 312 00:22:12.320 --> 00:22:13.880 Soon, within 20 years, 313 00:22:14.120 --> 00:22:18.640 water that comes down the Murray will be too salty to meet international demand. 314 00:22:18.660 --> 00:22:19.380 Drinking water standards. 315 00:22:20.140 --> 00:22:21.340 That's a matter of science, 316 00:22:21.400 --> 00:22:24.800 the conclusion of various studies that have been done by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission 317 00:22:24.800 --> 00:22:26.440 and the CSIRO. 318 00:22:27.860 --> 00:22:29.240 But having talked about science, 319 00:22:29.300 --> 00:22:30.660 I'm now going to turn to myth. 320 00:22:31.920 --> 00:22:33.840 My book is called The Meeting of the Waters. 321 00:22:34.960 --> 00:22:37.740 This is a reference to part, to an outer layer, 322 00:22:38.440 --> 00:22:41.940 of the rather misleadingly labelled secret women's business. 323 00:22:42.040 --> 00:22:43.440 But for those of you who are concerned, 324 00:22:43.660 --> 00:22:46.960 this is part of the business which can be talked about in mixed company. 325 00:22:49.020 --> 00:22:52.140 Hindmarsh Island is where salt water from the sea 326 00:22:52.140 --> 00:22:55.260 used to enter Lake Alexandrina, as we now call it, 327 00:22:55.300 --> 00:22:57.560 to meet the fresh water coming down the Murray, 328 00:22:57.660 --> 00:22:58.700 the meeting of the waters. 329 00:22:59.460 --> 00:23:02.660 But it's also the meeting point for the Narendra people 330 00:23:03.480 --> 00:23:07.740 between pragmatic and spiritual aspects of what we call the environment. 331 00:23:07.980 --> 00:23:10.100 Although I suspect the more accurate thing to say 332 00:23:10.100 --> 00:23:12.340 would be that in traditional Narendra culture, 333 00:23:12.600 --> 00:23:15.500 those boundaries didn't exist as we understand them. 334 00:23:16.180 --> 00:23:18.640 The area around Hindmarsh Island, 335 00:23:18.640 --> 00:23:22.860 was hugely rich and fertile because salt and fresh water met there. 336 00:23:24.140 --> 00:23:27.420 It's common ground among all the anthropologists who dispute in this matter, 337 00:23:27.520 --> 00:23:30.760 that this area was one of the most densely populated in Australia 338 00:23:30.760 --> 00:23:32.100 before European settlement. 339 00:23:32.540 --> 00:23:34.100 There was food all year round. 340 00:23:34.660 --> 00:23:37.360 There were near permanent or perhaps permanent settlements, 341 00:23:37.780 --> 00:23:40.200 one of the main ones having been at present day Galwa 342 00:23:40.200 --> 00:23:42.280 and on the facing bank of Hindmarsh Island. 343 00:23:42.920 --> 00:23:47.000 It was also one of the most complex societies politically in Aboriginal Australia. 344 00:23:47.320 --> 00:23:48.500 The Narendra people, 345 00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:50.100 had a parliament or tendee, 346 00:23:50.160 --> 00:23:53.380 one of the very rare, possibly the unique expression 347 00:23:53.380 --> 00:23:56.940 of a kind of representative democracy in Aboriginal Australia. 348 00:23:58.220 --> 00:24:01.000 But the fertility of this area and all that that brought with it, 349 00:24:01.060 --> 00:24:02.780 wasn't just a matter of pragmatics, 350 00:24:02.880 --> 00:24:04.280 it was also a matter of myth. 351 00:24:04.840 --> 00:24:08.980 The meeting of the waters was the place that the Natchi or totem animals bred. 352 00:24:10.220 --> 00:24:11.640 And at a deeper level, 353 00:24:11.760 --> 00:24:14.440 there is the beginnings, as I say, 354 00:24:14.540 --> 00:24:16.780 of the badly named secret women's business. 355 00:24:17.580 --> 00:24:20.880 The lake was a womb in Narendra belief. 356 00:24:21.560 --> 00:24:24.620 And here I'd like to tell you a little bit about what Narendra's believed 357 00:24:24.620 --> 00:24:26.620 about conception and fertility. 358 00:24:27.580 --> 00:24:31.560 They believed that conception took place when sperm met menstrual blood 359 00:24:31.560 --> 00:24:32.580 and formed a knob. 360 00:24:33.380 --> 00:24:35.420 Later, about the third month of the pregnancy, 361 00:24:35.720 --> 00:24:39.380 that knob was inhabited by a spirit that came from the sky world. 362 00:24:40.800 --> 00:24:46.260 And so the meeting of the waters, salt water enters and meets fresh in the lake. 363 00:24:46.960 --> 00:24:49.640 The meeting of waters is the place of conception. 364 00:24:50.440 --> 00:24:52.900 For the Narendra, for food of course, 365 00:24:53.060 --> 00:24:54.600 but also for the universe. 366 00:24:54.980 --> 00:25:00.020 And I cannot and will not spell it out all that much more clearly than that. 367 00:25:00.380 --> 00:25:03.320 There is of course more, other layers, deeper layers, 368 00:25:03.520 --> 00:25:06.740 to do with the role of the stars and starlight on water 369 00:25:06.740 --> 00:25:08.800 at the place of the meeting of the waters. 370 00:25:10.460 --> 00:25:12.900 So it was a symbolic and spiritual world 371 00:25:12.900 --> 00:25:15.220 and also very literal, very practical. 372 00:25:15.540 --> 00:25:16.740 Both an environment, 373 00:25:16.780 --> 00:25:17.980 that which surrounds, 374 00:25:18.780 --> 00:25:21.620 and natural in the sense of the natural way of things. 375 00:25:22.780 --> 00:25:24.680 Of course these are anthropomorphic stories, 376 00:25:25.500 --> 00:25:28.560 as all stories of the land have always been, 377 00:25:28.620 --> 00:25:29.680 being human stories, 378 00:25:29.780 --> 00:25:32.280 from Pan and the pagan gods 379 00:25:32.280 --> 00:25:35.040 through to the Christian idea of paradise as a garden. 380 00:25:35.380 --> 00:25:38.440 And indeed through to the narratives to do with engineering, 381 00:25:38.860 --> 00:25:40.740 locks, weirs and so on, 382 00:25:40.800 --> 00:25:42.860 the stories of gardens in the desert, 383 00:25:42.940 --> 00:25:44.380 that huge romantic dream 384 00:25:44.380 --> 00:25:46.760 that has driven a large part of South Australia, 385 00:25:46.780 --> 00:25:48.500 and Australian history to the present day. 386 00:25:50.140 --> 00:25:51.660 But of course it should be said, 387 00:25:51.740 --> 00:25:54.060 that the Royal Commission that was held in this city, 388 00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:56.720 found that all this stuff on the meeting of the waters, 389 00:25:56.900 --> 00:25:58.060 was lies, fabrication. 390 00:25:59.340 --> 00:26:00.760 My book presents evidence, 391 00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:03.000 and there is other evidence in the public realm now, 392 00:26:03.140 --> 00:26:06.760 which I think any fair-minded observer would have to conclude, 393 00:26:07.100 --> 00:26:09.540 shows that the Royal Commission was wrong. 394 00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:12.440 The finding that this was lies, 395 00:26:12.600 --> 00:26:15.080 resulted in many, many things. 396 00:26:15.920 --> 00:26:16.760 But among them, 397 00:26:16.780 --> 00:26:22.740 it deprived South Australians of the opportunity to hear a story of land, 398 00:26:22.960 --> 00:26:23.920 that's very beautiful. 399 00:26:25.300 --> 00:26:28.040 Now I've been attacked with some justice after hearing this, 400 00:26:28.100 --> 00:26:28.720 you may think, 401 00:26:28.760 --> 00:26:30.200