Lillian’s Eden

by Cheryl Adam

  These scientists are sentinels rising above their customary duties as purveyors of facts on our underwater worlds. Surely we should sit up and take notice. Scientists aren’t supposed to cry.

  In July 2017, at a public screening of Chasing Coral at a local venue in Airlie Beach, I am on a panel describing my views on the threats to the reef. Watching the last bravely colourful display from the corals in their death throes – brighter than any colour that could ever be manufactured – I find myself in tears. Chasing Coral was the first time I’d seen coral spawning in that level of detail. I can understand now why scientists call the coral ‘animals’ instead of just marvelling at their colour and shapes.

  Marshall describes the vibrant display as the last sign the ‘animals’ muster before turning a ghostly white, mostly never to recover. A few months later, David Attenborough’s three-part documentary series on the Great Barrier Reef re-screens on television. Charlie Veron sits on a north Queensland beach describing the tragedy, looking distractedly at the camera.

  “When the Great Barrier Reef starts to go seriously backwards, what did you do when you had a choice? We’re not doing what we should be doing and we are going to pay the price …” He is crying again. His reaction is so genuine, so endearing, that my eyes fill with tears also.

  Attenborough speaks with the same restraint and measured tone we’ve grown to love as he sums up the state of the reef at the end of the series. He first dived on the reef the year I was born: in 1957. There is plenty of black and white footage of him in baggy shorts and a mop of a brown fringe over a cropped skull as he walks along beaches, delighted with what he is seeing. Back then, he called it “the most spectacular place in the natural world.” He had assumed – and why wouldn’t he – that it would last forever. His tone in the current series is subdued:

  “… the Great Barrier Reef is in grave danger. The twin perils brought by climate change – an increase in the temperature of the ocean and in its acidity – threaten its very existence. If they continue to rise at the current rate, the reefs will be gone in decades. And that would be a global catastrophe. About one quarter of the species of fish in the world spend some part of their lives in the reefs. If the reefs go, the fish will also disappear and that will affect the livelihood and diet of human communities … worldwide. But there’s another reason – the reefs are among the planet’s richest most complex eco systems …”

  Beautiful coral landscapes drift by.

  “Do we really care so little about the earth on which we live that we don’t want to protect one of the world’s greatest wonders from the consequences of our behaviour?”

  Writing in the 1970s, Judith Wright describes the pristine nature of the Reef when the Reef was threatened with oil refineries. In her book The Coral Battleground she wrote (2014, p. 187):184

  “I myself had seen only a very small part of it, in the fringing reef of Lady Elliott Island many years before the battle started. But when I thought of the Reef, it was symbolised for me in one image that still stays in my mind. On a still blue summer day, with the ultramarine sea scarcely splashing the edge of the fringing reef, I was bending over a single small pool among the corals. Above it, dozens of small clams spread their velvety lips, patterned in blues and fawns, violets, reds and chocolate browns, not one of them like another. In it, sea-anemones drifted long white tentacles above the clean sand, and peacock-blue fish, only inches long, darted in and out of coral branches of all shapes and colours. One blue sea-star lay on the sand floor. The water was so clear that every detail of the pool’s crannies and their inhabitants was vivid, and every movement could be seen through its translucence. In the centre of the pool, as if on a stage, swayed a dancing creature of crimson and yellow, rippling all over like a windblown shawl.

  That was the Spanish Dancer, known to scientists as one of the nudibranchs, a shell-less mollusc. But for me it became an inner image of the spirit of the Reef itself.”

  Writers and scientists have charted the health of the Great Barrier Reef over decades. How can the naysayers continue to ignore such evidence? The climate sceptics? Our grandson, at five-years-old, is too young to snorkel. His children may never experience the sorts of coral underwater landscapes we have taken for granted. Nor the marine creatures that come with it.

  Anne Hoggett’s presentation in Canberra is reasonably well-attended, although it is late in the afternoon and after question time. As she posts the last slide on the powerpoint, one of the Labor MPs, who has been sitting half-asleep for most of the presentation, wakes himself and remarks: “Yes, but that is surely caused by cyclones.”

  Hoggett makes a conscious effort to stop rolling her eyes. It is one thing to have a right-wing conservative Government refuse to budge on climate change and to enable the demise of the Great Barrier Reef, but to have so many MPs from the apparent alternative – the ‘left-wing’ Labor Party – to be so obstinate in its refusal to embrace the stark future threatening the reef, is to confront despair.

  As we cross the entrance to Parliament House I peek between two massive doors into the Great Hall. A mammoth pull-up banner showcases a dark-skinned miner with a hard hat and orange ‘fluoros’. The banner is headed Australian Mining. Making the Future Possible. I learn later it was launched by the Australian Mining industry whose aim is to “explain the current and future contribution of the mining sector to jobs, living standards and growth to the Australian economy.”

  The poster seems to make a mockery of why we are here. No matter how hard we try, this age-old mining narrative will continue to be propagated in spite of the facts.

  In Parliament this day the focus is on the AU$122 million postal vote asking Australians’ opinions on gay marriage. The reef, it seems, hardly registers. I am supportive of the moves towards gay marriage, but the neglect of the reef looms large. “The reef can wait and it’s not really that bad after all,” seems to be the message from this strangely dislocated space, home to the Government of Australia who have been told by none other than the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Chair that its ultimate demise is far closer than we all think.

  As we leave Parliament House, a baby magpie with ruffled feathers walks up to the entrance hall and pecks at the glass to get in. “Nothing important happens in there mate,” I am tempted to pass on. “They are all too full of their own self-importance.”

  Chapter 10

  An About Face

  We have entered Providence V in the 2017 Whitsunday Tourism Awards in the rather prosaically named category of Major Tour and Transport Operators. The application process was a good opportunity to take stock of our business after more than two years of running tours out of the Whitsundays. We collated statistics off our iPad to find out the type of tourist we attracted as well as where our bookings came from, drew up charts and made monthly comparisons of visitor numbers. We pride ourselves on offering tours that are environmentally friendly, spurning bottled water, providing enviro-friendly toilets and picnic lunches served in lunchboxes to conserve wrapping and waste.

  We left for an overseas holiday shortly after making a submission for the awards in mid-September. MiLady, our other 54-foot yacht that had been berthed in Greece for four years, beckoned. It was time to move her to Australia and it was our last opportunity to spend time on board. We’d planned to sail from Greece to Malta and then up to Sicily and up the west coast of Italy where we would leave her in Genoa to be loaded onto a ship in November bound for Australia. The day of my birthday in late September, we received a phone call from our skipper, Kieran Burleigh. We’d won the Bronze Tourism Award. Thoroughly chuffed, as it was the first time we had entered, we listened on speaker phone to the excited Glaswegian brogue from Burleigh who had attended the prestigious ball in Hamilton Island on our behalf.

  “Only one thing, though,” Burleigh said.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “You’ll never guess who one of the sponsors is …”

  “Who?”

  He took
a deep breath. “Adani.”

  The previous elation turned to disbelief. He described how the sponsors’ names had been read out to applause, but when Adani’s name was mentioned, the room was silent.

  We never did see the award. On the way back from Europe, at Rome airport, we emailed the award organisers to let them know we were returning it. While in Sicily, we had visited Corleone, home to a whole host of Mafia bosses as well as the surname of the key fictional character in Francis Ford Coppola’s two movies The Godfather and its sequel The Godfather Part II. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Corleonesi were the most violent and ruthless group ever to take control of the Mafia.

  The Anti-Mafia Museum, CIDMA (Centro Internazionale di Documentazione sulla Mafia e del Movimento Antimafia), which opened in 2000, records some of the history. What I remember most was the singular phrase: “Noi ne parliamo …” (“We Talk About It”) which sat underneath a photograph of two men: Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. The airport at Palermo is named after them. Both judges, they had spent most of their lives trying to bring the Mafia figures to justice. They were both assassinated by the Mafia in two separate bombings. I still remember the black and white photograph in 1987 with the little bubble Fiat in the foreground after the second bomb went off killing Borsellino. He died only 57 days after his best friend Falcone was blown up on the freeway when returning from Rome. Four hundred kilograms of explosives had been placed in a culvert under the highway.

  The museum includes a Room of Pain including black and white photographs of the body of a woman whose family was killed by the Mafia and who then committed suicide. Her dark expressionless eyes still resonate. Many of the images and court documents exposing the wrongdoings of the Mafia mirrored the same decade I spent as a crime reporter with the corrupt Darlinghurst police in Sydney and other luminary figures in the underworld reminding me of how dangerous it is to speak the truth. But, without truth what kind of a world can we live in?

  Truth had always been my mantra as a journalist. The thought of keeping an award that had been sponsored by Adani – for the reportedly small sum of $2000 – to reward us for our efforts in excellence as Tourism Operators seemed obscene to both of us. We penned a piece on our Facebook page stating we were handing the award back. We were unprepared for the response. Our Facebook page was inundated with well-wishers congratulating us for returning the award. Some said they would choose our tour over others; others offered help. Many said they would spread the word.

  There were perhaps two comments in the hundreds we received from all around Australia that complained about what we had done. Australians were speaking out. They had had enough of politicians foisting this coal mine upon us. After the uproar, Tourism Whitsundays apparently decided that any offers from non-tourism sponsors (like the Adani company) had to be officially approved by the Board. No decision was made, however, to send Adani’s money back.

  It’s 29 October 2017. Annastacia Palaszczuk had just announced the Queensland State election. She’s going to an early election full of promises, egged on by her regional supporters like Townsville Mayor, Jenny Hill, who is delighted that in June 2017, Adani declared Townsville would become its regional headquarters. Jobs are in the air. Queensland will be great again. Mining will return. Palaszczuk’s first stop outside of Brisbane is Airlie Beach.

  The day before she arrived I got a call from one of our drivers, Alison Mason. I had met her some months previously while addressing a Stop Adani rally in Townsville. She was looking for work. Mason is heavily involved in the Stop Adani movement, regularly visiting the frontline Adani camp set up near Collinsville, an inland coal mining town. She also sells wares at the local markets to fundraise for those who have received fines during frontline action activities.

  Mason, 56, was in the UK when she first read in the Daily Telegraph Travel Magazine that Australian governments had given the go-ahead for the Carmichael mega-coal mine. “See the Great Barrier Reef on your bucket list before it is too late,” she remembers the magazine message. She dropped everything and headed home. A former Murdoch journalist and sub-editor, Mason devotes her life to worthy causes. Campaigning against fossil fuels is a high priority.

  “Do you know where Palaszczuk will be tomorrow for the start of her election campaign?” she asks me that afternoon.

  “No idea,” I reply.

  She calls again later.

  “She’s going to be at the waterfront,” Mason informs me.

  “The waterfront in Airlie Beach?” I say. Like looking for a needle in a haystack, I am thinking. There is waterfront everywhere in Airlie Beach.

  En route to picking up our Providence V guests early the next morning, Mason hears on media coverage that Palaszczuk is already in Airlie Beach and giving media interviews. She drives down to the lagoon – the heart of Airlie Beach – and hits the jackpot. Palaszczuk is on a podium doing a stand-up to a bevy of cameras: Sky News, ABC, Channel 7. Mason waits her turn. As the Premier finishes her stand-up with Channel 7, she notices Mason, the only member of the public present so early in the morning. Palaszczuk’s itinerary has not been widely publicised. There are no other protestors in sight.

  “Annastacia Palaszczuk, fancy meeting you here. Why are you doing nothing to save the Great Barrier Reef?” she begins.

  “I love the Great Barrier Reef,” Palaszczuk counters.

  “Well … why don’t you try to protect it?”

  “We all do …” continues Palaszczuk faltering.

  “You said you would protect it last time you were elected.”

  “We are spending $100 million on it.”185

  “What are you spending $100 million doing?”

  “On water quality and the farms …”

  “You are putting it on water quality?” Mason is getting angry. “What are you doing to stop Adani putting eight times the legally allowable particulate in the water pre-Cyclone Debbie?”

  “That’s not true …” Palaszczuk says, adding, “That was investigated.”

  Mason is taken aback. The Premier, she is thinking, does not know her facts. It was true, as Adani had been fined, even if they had appealed.

  “It was thoroughly investigated,” Palaszczuk answers.

  “And your own government fined Adani $12,000 …”

  Palaszczuk moves a step closer placing her right hand on Mason’s shoulder.

  “I’m not going to argue with you …”

  As soon as Palaszczuk places her hand on Mason’s shoulder, two of Palaszczuk’s minders approach. The Premier returns to the podium to continue her media standups.

  “You’ve had your say Ma’am.”

  “Are you security?”

  ‘Yes, we are.”

  “You’ve had your say. You’ve had a good say. You’re getting agitated and you’re starting to interrupt,” one of them tells her.

  “I am not agitated,” Mason is quietly efficient.

  “I can see you’re upset. Your lips are quivering. Your eyes are quivering. Ok? So, I can see you’re upset. So how about we cool down and maybe talk about it?” one man adds.

  “Do you understand that I’m not upset?” Mason says quietly.

  Mason tells me later she well knew these men were employing tactics to provoke her.

  “You’ve had your chat,” he continues.

  Mason counters: “Well … people of Queensland are upset about this because they don’t want the Adani mine. They see people like you – heavy security – trying to suppress their words …”

  “You’ve had your chat.”

  “Everyone in Queensland. Everyone in Airlie Beach is against the mine.”

  “We understand that.”

  “We’ve signed petitions. We’re not standing in the middle of the street yelling at the Premier.”

  The men continue to stand next to her.

  “She doesn’t seem very well-informed,” Mason continued in a reasonable voice.

  Neither the men nor Mason are aware that Channel 7 has continued fil
ming the aftermath of the media conference including the exchange with the security men. This is far more active footage than the humdrum, predictable pre-election speak issued by the Premier from the podium.

  In spite of the intimidation, Mason is cucumber cool. The men are still standing close to her … Police are supposed to be there for the security of the Premier, not to quell free speech. Mason fumes inwardly. She is aware of the existence of the Queensland Fixated Threat Assessment Centre set up by Palaszczuk’s predecessor, Campbell Newman, which allows Queensland police officers and clinicians from the Forensics and Mental Health Service to declare those who focus on Government officials and the public a ‘fixated person’.

  The clip from the Channel 7 footage goes viral with almost 10,000 hits, especially when it is linked to a story in the regional newspaper The Daily Mercury in Mackay.186 Bullying is not the kind of behaviour the Premier wants to see go to air on the first day of her election campaign. But it is clear from the multitude of comments that’s how the public perceives it. Even shock jock Alan Jones, known for his anti-Adani stance, reportedly applauds Mason’s nerve. Jones also took part in a TV advertisement seeking to ‘stop the taxpayer loan to Adani’.

  After social media goes viral, Mason later identifies herself on Twitter as ‘the upset woman’ as she’s been titled on the clip. Later that morning, Mason with the rest of the community action group Reef Action Whitsundays (RAW), obtain police permission to mount a placard action on the roadway leading out of Airlie Beach towards the small sleepy sugar cane town of Proserpine – the administrative hub of the Whitsundays which the Premier is visiting. Mason follows the official entourage, who are in rented people movers, in her own car. In Proserpine, she plays cat and mouse as the police try to throw her off the trail.

  First Palaszczuk attends the Labor candidate’s campaign office. Getting out of her car in the main street, Mason immediately spies what she describes as ‘the goons’ hiding in shop doors and begins to photograph them on her phone. Their reaction is swift. One begins photographing Mason whereupon she applies lipstick turning one side towards them. “That’s my better profile,” she quips. She trails them through town while they try to wave her on. She is pulled over twice by police that morning and subjected to licence checks. Later, Palaszczuk drives to the hospital where she is to make an announcement. RAW have set up a picket line at the front of the hospital. The Premier is forced to leave through a back door.