by Heather Rose
And this:
The project will make efficient use of material resources and human capital; Chinese entrepreneurism in Tasmania will focus on capitalising on forms of knowledge that meet modern consumer demands for functional and attractive goods and services.
And this:
The Tasmanian hydroelectric scheme is underdeveloped. Expansion of the scheme will allow significant upscaling for increased demands for both domestic and industrial use …
There were charts with water volume targets in gigalitres and projections of net revenue over the next fifty years. There were future projections on the expansion of agricultural outputs too: wine, cheese, fish, seafood, beef and sheep.
On and on it went. The detailed analysis. The transition strategy. The business case. I thought of all the times I had heard my dad quote Benjamin Disraeli: ‘A conservative government is an organised hypocrisy.’
I thought about what came next. I made a couple of calls. It was late in Tasmania, but it was early elsewhere. I was on the 8 am ferry. I was at Officeworks at 8.45 am. I returned to Bruny on the 10.30 am ferry. I set up the scanner. At no time did I touch the documents with my bare hands. While the top secret header and footer on every page had been cut off before the documents came to me, I wasn’t taking any chances. When the scans were done, I transferred files onto two USB sticks.
The next day, I borrowed Dan’s car again and got back on the ferry. I drove to a post office in Cygnet, by the cafe where I’d met Amy O’Dwyer. It had no surveillance or CCTV. There I express posted the USB sticks to two international destinations. At no time did I touch the parcels or use my real name or my regular handwriting.
Back on the island, I made some calls to old friends and together we made a list. I texted it from my second phone to the mobile number Edward had given me. I carefully took down the web of photos and names, the threads and pins, the ideas and theories I had mapped on the wall of the spare room. I took my notebooks, too, and the original documents from Beck. I burned everything in the fireplace until it was white ash.
I met Tavvy and Paul off the plane when they arrived at Hobart airport and there was much joy and also grief. He had loved them well, my dad, and because Ben’s mother had visited rarely, and my mother had never visited at all, Angus Coleman had really been the only grandparent they’d known. I took them to Salamanca and we had lunch, and then we all went back to JC’s. They slept for a while, then JC came home and Max arrived with Mother.
For a woman who had just lost her husband of almost sixty years, Hyacinth Coleman was remarkably chirpy. She had been allowed out of hospital under strict instructions. She was wearing a light brown wig today, the colour of her real hair a long time ago. It was done in a French roll, and her dress and shoes were navy. Phillip had obviously tried to set the tone for a grieving widow.
‘Goodness,’ said our mother, when she saw Tavvy and Paul across the lounge room engaged in conversation with Grace and Ella. ‘I’ll never get used to it.’
‘What’s that, Mum?’ I asked.
She hadn’t seen them in ten years, so I thought she was referring to their having become adults since their last visit.
‘Well, they’re black, Astrid. How could you do that to the family?’
And because my father was dead, and my heart was broken, and the whole world felt upside down, I couldn’t hold it in.
‘I did it to annoy you, Mum.’
‘That’d be right,’ she said. ‘So they wouldn’t feel like my grandchildren.’
‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘I don’t think you feel like their grandmother.’
‘How ridiculous,’ she said, stiffening. ‘Of course I’m their grandmother.’
At this she set off across the room in her high heels, unsteady but certain, and went up to the little group. She kissed Paul and Tavvy, asked how their flight was, and insisted they sit on either side of her at dinner.
‘Did Grandma take nice pills?’ Tavvy asked, when Mother was distracted in conversation with Paul.
I nodded. ‘Seems so.’
JC raised his glass. ‘I propose a toast to Angus Coleman, lately of this table, lately of this world, always of this family. Rest in peace.’
I wanted to hate JC. I wanted to hate him, but he’s my twin. And I could feel Dad shaking his head. ‘Not the time, Astrid. Not the time.’
‘Well, at last I’ll get all the attention,’ said Mother. ‘High time, too.’
Tavvy turned to her and said, ‘Grandma, sometimes it’s better not to say certain things aloud.’
‘Oh, I’m far too old to subscribe to that,’ said Mother.
JC continued his toast, ‘And to our mother, matriarch of the Coleman family, may she long say everything she wants to say.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said our mother, raising her champagne glass.
‘Any words to say about Dad, Mum?’ Max asked.
‘He was … well, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He was Angus. Always the same. Never changed.’
‘Shall we put that on his headstone?’ I asked.
‘Actually, it’s a serious question,’ said Max. ‘What do you want on his headstone, Mum? A Shakespeare quote, maybe?’
‘Really?’ Mother said, looking at all of us. ‘Haven’t we had enough of that?’
We all exchanged glances.
‘Oh, well, if you must. God, I’ll have to read it every time I visit,’ she said.
‘Were you planning on visiting?’ Tavvy asked.
‘Goodness, you’re a chip off the old block, aren’t you?’ our mother said, and chortled.
‘So what will it be?’ Max asked, looking at me.
I shook my head and looked at JC. ‘Have you settled on anything?’
He shook his head too.
Then Ella perked up. ‘Can I leave the table, Mum? I’ve got an idea.’
Stephanie nodded. Ella ran out. She came back and stood at the head of the table beside JC, scrolling through her notes. JC put his arm around her. A look passed between him and me. He was unfaithful to his wife and he’d sold Tasmania. How would I ever trust him again? I guess I didn’t have to.
‘You must send me all of those,’ I said to Ella.
‘Okay, I will,’ she said. ‘Here it is. I know he really liked this one because he said it to me and Grace often.’ And in a voice Angus would have commended her for, she read, ‘A good heart is the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes.’
There wasn’t a dry eye at the table. Even our mother looked moist for a moment.
‘That’s the one, Ella,’ I said.
‘Henry the Fifth,’ she told me.
‘That’s the one, sweetheart,’ said JC, and he hugged her to his side.
Tavvy put her head on my shoulder. ‘I’m really going to miss him.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s going to be a hole.’
‘I’d rather hoped,’ said our mother, ‘he might have stopped on the way and taken me with him.’
We all looked at her.
‘Mum,’ said Max.
‘Well, as always, he made it look easy, didn’t he?’ she said.
‘Dying?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said our mother.
It was then that I realised our mother was afraid. And alone. I reached out and took her hand.
‘We’re all here, Mum. We know cancer sucks. We’re all here for you.’
‘About time,’ she said, lifting her napkin and dabbing the tears away.
CHAPTER FORTY
The day after Paul and Tavvy flew back to the US, the story of the Bruny Bridge broke across the world. It hit the front page of the Hong Kong Standard with the headline CHINA DOWN UNDER and detailed the bold plan to move half a million Tasmanians from their homes onto a smaller, more southern island so that five million Chinese could be the first settlers. Within an hour, the Guardian picked it up and ran it online in the UK. It went live on the New York Times website too. Then it ran in the Finan
cial Times and the regular Times in London. With the cat out of the bag abroad, variations on sold for billions! ran on the front page of every major paper in Australia. No journalist could be prosecuted for revealing classified information if the information was already public knowledge around the world. And the stories were all run very carefully under the guise of syndicated copy—one of the rare benefits of a Murdoch press.
The story reached the readers of the Hobart Mercury last. The Mercury headline wasn’t SOLD FOR BILLIONS! It was TASSIE MILLIONAIRES! The front page included a big headshot of JC and an interview declaring his full support of the plan.
‘This plan,’ JC was quoted as saying, ‘allows us to take care of Tasmanians. People complain that politicians don’t think long term. Well, this is long term. We’re all going to be millionaires. What could possibly be wrong with that? And we’ll be in charge of our own destiny.’
When it was pointed out that Tasmanians would no longer be in charge of their destiny because they’d be living not in a state of Australia, but a state of China, JC refuted it. ‘We’ll still be Tasmanians,’ he said. ‘That’s our identity and no-one can take that away. We’ll have state-of-the-art facilities on one of the most beautiful islands in the world. Right across the bridge, we’ll have services and industries the Chinese are looking to develop and the jobs that come with that. Tasmania may yet become the next Silicon Valley with the technology the Chinese are looking to bring here. Tasmanians will be laughing all the way to the bank. That’s way better than being the poor cousin nationally.’
Every day that week, it made the front page, and numerous pages within. The letters section stretched to three pages by the Saturday. Online the discussion ran like wildfire. All over Australia people were debating the pros and cons of Tasmania being sold to the Chinese.
The mainland shock jocks promoted the government line. What’s good for Tassie is good for Australia. The words ‘mendicant state’ were touted. A drain on the federal coffers. Unemployment. All the economics of a remote destination with failing educational standards, high youth unemployment and the health stats of a poor, badly educated, ageing population. It was best to detach. Remove the weak link. ‘Like plucking a bad grape from the bunch,’ one of them said. ‘Australia will be stronger without Tasmania.’
Barney Viper featured heavily in the conversation. JC was out every day spruiking the deal. And Max prevaricated. Behind the scenes, her party was completely divided. Some saw it as the ultimate solution for Tasmanian families doing it tough. The old communists in the party embraced the whole scheme. More progressive members were adamantly resistant, calling it a vicious betrayal. Max had to somehow walk that tightrope and it wasn’t easy. She agreed that this was a way to lift every child out of poverty. But she did not see this as a brighter future for Tasmanians.
Amy O’Dwyer, leader of the Greens, was unequivocal. Her anger was incandescent. She came out in full force, declaring a giant conspiracy had been enacted on the Tasmanian people. She gave a speech on parliament lawns. ‘People call us Greens optimistic as if it is an insult. Because optimists fail to recognise the reality of forces at work beyond optimism: economic realism. Well, this is what economic realism looks like! Our ineffective federal government and our obsequious state government would have us surrender our values, our sense of place and our heritage. They would sell Tasmania to a foreign power that has no respect for human rights, democracy or the rule of law. Being Tasmanian is more than being from a place. It is our identity. We are Tasmanians first, Australians second. We love our island and our community. We will never surrender.’
#NeverSurrender became a meme with every kind of interpretation. #SaveTassie began trending internationally on all the social media platforms.
Farris, the BFG, Bruny in Action and every other group, both pro and anti the bridge, aligned against the deal too. All over the world, people were posting their photos of Tassie, sharing their stories of Tassie. Brilliant seascapes. Wild surfing breaks. Dolphins and whales. Wine and cheese. The deep wonder of rainforests. Wild rivers. Mountains. Bushwalks. Fresh air. Auroras. Fishing. Kayaking. Everyone who had ever been to Tassie was suddenly online. There was a global outpouring of Tassie love.
JC fought back valiantly, telling Tasmanians they needed to carefully consider their finances. This was a way to realise their investment in Tasmania—an offer that would never come again. An offer that could make their family wealthy for generations. They could choose to give up work.
The real estate industry was enthusiastically declaring the deal a win for all Tasmanians, but Amy O’Dwyer declared it just a win for their commissions. Amy’s partner, Charles Lee of Tourism Tasmania, was reporting a sudden spike in bookings from people wanting to visit before it all disappeared.
Barney Viper encouraged all the homeowners wanting to become millionaires to rally on the Parliament House lawns the following weekend. But a sit-in began on the lawns days before that, and it wasn’t those wanting to get three times the value of their properties, as Viper had expected. It began with a few Tibetans, but within two days the crowd had swelled to thirty thousand people. And because of the protest fines, it wasn’t a rally. It was a knit-a-thon. Needles and yarn of every variety were brought out to create a community event. People began knitting maps of Tasmania. Soon, not a ball of wool could be found in Hobart. Jumpers were being unravelled. Second-hand shops sold out of knitted garments, toys and blankets. Anything crocheted was being unwound and re-knitted at a great rate. Craft shops were awaiting new stock from the mainland. Relatives and friends in Melbourne, London, Sydney, Brisbane, Hong Kong, Perth and Adelaide sent parcels. Map-of-Tassie knit-a-thons began in other towns and cities. The owner of the famous art gallery outside Hobart offered to turn the maps into a permanent installation and funded the purchase of more wool.
Barney Viper was enraged at this peaceful uprising. When asked if he felt that this takeover of Tasmania by the Chinese government was another version of Tibet, Viper called the Dalai Lama a shuffling old monk and a CIA-funded fraud. He called the protestors the Anti-Everything Brigade. Then he harangued the Tasmanian chief of police, insisting that he issue five-thousand-dollar fines to the knitters on the lawns of Parliament House. But the police chief, a man who had seen a few protests in his time, said on ABC TV, ‘Senator Viper needs to remember that this is Tasmania and people can knit wherever they like.’
The Eternal Fragrant President gave an interview saying that the historic links between our two countries had been at the heart of the project. His government had responded to an offer by the Australian government in good faith. It had never been China’s preference to hide the deal from the Tasmanian people. China had done so only at the request of the Australian government. He also said that the notion of the sale of Tasmania had really been an exploration of how the two countries could better ally themselves. China had always had a presence in Tasmania, and it valued Tasmania as a jewel of the Southern Ocean. No disrespect was ever meant to the Tasmanian people. He stood by the offer outlined in the proposal and said that any Tasmanian wishing to sell their property to a Chinese investor was no different to anyone selling to any willing buyer. This was the face of democracy that he knew Australians respected. The transition process from an Australian to a Chinese territory would have to be reviewed, but he was sure that a solution was possible.
The journalist of the Hong Kong Standard article had disappeared. Word was she’d been whisked away to mainland China for re-education. But she popped up instead in New York, seeking asylum, with all the China Project paperwork, and a whole new media frenzy began on the details that had not yet been revealed.
The betrayal of government, the duplicity of politicians, the notion of community sovereignty, the infiltration of the Chinese Communist Party into Australia, the problem of overpopulation in the world, the making of backroom deals in the Australian parliament, politicians riding roughshod over due process, Tasmanians becoming wealthy and the upcoming Tasmanian electio
n—all these issues were in hot debate on every media platform. As was the behaviour of another summer cyclone hitting the coast south of Sydney.
Sydneysiders were battening down the hatches. Cyclone Pauline last summer was vivid in people’s minds and this one was behaving with similar ferocity. It was causing massive three- and four-metre storm surges, flooding coastal properties around Batemans Bay. It had flattened crops and destroyed roads, bridges and marinas. There was talk of it moving inland, towards Canberra, and blowing itself out. There was the chance it could move north towards Sydney; that got everyone very worked up. But it didn’t. The cyclone continued down the coast of Victoria until it hit the Tasman Sea. Meteorologists declared that now it would blow itself out. The cyclone was named Angus.
By the time the crowd of knitters had swelled to fifty thousand, and Salamanca was overflowing with picnic rugs, thermoses and knitting needles, Viper’s would-be millionaires were vastly outnumbered. JC decided to give it one last shot. He switched his charm into overdrive on every media channel as he attempted to convince the Tasmanian electorate that he was not a traitor, and that he had always, always, had the best interests of Tasmanians at heart. He said the vision to develop Bruny Island with all the benefits of a rich society—with investment in architecture, design, housing, the arts, sport, lifestyle—all this could be an inspiration to the world. Tasmania was yet again leading the way, benefiting from foresight, just as it had in becoming a clean, green destination.
Amy O’Dwyer came out and reminded the world that the Green movement had begun in Tasmania, and it was her party that had set the agenda for a clean, green destination, and Liberal and Labor had done everything they could to dismantle that vision, and never more so than now.