Eureka 150
Contents
Presentation to Parliament for Eureka 150
Exactly 150 years since the Ballarat Reform League presented their Charter for ratification to over 10,000 miners on Bakery Hill on 11 November 1854, the Mayor of Ballarat, Councillor David Vendy, presented a framed copy of the four page Charter to the Victorian Parliament. The historic presentation, which received bipartisan support form all sides of government concluded with Premier Steve Bracks stating the charter "Was ahead of its time. The Ballarat Reform League Charter is a landmark document in the history of our nation. it is our Declaration of Independence. Our Magna Carter. And a cornerstone of Australian democracy."<Ballarat Courier, 12 November 2004.</ref>
The Eureka Flag flew on the Victorian Parliament house on 11 November 2004 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Charter's ratification. [1]
Speeches
AUSTRALIA POST
Speech by Professor Geoffrey Blainey presented this speech at the launch by Australia Post of its Eureka Stockade 150th Anniversary Stamp Issue on the steps of Parliament House Melbourne and at The Eureka Centre Tuesday 29th June 2004.
"It¹s just a postage stamp, but it will arouse mountains of discussion. The battle at the Eureka Stockade was all over in an hour, but many people are still arguing about it. The event will provoke nation-wide debate this year, the 150th anniversary. Congratulations to Australia Post for honouring this event with such fidelity to history.
Nearly every political party and group in Australia has claimed a special link with Eureka. The Labor Party, the Liberal Party, the old DLP, the Nationals, the Communists, the Republicans, the Multiculturalists, the upholders of civil liberties, the opponents of excessive government regulation, the opponents of the national identity card, today¹s trade union movement, today¹s mining prospectors - they all pluck a different message from the Eureka Stockade.
Next to Gallipoli this is probably the most debated military event in our history. Of course it is older than Gallipoli. Curiously the leader of the Eureka rebellion, Peter Lalor, lost a grandson at Gallipoli.
What actually happened? Ballarat in 1854 was one of the most populous goldfields the world had seen. A spreading metropolis of tents and huts and shops and hotels, it was pockmarked with mining holes and shafts, shallow and deep.
But the miners were hit by outdated regulations and taxes. Everybody had to buy an expensive licence, even if he earned no income. And the police who hunted for the unlicensed miners - they were not the salt of the earth.
In the end there were massive meetings of protest, the symbolic burning of mining licences, the designing of a revolutionary flag, angry talk of a republic, the collecting of guns and ammunition, and the building of a simple wooden fort or stockade. It was the only serious rebellion in our history.
The months of protest involved massive public support from the miners, but the final rebellion did not. The Victorian government had no option but to storm the stockade; every government in Europe would have done likewise. Soldiers and police made a surprise attack at dawn one Sunday morning. The death toll was 30 miners and five soldiers.
What lessons should we draw? We each will have our own ideas.
Firstly, the gold miners were demanding a ‘fair go’. This powerful democratic movement aired genuine grievances. The government did not listen attentively enough, did not act quickly enough.
Secondly, Australia is one of the oldest, continuous democracies in the world. Democracy means government by debate, government by discussion. The months of protests by miners strengthened that tradition. But the final building of the stockade and the one morning of battle defied that tradition.
We should celebrate Eureka and its democratic protests as a landmark event in Australian history. But we should not go too far in celebrating the battle itself, exciting and tragic as it was. The main lesson of Eureka is that debate, negotiation and compromise are more effective and humane than an appeal to arms".
Geoffrey Blainey 29 June 2004
DEMOCRACY CONFERENCE LAUNCH
A speech by John Ireland at the launch in Ballarat of the Eureka 150 Democracy Conference 24 August 2004.
May I begin by thanking the University of Ballarat for inviting me to take part in launching this Conference.
This is the third Conference I have attended on Eureka and its legacy organised by the Universities in Ballarat. At each of the previous two our understanding of what happened at Eureka has been modified and enlarged. Ten years ago several speakers were still maintaining the Government’s case at the Treason Trials, i.e. that the meeting on Wednesday 29 November was a call to take up arms and that the Thursday meeting was simply a continuation of the seditious Wednesday one. The discovery of the shorthand writer’s transcripts of the Trials demonstrated clearly that the temper of the two meetings was totally different and that what had caused the change was the Licence Hunt on the Thursday morning, which the Government had quite failed to mention in its presentation of the Prosecution case. Truth in Government was an issue then as well as now!
At the next Conference questions were asked about the influence of the British Chartists in formulating the Ballarat Reform League’s Charter and whether, indeed, this Ballarat Charter was the programme for change which the Diggers thought represented their views. In other words, that the Charter encapsulated what the diggers meant by their ‘rights and freedoms’ which they swore by the Southern Cross to uphold.
I look forward to what this Conference will bring to light. I know of two new issues that will come up but I am sure there will be more. The first issue is the spelling out of why the contention of some that manhood suffrage was already promised in the New Constitution is both mistaken and misleading, and the other is the question of whether the swearing of the Oath under the Flag really took place on the Thursday afternoon or on the Friday morning! New evidence has emerged suggesting that it might have indeed been on the Friday.
One of the interesting things about the Eureka story is that new evidence is still emerging and this is a reason why these Conferences are so important. As the story becomes clearer, so the implications of its influence on later events becomes clearer too.
It is now much clearer than ten years ago what the miners were fighting for and why the Government thought their campaign so dangerous as to need ruthless suppression. The understanding of the Chartist links explains why the Government viewed the miners’ agitation with such fear. Just six years previously huge Chartist agitation in Britain had called forth an equally huge demonstration of the force available to the Government to put the demonstrations down. It did not come to armed confrontation in Britain, fortunately, and the Chartists were cowed. What were the Chartists demanding? Why, democracy! What was the Victorian Government putting down? Democracy! But, though the Government won the battle at Eureka, it did not succeed in putting down democracy. Why? Because the casual use of such violence on its part turned the majority of the good citizens of Victoria against it and within a short space of time most people moved from being either anti- or luke-warm towards democracy to supporting it, and supporting a programme of change to bring it in.
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And we have never wavered since. We became one of the first democratic nations in the world and proud of it. One of the interesting things about the debates about voting rights just prior to Federation is that, at a time when no country in Europe offered manhood suffrage, except the Swiss, nobody at all questioned whether there should be a vote for all adult males here. The debate was all about votes for women. In Britain this was not granted until the 1920’s and in France not until after the 1939-45 War. Admittedly we were totally blind to the rights of aborigines and other non-white people to vote, but, then, so was the Land of the Free where non-whites were systematically prevented from exercising their voting rights too.
If you ask, What would have happened to the campaign for democracy in Victoria if Eureka had not occurred? I think the answer has to be that it would have happened anyway, but neither so quickly, nor would it have been so overwhelmingly embraced on all sides. By dramatising the issues Eureka speeded up the quest for democracy and made it a central issue in the way Victoria has evolved to this day.
Secret Ballot, Regular Elections and Payment of Members of Parliament (so that poor men might represent the Poor), these were all Victorian firsts and on the Chartist programme. It took much longer to deal with equal Electoral Electoral Districts and get rid of the Rural Gerrymander, and the entrenched conservative power of the Upper House was only finally broken just last year. A matter that has not been much noticed was the way that itinerant workers, like miners and shearers for instance, were denied the vote until the 1930’s, when the richer classes became more mobile in their new motorcars, by the failure to put any provision for Absentee voting in place.
There is much to talk about. I commend the debates at the Conference to you.
Thank you.
© John Ireland 24 August 2004
Eureka Commemorative Coin
The Royal Australian Mint struck a coin commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade. For three days only coin enthusiasts had a chance to strike an E mintmark on the coin, with the mintmark machine operating at the Eureka Stockade Centre. It was the first time in the mint's history that an E had been struck on a coin. [2]
The commemorative coin is an aluminium bronze $1 coin featuring a design by the winner of the Sydney Olympic victory medal competition, Wojciech Pietranik. Polish born Pietranik drew inspiration from the Charles Doudiet Eureka Slaughter painting. [3]
Eureka 150 Democracy Conference
The Eureka 150 Democracy Conference was held from Thursday 25 November 2004 until Saturday 27 November, at the University of Ballarat Caro Conference Centre, Mt Helen.
Eureka Encyclopeadia
After more than 20 years research the Eureka Encyclopaedia was launched on 01 December 2005 by Ballarat MHR Catherine King. With funding denied, the authors Justin Corfield, Dorothy Wickham and Clare Gervasoni published the tome as a 'labour or love'. The believe it is the one lasting tribute that will remain from the Eureka 150 celebrations.
In 2005 the Eureka Encyclopaedia was the overall winner of the Victorian Community History Awards.
Eureka Circle
Dr Anton Hasell's Eureka Circle sculpture was erected in the Eureka Stockade Memorial Park to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade. The sculpture comprises of 20 steel panels depicting the Eureka story. Dr Hasell said he designed the interpretive sculpture with the intention of creating an experience facing every mner on the goldfields at that time - either to join in or to stay out. The artist wanted visitors to experience the feeling of entering the barricade, to cross a line with many layers attached to it. [4]
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