The 3068 Group’s Draft Submission to Heritage Victoria

Here is a link to the formal submission including footnotes.
Below is the main content. Members may email feedback to the 3068 group committee by COB Friday Feb 7th.

1. The Eastern Freeway Stage One, from Hoddle Street to Bulleen Road, is of social and historic heritage significance to the Wurundjeri people as an invasion of their land and Aboriginal cultural landscape. The whole area of the confluence of the Yarra River and Merri Creek is of particular importance to Aboriginal people, at least two Wurundjeri elders are known to have been interred nearby. “The choice of the confluence as the appropriate burial place of important leaders and warriors highlighted the traditional relevance of the locality’ (Ellender & Christiansen, 2001:116).”
The establishment of the Aboriginal school and Native Police station at the site also indicates the popularity of the confluence as a camping and gathering place for Aboriginal people, and also contributes to the great significance of this place to contemporary Wurundjeri.”

2. The western termination of the Eastern Freeway at Hoddle Street and Alexandra Parade, is of social heritage significance to a community of inner suburbs residents’ associations of the 1970s -90s, to the present day, as the physical artefact of their struggle for greater participation in the centralised planning process. The inner suburbs outside MCC and SCC areas struggled with the impact of redevelopment as they had neither councillors nor staff able to articulate the social and physical impact of high-rise housing and freeways. The residents’ associations were important in their ability to provide the inner suburbs with the capacity to put their arguments and to make their case and to argue it publicly, and to start to develop support and political clout on issues which, in the past, had been just ridden over.

The Eastern Freeway Stage One was developed while Rupert Hamer (1915-2004) was MLA for Kew (1971-1981), Premier of Victoria (1972-1979), and Minister for the Arts for seven years of his nine years premiership. He was a Trustee of Yarra Bend Park in 1982.

Protests from inner Melbourne residents led to the Eastern Freeway being terminated at Hoddle Street in 1977. An essential element in this achievement was their ability to talk the language of the experts and present cases with all the research done, in some cases more effective opponents than those presenting simply a demagogic face.

Following this, inner suburbs residents’ associations’ criticism and opposition to the 2014 East-West Link Project, a proposed 4.4 km tunnel from Hoddle Street, Clifton Hill to CityLink at Parkville led to the project being abandoned by the then opposition leader, Daniel Andrews, in the 2014 state election. In 2019, inner suburbs residents’ associations’ criticism and opposition to the 2018 North East Link Project and Eastern Freeway upgrade was expressed at a Panel. The political climate being generated by this activity was its implications for the wider conduct of political affairs in Victoria.

In 1972, the Eastern Freeway was constructed through the middle of the Park crossing both the Merri Creek and the Yarra River. Parts of the river were relocated and the Deep Rock Swimming Basin was completely demolished. This was highly controversial at the time, heightened by the destruction of rich history of not only of Wurundjeri origin, but European as well. (Wikipedia) The Eastern Freeway bisects the Park, but in the 1980s, attempts to run overhead high voltage power lines from Richmond to Brunswick through the Park failed due to strong community pressure. (Brian Carroll, Encyclopedia of Melbourne online).

Resonance

“… Residents’ associations became more sophisticated, developing sub committees on matters such as planning, education, social welfare, and heritage. The model was the Carlton Association, with its 2000 members, able to divide into numerous sub-committees drawing on the expertise of professional members and academics. There was a more coordinated approach between the associations with the formation of coalitions in Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide to achieve greater participation in the planning process, the introduction of third party appeals against development consent and more cooperation with local residents and local government from state planning authorities.”

‘curiously effective’, These words were used by Sydney sociologist, Andrew Jakubowitz in assessing the impact of the urban protest movement and the residents’ associations. Jakubowitz concluded that in Australia, the groups and the issues differed from place to place, and the measure of success varied. But what is important is the political climate being generated by this activity and its implications for the wider conduct of political affairs. An essential element in this achievement was ’their ability to use media and personal contacts within bureaucracies to talk the language of the experts and present cases with “all the research done” in some cases more effective opponents than those presenting simply a demagogic face.