The evening turned out to be a bit of an organizational shambles. One journo turned up, got my picture and left after my little speech. He wasn’t there long enough to see how passionate the audience became when scientists and planning specialists spoke, how the sudden availability of what was, in the end, pretty dry information, ignited them like a flame given oxygen. Afterwards we were inundated by offers of help from marine science students, pensioners and young parents. We were still only an idea but at least now a few hundred people shared it.
A tiny trickle of money came in. While the committee got on with the grinding procedural business of seeking out bureaucrats and experts and sifting through masses of government papers, a few bumper stickers were printed to give the campaign a public focus. Right from the start we could never print enough to keep up with demand.
As it slowly gathered momentum, Save Ningaloo began forming alliances with people in the Gascoyne region, in the communities closest to the proposed resort. Campaigners flew if they could, but often as not went up four to a car and shared motel rooms or tents. In Coral Bay the public bar was the only available meeting place. The locals may have looked like roughnecks – they could have been characters from a novel like Dirt Music – yet many of them, deckhands, divemasters, workers from the caravan parks and backpackers’, were passionate about the environment and they knew more about the reef and the developer than anybody.
In Coral Bay and Exmouth, opposition to the resort ran at well over 90 percent. We were invited to speak at chambers of commerce and progress associations and I was apprehensive about how we’d be received, but a truly unexpected coalition was born. Rural business and urban greenies? Commercial fishermen and greenies? You bet. Outside every meeting, from the North West Cape to Cottesloe, there were Kombis and BMWs, bicycles and utes. Suddenly we had a movement wherein you’d find the facially pierced and the bark-knuckled. All preconceptions were pointless, though I was once kicked out of the Coral Bay pub for being barefoot after six p.m. There’s a limit, I guess. On occasion I shared a plane with one or more of the developers. We made awkward but good-natured conversation; they seemed like decent enough blokes.
Newspaper and television stories about us began to appear. Radio presenters got curious. Even one of Perth’s right-wing shock jocks gave us a fair hearing at first. The campaign’s early success was piquing people’s interest. And it seemed to me that ordinary sandgropers were getting to know Ningaloo by proxy. Better than that, they were starting to understand an ecosystem like this for what it is, a piece of the family silver, a common asset held in trust by government, one that did not automatically belong to speculators and developers. And soon people came to see that before such natural assets are given over to business concerns, an orderly, coherent process of evaluation must be gone through.
Very slowly, departmental advisers began to take meetings with us and then cabinet ministers graced us with a hearing. Our spokesperson, Paul Gamblin, was steely and concise under pressure. Behind the scenes, Dennis Beros and David Mackenzie agonized over every strategy and the crushing weight of detail. We knew we’d never have the access to government that business people routinely enjoy, so we tried to make the most of it on the rare occasions we got it. I shut up whenever possible and tried to look intelligent. I avoided every meeting I could. I learnt what a PowerPoint presentation was. Later, as we pitched to curious or sympathetic civic leaders and even captains of industry, I came to realize that PowerPoint is the lingua franca. The media wants grabs and so do the movers and shakers. Grabs and pictures. No details, no time!
There was a period, probably up until the moment we were taken seriously, when local media treated us with a mild, indulgent interest, partly because of my involvement as a minor celeb and failed recluse, and partly because it was a soft story – we were harmless. After we started to make some headway things got harder.
So we learnt to stage ‘actions’ on slow news days. Our signature stunt involved a troupe of vollies called the Ninga-turtles who gussied up in blue body stockings and wore plastic laundry baskets on their backs. They camped outside banks, MPs’ offices, wherever they were needed. We learnt about timing and placement, to judge the career situations of journos and take account of the egos of their all-important editors, for they, not the public’s right to know, are the crucial factor in deciding what is and what is not news. We had moles in newsrooms, friends who could warn us about the moods of certain news directors. I discovered more about some of these people than I ever wanted to know. Thankfully there were always a brave and curious few who covered the Ningaloo campaign impartially, but by and large, from the moment ordinary folks began to listen, we had to contend with a headwind.
The media is an ecosystem. Like the local political scene it’s a food chain comparable to that on a coral reef. Smaller fish are afraid to upset the big swimmers. In a city as small and incestuous as Perth there are sharp lessons to be learnt. The news world is as toothy as it is twitchy. Beware the journo trying to distance himself from the idealism of his youth. Take note of the youthful reporter for whom idealism sounds like an art movement. Never forget how welcome mediocrity is in such a profession in such a place. But don’t assume that the cynicism on view is held with any more sincerity than the utterances of parliamentarians. I guess I learnt these things on the job.
Having said all that, there are a lot of decent journos and hardworking pollies who want to do good but who are hopelessly constrained by circumstances beyond their control. If public advocacy teaches you anything, it’s to find out who has real political responsibility and who is owed a favour. Learn who the idealists are in cabinet, and by that I mean people with genuine conviction. Watch out for those who will only ever jump the way the numbers are likely to fall. Don’t assume that party politics are coherent. As with the media, make it your business to know who each member’s real boss is. And never underestimate the role of paid lobbyists: they’re the mercenaries in the mix. They make journos and backbenchers look like romantics. These are the people you’re never told about at school. Sometimes, in Perth especially, they are not content to be the conduits of power, they aspire to be power itself.
Don’t make assumptions about anyone based on their job or their clothes or the suburb they live in. The stockbroker in the Jag could be an ally. The lady in the twinset and pearls might be weary of being misunderstood and secretly ashamed of what her husband does for a living. Don’t give up on the shabby older journo hoisting his gut from the company car; he might have a memory and a soft spot for the little people.
Running a campaign, I discovered, is not just a community-building exercise but also a short, sometimes brutal lesson in your own personal prejudices. At a remote station in the midwest I met a wealthy gent who was curious about what we were up to. We walked for an hour or two through a eucalypt woodland and agreed to meet in Perth a few weeks later. At that meeting he brought along a friend. They were men of industry who loved nature. They each cut us a very big cheque and kept us alive as a group.
Our second public meeting crammed the Fremantle town hall in April 2002. Fifteen hundred people came. National newspapers, TV and radio covered it, and afterwards citizens peppered the press and pollies with letters. Vollies ran fundraisers, auctions and stalls. They painted banners and took up positions at railway stations to hand out flyers. MPs from every party wanted to meet us and offer discreet advice. Members of unions, clubs and churches gave quiet support. Perth streets were awash with our blue bumper stickers.
But as the response from local media cooled we were forced to do more and more of our advocacy online. In the days before Twitter and Facebook the internet was a fresh field for activism. Save Ningaloo was one of the first environmental campaigns to harness some of its potential. Without the website that Dave Graham, a Queensland volly, set up and maintained in our name, it would have been impossible to get information out fast enough and often enough to keep the enterprise going.
In response to our p
rogress the developer’s PR company began to crank out the spin in earnest and they gained real traction in the Perth press and on radio. The shock jocks gave them a handy platform. Things started to feel rocky.
And then we had a few strokes of luck. The novel I’d published the year before won several literary prizes. These brought media interest and I was able to turn that attention to Ningaloo. When the book won a WA Premier’s Prize and Geoff Gallop was booked to hand the cheque over in person, it was too good an opportunity to miss. But miss it I did. I was working overseas at the time. Nevertheless I accepted the money by proxy and donated it to the campaign. A stunt, of course, but by then I’d learnt how these things work. The money and momentum bought the campaign a few more weeks’ grace.
But for much of late 2002 stunts were all we had. Anneke de Graaf was our stunt-mistress and pied piper. The Ninga-turtles ambushed pollies with friendly and comical actions and sometimes TV crews showed up. People sculpted huge turtles on city beaches for press photographers. Feeling the cool wind from the West Australian, the state’s monopoly daily, we took our story to suburban newspapers and community radio. By then we were nearly broke, flannelling away and holding on for the decision of the Environmental Protection Authority whose recommendation would probably indicate which way the political cards were to fall.
This was our lowest ebb. We were jittery and exhausted. People’s families and work lives were under awful strain. Several folk were working sixty hours a week for nothing. We were scrounging, pleading for money, fed up, obsessed, not sleeping. Ningaloo dominated our lives and we were close to the burnout that every developer counts on. In desperation, we wrote dozens of letters to prominent Australians at home and abroad to beg for help. The response was astounding. First to put his huge hand up was NBA star Luc Longley. Then other sportspeople, actors, scientists and rockers signed up as supporters, lifting the morale of the faithful and exciting the curiosity of the public.
Toni Collette offered herself as media bait and the scornful press came running. We took Toni north to Ningaloo, and with the help of awestruck locals gave her a long swim with manta rays a few metres from where the enormous hole would be dug if the developer had its way. Toni spoke passionately about the reef and against the resort. Images of that encounter went national and overseas.
Within weeks, the EPA brought down its recommendation on the proposal, but its language was so choked with bureaucratic doublespeak that nobody knew whether it meant yes or no. The developer claimed victory. The West Australian editorialized in favour of the resort and took the time to brand those citizens opposing it as part of ‘a presumptuous . . . self-proclaimed environmental elite’. We hadn’t been imagining the antipathy. With the emergence of that weasel word, ‘elite’, I thought the jig was up. The shock jocks loved it. Finally someone was talking their language again.
But the campaign now represented so many diverse people that the slur never stuck. In retrospect, the furore over the EPA’s decision and the baldness of the West’s editorial did us a huge favour. It mobilized supporters we didn’t even know we had. It aroused indignation. People helped buy time on FM youth radio. An email campaign began and in the weeks to follow twenty thousand people wrote to Gallop. T-shirts appeared and eighty thousand stickers went all over Australia and abroad.
On 1 December 2002 fifteen thousand people marched through the streets of Fremantle. The local mayor said it was the biggest public demonstration there in living memory. This was no shadowy, mythical elite. This was rate-paying Australia, school-going Australia, suburban Australia. A phalanx of marchers a kilometre long brought the city to a standstill. Famous footballers walked alongside teachers and retirees and schoolkids. The same day, hundreds of like-minded souls gathered in Coral Bay and Exmouth. In all three places it was a peaceful, colourful, passionate gathering. The whole of Fremantle’s Esplanade was a mass of faces and banners. I’d never spoken to so many people at once before. I felt a terrible responsibility, that I’d helped give them hope for something I was by no means certain we could deliver. But the day was a triumph. It was clear people wanted their natural heritage safeguarded.
And it was soon obvious that public passion about the reef was not ephemeral. A couple of months after the rally, when the Seattle grunge band Pearl Jam came to town, lead singer Eddie Vedder took time during the performance to mention the plight of Ningaloo. Vedder said ruefully after the concert that the crowd responded to mention of the reef more intensely than to any of his songs. But would anybody in power listen?
In the end, sensing the mood, the premier undertook direct responsibility for the Ningaloo decision. In June that year, in the space of two days alone, he received more than eight thousand emails. Each of those was copied to his entire cabinet and the government’s computer system felt the strain. It was bigger than anything we could have expected.
Despite vicious smears generated by the developer’s dwindling supporters, including some choice things said under parliamentary privilege, I began to believe we might actually have a chance. Each of us fluctuated on this point hourly. It was torture.
Things came to a head in a hurry. The EPA appeals process finished. The information gathering was done. The countless all-nighters by unheralded and so often unheeded scientists were over and the verdict was imminent. When to massive acclaim the premier canned the resort once and for all the West editorialized approvingly. Those mythical elites were forgotten.
One of the first emails of congratulation to reach our office that morning was from an outer-suburbs panelbeater. There were jubilant and sometimes tearful calls from all over the world, and weeks later the deluge continued. On the night of the announcement a stranger with a biker beard kept kissing me. There was a kind of delirium in the air. The streets were full of Camrys, delivery trucks and tradesmen’s utes bearing emblematic blue stickers. Within days the government launched an impossibly lavish advertising campaign to publicize its decision.
Something quite out of the ordinary had happened. A bunch of amateurs with the help of a couple of battleworn campaigners had inspired citizens to get involved in a decision about their common wealth, their natural heritage. At least a hundred thousand people had taken part in some way, almost every one of them a volunteer.
How did we succeed when most community campaigns fail? I am not really sure. And it would be naive and foolhardy to think that this battle has been won for all time. We didn’t save Ningaloo Reef, we just improved the odds of its survival a little. We encouraged the state to redraft its coastal planning regime and perhaps emboldened a few other Australians to preserve their natural estate. Our efforts were sometimes raggedy, but they were always inclusive; we sought to be the broadest possible church, marrying sober science and the passion of citizens defending their country. We had the strange new power of the internet to bring people together cheaply. And we were lucky to be mounting a campaign that began as a new and relatively idealistic premier came to power and which peaked as his government passed its mid-term point and became vulnerable.
Perhaps our success had something to do with the rise of green politics in this country and abroad. It seemed to me at the time that this movement might have been named after the wrong colour, that nothing was as likely to stir the imagination of Australians so much as the sea. With Save Ningaloo we stumbled onto the only sacred site in the mind of mainstream Australia – the beach. Somehow the childhood memory of clean seas and the workaday longing for respite in salty air and the dream of retiring to a still-living coast resonate in the suburbs like nothing else.
Every civic struggle is different in its details and its timing, but I learnt that to give itself half a chance and make itself heard, the advocacy group needs both visionaries and hard-arses, fetishists for detail and broad-stroke types, community builders and political animals alike. You need generous people, rich and poor – kind ones, too. Like it or not, you’ll require some thick-skinned celebs and a few silly stunts. Perhaps most of all you need grou
p discipline. The luck required to pull off something lasting cannot be so easily sourced.
Not everything I learnt as a rabble-rouser was welcome information, but one thing sticks out. You can still appeal to people’s better instincts. People do believe in the common good. For that they will make sacrifices. They’ll blossom as comrades and do difficult things for love. And in the face of every ugly revelation that pours from the news day and night, I’ll hold onto that.
* In 2004, 34 percent of Ningaloo was gazetted as sanctuary. In 2011 the entire reef was added to the World Heritage register.
Letter from a Strong Place
In memory of Peter Bartlett
After dinner these days it’s still light enough to walk down through the ash wood behind the cottage, climb the stone wall of the old bull paddock and spend half an hour checking rabbit snares along the hedges. If the evening’s clement enough I’ll ramble through other fields and into the lanes that wind up to where the Slieve Bloom Mountains float behind the mist. All along the way choughs will be trafficking in the hawthorn. Down at the swampy bottomland the sweet smell of peat fires overcomes even the reek of silage, and house lights are coming on here and there. Dogs bark and cattle bellow in their barns. As I make my way up from the valley floor, the grim shadow of Leap Castle is always in sight, plain against the marbled sky. I climb stiles and slip through hedges, crossing soaks and pastures until I reach the Hanging Tree in the field beneath the ramparts of the estate where I turn for the Gate Lodge that’s been home to us for the past five months. Coming up the freshly gravelled walk I see the slate roof through the trees and think of the night ahead: a cottage full of books, a turf fire, a strong pot of tea.