Happy Australia Day! Mt Warning Australia Day Speech

Photo by Steven Gibbs

My Speech 26 January 2024 at Gerald Parker Park Uki.

Happy Australia Day!

I’m proud to be Australian! I'm proud of what this Country has achieved and represents, and of the Western values of Liberal Democracy that underpin that success. There are dark forces out there that want to see this country fail. Sadly some of these people are the very politicians and bureaucrats we put our faith in to run the country for everyone and not just for large corporations, or groups who see themselves as perpetual victims rather than active citizens. We need to ask ourselves what we can give this great nation rather than what we can take from it. We are all Australians regardless of race, religion or how long we have been here. We need to reinvigorate a sense of national pride as we face an uncertain future in troubling times, or frankly we face extinction. 

One of the foundations of our great Australian identity is our interaction with the unique Australian landscape. Our connection with our country and its outstanding natural beauty is mentioned in our National Anthem. It speaks of our appreciation of the beauty of the place we inhabit: “Our land abounds in nature's gifts Of beauty, rich and rare”. This sunburnt country, of sweeping plains and ragged mountain ranges that we live in has helped forge our Australian character.  Our bonds of mateship, our ingenuity and ability to bounce back after disaster, and our sense of humour originate to a large extent from the land around us.  Without access to our country we risk losing the very essence of what makes us Australian. 

Photo Adrian Hoffman

And this brings me to Mt Warning. The late Marlene Boyd recognised our close connection to our land in what she said about visiting the Mt Warning Summit: “How can the public experience the spiritual significance of this land if they do not climb the summit and witness creation." This is a powerful affirmation of what we all feel when we visit these special places. 

The mountain’s summit provides a platform that reveals remarkable views over World heritage listed rainforests, coastal plains and beaches, and the eroded remnants of the walls of a 23 million-year volcanic caldera. The summit provides a vantage point to appreciate the beauty of our natural world, inspires awe and wonder in our surroundings and reminds us, Warns us, of how special this place is, how fragile, and how important it is to preserve it for future generations. For the last 20 years or so, rather than work for everyone who has a stake in the mountain, the people we have trusted to look after it on our behalf, our National Parks Service, have let the country down. This has been done based on lies that stack as high as the mountain itself. These lies are exposed in my book A Guide to Climbing Mt Warning. They include falsehoods about the environmental impact of visitors and the safety of the walking route. But the most serious offence lies in the falsehoods and fabrications surrounding calls to ban the public from the park due to this secret men’s business. None of the claims stands up to close scrutiny. In 1995 faced with similar claims related to the building of the Hindmarsh Bridge the South Australian government established a Royal Commission in the secret women’s business that held up that project. It found the secret Women’s business was a fabrication, a lie. I call on the NSW government to establish a similar royal commission to deal with the Aboriginal Claims at Mt Warning. Let us shed some light on the issue and see what is exposed. 

Our National Parks belong to all Australians and access to them via long established tracks and trails is the right of everyone. The trail to the summit of Mt Warning is 115 years old this year. Access to our natural wonders must not be limited due to the religious views of others or petty bureaucratic restrictions that do nothing to protect our parks. These places belong to all of us. Our National Park authorities seem to have forgotten this. It's the very reason they were founded in the first place. It's time we reminded them of it. It's time to Reopen Mt Warning and other wonders that have been closed, and lay in place provisions that will ensure other places of awe and wonder can continue to be accessed by everyone and not a privileged few.