No Franklin Dam Controversy? AusPol

[Colonel Grubb]

what if, for whatever reason the Franklin Dam Controvesry never erupts, e.g the project never got past the early internal planning stages, or another dam is built in a less environmentally sensitive place?

I’ve read in multiple sources that this fight was the moment that the Greens as a political force really came together. However I don’t know how much of that is romanticised myth and how much of that is fact.

So would a political Greens/non-labor left movement still have emerged, coalescing around another issue during the 1980s, and it would it potentially have the influence (or more or less even) than it does today?

Would that maybe mean, barring to many butterflies that the Australian Democrats would still be a force (albeit token perhaps) in the Senate?

 

[Nik]

For OTL background...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Dam_controversy

 

[Sam R.]

You're still going to get the NSW party out of the BLF

 

[HaroldWinthrop]

Good question. Maybe the rise of the Greens might be delayed by a few years, but a flashpoint would've happened elsewhere in Australia by the mid-1980s. One potential example might be around the efforts to stop the building of a road through the Daintree Rainforest in FNQ (http://cafnec.org.au/about-cafnec/how-the-wet-tropics-was-won/) - with added overlay of people jacking up against Joh Bjelke-Petersen's thoroughly corrupt National Party government. Particularly if the crazy idea of a spaceport in Cape York got up in the late 1980s (http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/jol/2013/10/21/whatever-happened-to-the-cape-york-spaceport/)

 

[Colonel Grubb]

Good question. Maybe the rise of the Greens might be delayed by a few years, but a flashpoint would've happened elsewhere in Australia by the mid-1980s. One potential example might be around the efforts to stop the building of a road through the Daintree Rainforest in FNQ (http://cafnec.org.au/about-cafnec/how-the-wet-tropics-was-won/) - with added overlay of people jacking up against Joh Bjelke-Petersen's thoroughly corrupt National Party government. Particularly if the crazy idea of a spaceport in Cape York got up in the late 1980s (http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/jol/2013/10/21/whatever-happened-to-the-cape-york-spaceport/)

Given the number of crazy schemes and 'stuff the environment' and white whale (or is that white shoe ) projects, its def possible, maybe the bridge to Stradbroke Island becomes a flashpoint or the rutile mining in the area.

 

[HaroldWinthrop]

Actually, after hearing Christine Milne (former Tasmanian MP & later Greens Senator & Party leader federally) speaking on Radio National this morning, the proposed Wesley Vale pulp mill near Devonport could be another potential (Tasmanian) trigger to pull the Greens together as a political force, while still retaining their OTL Tasmanian base.

 

[Cockroach]

First, a little disclaimer: My mother, aunt and various family friends were involved in the Franklin Blockade (on the anti-dam side)

what if, for whatever reason the Franklin Dam Controvesry never erupts, e.g the project never got past the early internal planning stages, or another dam is built in a less environmentally sensitive place?

Well, the alternative Gordon-Above-Olga scheme was also controversial, indeed, the referendum to decide between the two got a 45% No Dams informal vote. It may be possible to bring the King River scheme (IOTL completed in 1990/91) forwards instead... the power output of the scheme is somewhat lower (144MW) than the planned output of the Gordon-below-Franklin dam (180MW), but appears to have gone off with little real fuss. It may also be possible to increase the power output of several existing schemes (e.g. the Gordon power station is designed so it could take another two turbines and generators, potentially adding another 280-290MW to it's output) but that runs into storage issues (may not actually be that much of a problem... Pedder has a massive volume but in practice only about the top 2m (compared to a maximum depth of 43m) actually feed into Lake Gordon, and from there into the Gordon power station, *if* (and it's a big if) the channel could be deepened to 4-5m then the storage capacity of the Pedder-Gordon scheme could be increased enough to compensate for the extra outflow.

I’ve read in multiple sources that this fight was the moment that the Greens as a political force really came together. However I don’t know how much of that is romanticised myth and how much of that is fact.

So would a political Greens/non-labor left movement still have emerged, coalescing around another issue during the 1980s, and it would it potentially have the influence (or more or less even) than it does today?

A conservationist movement already existed in Tasmania in the aftermath of the ill-fated attempt to save Lake Pedder, and was already starting to push into state politics in the form of the United Tasmania Group which almost managed to score a seat at the 1972 state election.

That said, the Franklin blockade is the issue that IOTL really pushed the green movement into the Australian mainstream, and also the event that probably did a lot to associate the green movement with the political left.

 

[Spens1]

It was huge for the greens so i'd imagine without the controversy you may not have the rise of the likes of Bob Brown and probably won't have the rise of the Greens, or at least not the rise of them so soon.