I was horrified to hear, from Rosslyn Beeby at the Canberra Times a couple of weeks ago, that a tremendously important piece of Australia’s cultural heritage - Judith Wright’s property, Edge, where she wrote much of her later work - was up for sale on the open market.
I immediately wrote to the Environment Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, calling for emergency heritage listing of the property, as well as to the Duke of Edinburgh Award, calling on them to withdraw the property from sale.
Judith Wright left the property to the ANU, requesting that it be used as a wildlife refuge and for the study of ecology. ANU then gifted Edge to the Duke of Edinburgh Award for $1, which used it for their outward bound work. Now, the Duke of Edinburgh Award have put it on the open market and looking to profiteer hugely out of the sale, without even putting any of the proceeds back into Judith Wright’s scholarship that helps indigenous students study at the ANU.
The Greens have been solidly behind protecting heritage since our inception. We’ve been instrumental in protecting our natural heritage, of course, from forests to reefs. We’ve been working hard to protect indigenous heritage, for example in the Burrup Peninsula in WA. Now, being a huge fan of Judith Wright’s, I’m finding it tremendously exciting to be part of the campaign to protect Edge.
On Friday, I went out to Edge, about an hour from Canberra, to experience the place which was so special to Wright. It brought out the teacher in me, reminding me of the power of Australian literature evoking Australia’s landscape. Here’s a couple more videos I recorded at Edge. [Apologies for the slightly blurry quality of these videos. We're trying to fix our technology...]
Wow. This is better than the MSM. Or Pepsi.