Franklin Dam Controversy - The Campaign Broadens

The Campaign Broadens

During 1982, active membership of anti-dam organisations increased a hundredfold in mainland states. The iconic "No Dams" triangle sticker was printed. Rallies and events were held in cities around Australia. Bob Brown toured the country raising support for the anti-dam campaign, attempting to convince Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser to intervene and override the state legislation allowing the dam's construction. British botanist and TV presenter Professor David Bellamy addressed 5,000 people at a Melbourne rally.

By the end of 1982, any perception that "greenies" equated with hippies had been greatly challenged, for example in Sydney, Brown and Bellamy addressed 500 people at a candle-lit dinner serenaded by string quartet, ABC's classical music radio station featured a Concert for the Franklin, and electronics entrepreneur Dick Smith committed to civil disobedience. Many people who had not previously considered conservation issues decided that wilderness was a vote-worthy issue, as evidenced by the following ballot paper write-in campaigns.

In the federal Lowe by-election in Sydney, March 1982, volunteers at every polling booth encouraged voters to write "No Dams" on their ballot paper, and 9% did so. At that first 'Write-in' campaign, few people knew that they could write a message on their federal ballot paper without invalidating their vote. In the ACT House of Assembly mid-1982 election, 25% of voters wrote "No Dams" on their ballot paper.

In the federal Flinders by-election in Victoria in December 1982, 42% of voters wrote "No Dams" on their ballot papers. This had been a marginal Liberal seat, and given the Liberal's poor polling at the time it was widely expected that the Labor candidate would win by a large margin. However Liberal candidate Peter Reith overstated his anti-dam position, and the Labor candidate only reflected federal Labor's sympathetic but ineffectual No Dams platform. Reith won the Flinders by-election (only to lose the seat three months later). It has been suggested that Reith's win prompted federal Labor to harden their No Dams platform from sympathetic words to a promise of federal intervention to stop the dam, despite anticipating how unpopular mainland intervention would be in Tasmania's five federal seats. It has also been asserted that Malcolm Fraser called his 1983 election seven months early on the strength of Reith's win; if not for that early election the bulldozers would have done much more damage.