EPISODE 3 FAIR GO
© ATOM 2015 A STUDY GUIDE BY ROBERT LEWIS
http://www.metromagazine.com.au
ISBN: 978-1-74295-554-4 http://www.theeducationshop.com.au OVERVIEW
Australia: The Story Of Us is an extraordinary narrative about the people, places and events that have shaped the continent from the first inhabitants to the present day. This groundbreaking drama- documentary series weaves together stories of the nation’s origins and offers fresh insights into how Australians came to create the homeland we inhabit today. Alongside astounding CGI and cinematic sequences, the series features interviews with important thinkers, Episode 3: CONTENT OF notable celebrities and Fair go THE SERIES national figures who take us Gold brings new wealth to the The series of eight episodes cov- inside the stories that have Australian colonies but not everyone’s ers these stories and curriculum influenced Australian history. prepared to dig for their share. emphases (see pages 3-4).
Bushranger Frank Gardiner attempts CURRICULUM Australia’s biggest heist and forges a RELEVANCE legend. John McDouall Stuart versus Burke Australia: The Story Of Us is a suitable and Wills in a race across a pitiless resource for use with continent that will connect Australia to the global telegraph network - the • Australian History at Years beginning of the end of the tyranny 5 and 9 of distance. • English at Years 5 and 9 • Film Studies Year 9 High wages and time off encourage the evolution of our unique football The series can be viewed as a whole, code. or as individual episodes, or even indi- vidual segments within episodes. Dame Nellie Melba faces a daunt- ing audition for the chance to be-
In the classroom it can be used as a come the most famous Australian SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015 series of creative starting points for in the world. students to begin their exploration of aspects of Australian history and the When our longest boom ends in people who made it. bitter crash, Australia goes to the brink of civil war over who will share in the wealth of the continent. 2 EP/ YEAR, CURRICULUM THEME SEGMENT EVENT STARTING POINT
EP 1 Worlds Collide
1.1 The Death Fleet Foundation of Australia Convict Australia
1.2 Megafauna: Prehistoric Australia Ancient Australia. Aboriginal Australia
1.3 Sealing Early economic development of the colonies
1.4 Pemulwuy and the Frontier Wars Aboriginal resistance. Frontier wars
1.5 Rum Rebellion Early economic and social development of the colonies
EP 2 Break Out
2.1 The Great Escape Convict Australia
2.2 John Foley — The Convict who Saves the City of Convict Australia Churches
2.3 Caroline Chisholm — Mother of the Nation Nineteenth century immigration
2.4 Gold Fever Gold
2.5 Eureka Stockade Gold
EP 3 Fair Go
3.1 Gold Robbery Bushrangers
3.2 The Overland Telegraph Explorers. Communication. Technology
3.2 Inventing AFL Sport. Aboriginal culture
3.4 Nellie Melba Famous Australians. Heroes
3.5 Fight for a Fair Go Wool. Unionism
EP 4 New Nation at War
4.1 Gallipoli Submarine The AE2 at Gallipoli
4.2 Billy Sing’s Deadly Gift Gallipoli
4.3 The Gallipoli Letter Gallipoli
4.4 WW1 Nurses Western Front
4.5 Villers-Bretonneux Western Front. Heroes EP/ YEAR, CURRICULUM THEME SEGMENT EVENT STARTING POINT
EP 5 Hard Roads to Glory
5.1 Charles Kingsford Smith 1920s and 1930s. Technology and communications
5.2 Sydney Harbour Bridge 1920s and 1930s. Technology and communication
5.3 Phar Lap 1930s Depression. Heroes
5.4 Ruby Radar World War 2
5.5 Kokoda World War 2
EP 6 Nation Building
6.1 Holden Post-war industrial development
6.2 Lang Hancock Post-war economic development
6.3 Snowy Mountains Scheme Post-war migration. Post-war economic development
6.4 Melbourne Olympics and Television Technology and communications. National identity
6.5 Sydney Opera House Technology. National identity
EP 7 Revolution
7.1 Rock ‘n’ Roll Riot Popular culture
7.2 Beach Wars Surf culture
7.3 The Rise of the Larrikin Popular culture
7.4 Evonne Goolagong Aboriginal achievements. Heroes
7.5 Cyclone Tracy Environment
EP 8 New Frontiers
8.1 Operation Babylift Vietnam War
8.2 Bionic Ear Technology and innovation
8.3 America’s Cup Sport
8.4 Exporting Australia Popular culture
8.5 Sydney Olympics National identity EXPLORING can come back to these ideas and see 3 Why did they want to rob the gold IDEAS AND if you would change any. coach? ISSUES IN Understanding the story 4 What strategy did they use? THE EPISODE 5 The police were better armed, so 2 What was Frank Gardiner’s why did the bushrangers succeed? background? SEGMENT 1 6 What happened to the gold? 3 Who were the other gang members with him? 7 What happened to the bushrangers? »»GOLD ROBBERY
Frank Gardiner and his gang commit the biggest gold heist in Australia’s history. Bushrangers become the celebrities of the day and enter our mythology. Some will be shot down in a hail of bullets, others face the hangman’s noose. But Gardiner does something few bushrangers do… he retires to Queensland.
Before you watch the story SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015
1 What is your image of bushrang- ers? List the words that express your ideas. For example, you might write ‘criminals’. Or ‘Robin Hood types’; or rebels. At the end of this segment you 5 Putting the story in time and place
8 Mark on the map where this took place.
See Timeline 1 and map this page.
9 If the first block of time below rep- resents 60,000 years, and then each other block of time represents 25 years starting at 1700 and continuing until today, in which block of time did this story take place? Write the main date or dates for this event in that block.
Reflecting on the story
10 List at least three things that you have learned from this story about Australian history. TIMELINE 1
11 List at least three feelings or emo- tions that you think Gardiner would have felt during the robbery.
12 List at least three feelings or emo- tions that you think the police guards and driver would have felt during the robbery.
Analysing the story 14 What is the main message or Applying or Testing meaning in this segment about what the story 13 There are several people who give happened in Australian History? their opinions about the bushrangers. Summarise what these people say are 15 The series is called Australia. The 16 One effect of this robbery was for the significant aspects of bushrangers Story of Us. Does this story have the boxes in which the gold was car- and what they can tell us about out any relevance to who we are today? ried to be changed. Read the following history. See Table this page. Explain your views. information from the National Museum SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015
6 Hugh Dolan
Andrew O’Keefe
Peter Fitzsimons of Australia, and then see if you can identify what changes were made, and why.
The heist had been carefully planned and led by a man calling himself Frank Gardiner, and with him was a group of eight or nine others, including John Gilbert, John O’Meally and, probably, Ben Hall. Bullion boxes and bags were loaded on to pack horses and at a camp about five kilometres away from the hold-up site, the men smashed open the boxes with an American tomahawk that Gilbert had bought in Forbes for this purpose. Gardiner had, in the preceding weeks, mingled among the crowd in Forbes on escort one of the immediate ramifications Creating the story day and had probably observed that of the affair at Eugowra was that the boxes were secured only with the flaws in the gold escort system Chubb padlocks. The boxes were solid needed to be fixed. Boxes that could 17 Look at the way the filmmakers and heavy, but ultimately each was be hacked open in minutes offered no have created the story to appeal to the only as strong as its weakest link – a security for the wealth that the gold- audience. Comment on how they have padlock. fields were generating for the Colony. used these aspects of filmmaking:
When news of the Eugowra hold-up http://www.nma.gov.au/__data/assets/ • Computer effects broke around the Colony, people were pdf_file/0009/9954/Gold_Bullion_Box. • Music to create mood stunned. Never had there been such pdf • Narration to tell the story a violent assault on law and order, or • Reconstructions or re-enactments on the smooth running of commercial Look at the box (see photo this to give a feeling for the times enterprise. But back on the Lachlan, page) and see if you can identify the • Editing to influence the rhythm and most of the ‘bushrangers’, notorious ways that this new box was ‘bush- movement of the story though they were by then, quietly ranger-proof’ from being opened with • Use of experts to help provide facts slipped back into the local communi- a tomahawk or a lever. You should find and to apply the story to today ties in which many had grown up. at least two good innovations. • Any other aspects you can identify
Over time, all were caught, or died in You can check your ideas at the end Extending the story shoot-outs with the police, and most of the Study Guide. of the booty was recovered. However, 18 Imagine that you could meet Frank Gardiner later in life. List five questions that you would ask about his life and behavior.
Finding out more
The episode lists several other bush- rangers: Harry Power, Moondyne Joe, Captain Moonlight, the Kenniff brothers, Ned Kelly. The best known of these is Ned Kelly. People still argue
over whether he was a hero reacting SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015 to police persecution, or a brutal killer and potentially a terrorist (he tried to blow up a train full of police, black trackers, horses, officials and their wives). Research Ned Kelly, and pre- pare a class debate or trial of him
8 SEGMENT 2 superhighway of the day transforms what you and your horse can easily the colonies. carry. And decide on the tactics you would use to make sure that you could »»THE OVERLAND Before you keep progressing, but always able TELEGRAPH watch the story to move from one watering point to another. Good luck!
Explorer John McDouall Stuart leads What does it mean to be an explorer? Understanding the story the first European expedition to trav- Imagine that you are the first person to erse the Australian mainland from try travelling through an almost uninhab- south to north and return alive. He ited area, on horseback. There are a few 2 Who was John McDouall Stuart? wins his race with Burke and Wills people around, but you cannot speak when they perish on the way home. their language and they will always dis- 3 What were he and his rivals, Burke Explorers had imagined the centre appear if you try and meet them. The and Wills, trying to do? of Australia to be filled with inland key is water. You know that there is seas and fertile plains. The reality is some water available, and always with- 4 A key purpose of the expedition was very different. Stuart’s heroic journey in a day’s travel, but you are never sure the electric telegraph. What was its enables the construction of the where it is until you find it. There are oc- role in the reason for the expedition? Overland Telegraph Line - 36,000 casional animals, but not many. poles and 3,000 kilometres of wire 5 What strategies did Stuart have that stretched across the continent. 1 List the essentials that you would helped him to succeed? The connection to the information need – remember, you can only have 6 What qualities did he have that helped him to succeed?
7 How was he able to return much more quickly? TIMELINE 2 8 How was the overland telegraph line built – in distance and materials needed.
9 A message was sent by an operator of a morse code machine tapping a key — each tap broke the electricity flow along the electric wires. By using a pattern of dots and dashes (shorter and longer breaks) each letter of the alphabet could be sent to the next station. There another operator copied the message, and then passed it along to the next station. And so on. There were 11 of these ‘repeater stations’ built along the overland telegraph line. Which of these became important settlements?
Putting the story in time and place
10 Mark on the map where this took place. SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015
See Timeline 2 and map this page.
11 If the first block of time below represents 60,000 years, and then each other block of time represents 25 years starting at 1700 and continuing 9 until today, in which block of time did • Berlin to Hobart Australia, beside a stone cairn that this story take place? Write the main Stuart had constructed there 10 years date or dates for this event in that Creating the story earlier. Church bells rang in Adelaide. block. Messages could now travel to London in 7 days, rather than 70. Reflecting on the story 21 Look at the way the filmmakers have created the story to appeal to the 22 Imagine that you have been asked audience. Comment on how they have to write this message. What would 12 List at least three things that you used these aspects of filmmaking: you say? Like Twitter today, you have learned from this story about have to keep it fairly short – not 140 Australian history. • Computer effects characters, but 50 words. Compose • Music to create mood your message. 13 List at least three feelings or • Narration to tell the story emotions that you think Stuart would • Reconstructions or re-enactments The telegraph was not always have felt during his expedition. to give a feeling for the times beneficial to everybody, especially to • Editing to influence the rhythm and local Indigenous people. In 1874, the 14 List at least three changes that his movement of the story repeater station at Barrow Creek was success made to Australia. • Use of experts to help provide attacked by local Kaytetye people, facts and to apply the story to possibly as retaliation for settlers 15 The phrase ‘the tyranny of today abusing Kaytetye women or because distance’ is used. What does that • Any other aspects you can identify the telegraph construction team mean? How would it apply to Australia fenced off a major waterhole and in the 1800s? Extending the story refused the Kaytetye people access to it. Analysing the story The Overland Telegraph was built by One operator, John Franks, was three teams operating simultaneously: speared in the chest and died soon 16 There are several people who one in the northern section, the others after. Three others, James Stapleton, give their opinions about the topic. in the central and southern parts. Each Ebenezer Flint and Aboriginal worker Summarise what these people say are team had carpenters, blacksmiths, Jemmy, were wounded. The injured the significant aspects of the overland cooks, managers, storemen, linesmen men sent a message through to telegraph and what they can tell us and surveyors. All equipment – three Adelaide, 2000 kilometres away. about out history. See Table on page thousand metal poles, three thousand A doctor was brought in to try to 10. kilometres of wire, insulators, send medical advice to the dying batteries, food and medical stores – Stapleton. His wife was also there, 17 What is the main message or had to be carried by horses, bullocks sending her final message of love as meaning in this segment about what and camels. The hole for each pole he died. Stapleton tapped out his last happened in Australian History? had to be dug by hand. message in reply: ‘God bless you and the children’. A police party was sent 18 The series is called Australia. The The southern section was the easiest. to arrest the attackers. An unknown Story of Us. Does this story have The team building the northern section number of Aboriginal people, possibly any relevance to who we are today? quit when the wet hit and the tracks as many as ninety, were killed, with no Explain your views. became flooded. Carts became prisoners brought back to face trial. bogged, food rotted in the humidity, Applying or Testing and the mosquitoes plagued men and 23 Imagine the ‘conversation; that the the story animals. two had. Create the messages. You might even write them in morse code The Overland Telegraph line (See MorseCode diagram on page 19 Look at the map (page 11) was completed in 1872, and the 11). showing the world’s electric connection made with the undersea communications links in 1902. cable at Darwin. On 22 August the Finding out more Describe or trace the route these final pole had been set up, the final SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015 messages would have taken: line of wire attached, and the link from Darwin to Port Augusta and from John McDouall Stuart, perhaps • Darwin to Brisbane there to the rest of Australia was now Australia’s greatest inland explorer, • London to Melbourne ready to be activated. The man in had a sad ending to his story. • Brisbane to Perth charge of the project, Charles Todd, Research him to find out what • New York to Adelaide telegraphed the first message — from happened. • Rio de Janeiro to Sydney Central Mount Stuart in the middle of 10 Dick Smith
Michael Cathcart
Larissa Behrendt
Tim Flannery
Chris Bath SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015
12 THE THE OLD LIST MODERN RULE
SEGMENT 3 1 The distance between the goals and the goal posts shall be decided upon by the captains of the sides playing. »INVENTING AFL 2 The captains on each side shall toss for choice of goal; the side losing the » toss has to kick-off from the centre point between the goals.
In 1859, cricketer Tom Wills creates 3 A goal must be kicked fairly between the posts, without touching either of one of the world’s first codified football them, or a portion of the person of any player on either side. games. It’s a mongrel mix of soccer, rugby, Gaelic and has elements of the 4 The game shall be played within a space of not more than 200 yards wide, Indigenous game Marn Grook. Now the same to be measured equally on each side of a line drawn through the centres of the two goals; and the two posts to be called the ‘kick-off’ posts Melbourne plays the team from the shall be erected at a distance of 30 yards on each side of the goal posts at British Army stationed in Victoria. A both ends, and in a straight line with them. home win will help the game expand. The locals just get the victory one 5 In case the ball is kicked behind goal, any one of the side behind whose goal goal to nil. In a decade, the Victorian it is kicked may bring it 20 yards in from of any portion of the space between Football League is established. 120 the ‘kick-off’ posts, and shall kick it as nearly as possible in a line with the opposite goal. years later, the VFL expands to a national sport. Now over seven million 6 Any player catching the ball directly from the foot may call ‘mark’. He then people annually barrack at an AFL has a free kick; no player from the opposite side being allowed to come inside game. the spot marked.
7 Tripping and pushing are both allowed (but no hacking) when any player is Before you in rapid motion or in possession of the ball, except in the case provided for in watch the story Rule 6.
8 The ball may be taken in hand only when caught from the foot, or on the Imagine that you have discovered hop. In no case shall it be lifted from the ground. the set of rules to a game (pictured below), written in 1859. 9 When the ball goes out of bounds (the same being indicated by a row of posts) it shall be brought back to the point where it crossed the boundary line, and thrown in at right angles with that line. You suspect it might be the first ever rules for what is now known as 10 The ball, while in play, may under no circumstances be thrown. Australian Rules football. One way of testing it is to compare the modern game with these rules — if they are
the same, this could be proof that the old list is the origin of the game.
1 Do that comparison using the table on this page. Put a tick if it’s similar, or a cross if it’s different.
2 There are both similarities and differ- ences. What is your conclusion — are these probably the original rules or not? Justify your decision — making sure that if you think they are, you can explain away the differences; and if they are not, make sure you can explain away the similarities.
Understanding the story SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015
3 The film shows a match in 1869, not 1859. What is the significance of this match?
4 Who was Tom Wills? What was his 13 background?
5 Why did he want to ‘invent’ a winter game?
6 When were the original rules drawn up?
7 What was the game that he might have seen as a boy that could have in- fluenced the game he helped create?
8 What evidence is there that Australian Rules could have been developed from Marn Grook?
Putting the story in time and place
TIMELINE 3 10 Mark on the map where this took place.
See Timeline 3 and map this page.
11 If the first block of time below represents 60,000 years, and then each other block of time represents 25 years starting at 1700 and continuing until today, in which block of time did this story take place? Write the main date 13 How was the development of sport Summarise what these people say or dates for this event in that block. in Australia connected to working are the significant aspects of AFL and men’s wages and hours? what they can tell us about out history Reflecting on the story on the table on page 15. Analysing the story 15 What is the main message or 12 List at least three things that you meaning in this segment about what have learned from this story about 14 There are several people who happened in Australian History? Australian history. give their opinions about the topic. SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015
14 Bruce McAveny
Adam Goodes
Guy Sebastian
Michael McKernan
Greg Norman 16 The series is called Australia. The Story of Us. Does this story have any relevance to who we are today? Explain your views.
Applying or Testing the story
17 There is some debate and dispute about whether Australian Rules copied aspects of Marn Grook.
Here are some sources of information and evidence. Use them to create a summary in the Table on page 17.
SOURCE 1
An 1857 sketch found in 2007 (see sketch this page) describes an ob- servation by Victorian scientist William Blandowski, of the Latjilatji people playing a football game near Merbein, on his expedition to the junction of the Murray and Darling Rivers.The image of Aborigines in Victoria, who stated five feet from the ground to catch the is inscribed: that in about 1841 he had witnessed ball. The person who secures the ball Wurundjeri Aborigines east of kicks it. ...This continues for hours and A group of children is playing with Melbourne playing the game. the natives never seem to tire of the a ball. The ball is made out of typha exercise. roots (roots of the bulrush). It is not The men and boys joyfully assemble thrown or hit with a bat, but is kicked when this game is to be played. One SOURCE 3 up in the air with a foot. The aim of makes a ball of possum skin, some- the game – never let the ball touch the what elastic, but firm and strong. The game was a favourite of the ground. ...The players of this game do not Wurundjeri-william clan and the two throw the ball as a white man might teams were sometimes based on the SOURCE 2 do, but drop it and at the same time traditional totemic moeties of Bunjil kicks it with his foot, using the instep (eagle) and Waang (crow). Robert Robert Brough Smyth, in an 1878 for that purpose. ...The tallest men Brough-Smyth saw the game played book, The Aborigines of Victoria, have the best chances in this game. at Coranderrk Mission Station, where quoted William Thomas, a Protector ...Some of them will leap as high as ngurungaeta (elder) William Barak discouraged the playing of imported games like cricket and encouraged the traditional native game of marn grook.
SOURCE 4
In 1889, anthropologist Alfred Howitt, wrote that the game was played between large groups on a totemic basis — the white cockatoos versus the black cockatoos, for example,
which accorded with their skin system. SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015 Acclaim and recognition went to the players who could leap or kick the highest. Howitt wrote:
This game of ball-playing was also practised among the Kurnai, the Wolgal (Tumut river people), the Wotjoballuk 16 EVIDENCE THAT MARN GROOK INFLUENCED EVIDENCE THAT IT DID NOT INFLUENCE THE CREATION OF AUSTRALIAN RULES FOOTBALL THE CREATION OF AUSTRALIAN RULES FOOTBALL This is despite a view held by some historians and football enthusiasts that William Hammersley, James Thompson, Tom Wills and Tom Smith - the original members of the 1859 Melbourne Rules committee - found in- spiration in the game Aborigines played with a ball made of possum skin.
Wills, in particular, is often sentimen- tally described as a hero who con- nected Melbourne’s young men with the blackfellas’ game. A gifted sports- man, Wills’s childhood was spent on a remote property in northwest Victoria, where he played with Aboriginal chil- dren from a nearby tribe.
This theory gained further credence after the publication of writer and journalist Martin Flanagan’s The Call as well as by the Woiworung, and in 1998, which focuses on Wills, his was probably known to most tribes of empathy for indigenous people, and south-eastern Australia. The Kurnai his contribution to the national code. made the ball from the scrotum of an “old man kangaroo”, the Woiworung The Australian Game of Football, made it of tightly rolled up pieces of published this month, describes the possum skin. It was called by them indigenous link to Australian rules as a “mangurt”. In this tribe the two exoga- “seductive myth”. mous divisions, Bunjil and Waa, played on opposite sides. The Wotjoballuk also Produced by the AFL to mark the played this game, with Krokitch on one 150th anniversary of Australian rules, side and Gamutch on the other. The it includes an essay by Melbourne his- mangurt was sent as a token of friend- torian Gillian Hibbins, which examines ship from one to another. the Wills- Marngrook connection.
SOURCE 5 “Understandably, the appealing idea that Australian football is a truly AFL’s native roots a ‘seductive myth’ Australian native game recognising the indigenous people, rather than CORRIE PERKIN THE AUSTRALIAN MARCH 22, 2008
LONG-HELD romantic notions - inspired by the sublime skills of modern-day indigenous players - that Australian rules football is directly linked to an ancient ball game played by Aborigines has been debunked in a new official history of the game. SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015
There is no evidence, according to The Australian Game of Football Since 1858, that Marngrook (a Gunditjmara word meaning “game ball”), which was played by local Aborigines and observed by early European settlers, influenced the rules of the new code. 18 His life ended tragically in 1880 when, aged 44 and an alcoholic, he stabbed himself three times with a pair of scissors.
What is undeniable is the game’s ca- pacity to enthral people of all races.
http://www.theaustral- ian.com.au/archive/news/afls- native-roots-a-seductive-myth/ story-e6frg7mo-1111115858741
18 What is your conclusion — did Marn Grook influence the creation of Australian Rules? Justify your view.
Creating the story deriving solely from a colonial depend- The second assertion - that Wills ence upon the British background, observed and possibly played the has been uncritically embraced and game as a child - is therefore also 19 Look at the way the filmmakers accepted in some places,” Hibbins improbable. have created the story to appeal to the writes. “Sadly, this emotional belief audience. Comment on how they have lacks any intellectual credibility.” Finally, it has been suggested that used these aspects of filmmaking: Aboriginal football included jumping for This week, Hibbins told The Weekend the possum-skin ball - an early version • Computer effects Australian that while many football fans of the high mark. As Hibbins points out, • Music to create mood - herself included - would like to believe high marking is generally considered to • Narration to tell the story there was a direct link to indigenous be a later development of the 1870s. • Reconstructions or re-enactments culture, her research proved otherwise. to give a feeling for the times The 71-year-old grandmother and • Editing to influence the rhythm and “It’s absolutely highly unlikely,” she respected sports history scholar has movement of the story said. relied on primary evidence such as • Use of experts to help provide letters, newspaper reports and official facts and to apply the story to The argument that Wills was inspired records to support her research. She today by Marngrook is based on three as- suspects Wills was influenced more by • Any other aspects you can identify sertions. The first is that Aborigines the ball games he learned during his played near his childhood home at time at the Rugby School in England Extending the story the northern end of the Grampians than by any practice he allegedly ob- mountain range. served among Aboriginal communities. 20 Imagine that you have been sent Hibbins’s extensive research in the Hibbins, who knows Flanagan and as an ambassador by the Australian area revealed no signs the game was admires his writing, acknowledged Football League to persuade another played by the local indigenous com- football’s connection with indig- country to adopt Australian Rules. munity, although there were definite enous Australians was powerful and How would you persuade them? How sightings in Port Fairy, about 150km compelling. would you counter any objections that south of the Wills family’s Lexington they might raise? station, as well as around the “Because Martin’s a good writer and Melbourne region. is well promoted, a lot of people read Finding out more the book and have taken up the idea Could the Port Fairy community have that Tom was influenced by Aboriginal transported their ball game north? children,” she said. 21 Research the story of the mas- SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015 Unlikely, said Hibbins. “Some sacre of Tom Wills’ family at Cullin-la- Aborigines were playing a form of Hibbins added that the drama of ringo pastoral station near Emerald, foot-and-ball, but they were living in Wills’s own story had added to footy in Queensland — and the subsequent different tribes, speaking different lan- folklore. An outstanding young crick- massacre of Aboriginal people by set- guages and dialects. One tribe would eter who played for Victoria in the tlers in revenge. hesitate before going into another 1850s and 1860s, Wills was keen to tribe’s territory.” develop a winter sport. 19 TIMELINE 4
SEGMENT 4 Understanding the story 11 If the first block of time below represents 60,000 years, and then each other block of time represents 25 years »»NELLIE MELBA 1 Who was Nellie Armstrong? starting at 1700 and continuing until today, in which block of time did this Paris, 1886. Struggling mother Nellie 2 Why was she in Paris in 1886? story take place? Write the main date Armstrong faces the audition of a life- or dates for this event in that block. time with the best and toughest Opera 3 Why was her audition so important? teacher in Paris. She defies conven- Reflecting on the story tion and her family’s wishes and 4 What problems did she have to becomes a professional opera singer. overcome to get to that stage? Nellie will change her name to Melba, 12 List at least three things that you after her home city, and becomes the 5 What qualities did she show? have learned from this story about most famous Australian of her day. Australian history. Nellie is a pioneer for women and puts 7 How did she become the most Australia on the world entertainment famous Australian in the world of her 13 List at least three feelings or emo- map. time? tions that you think Nellie would have felt at the audition. Before you 8 How was she a path-setter for watch the story women? 14 Why do you think she was able to be successful? 9 By what other names was she 1 Who is the most famous Australian known? Analysing the story today? A sportsperson? A singer? A politician? A writer? An actor? Putting the story in SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015 time and place 15 There are several people who Discuss this as a class, and make a give their opinions about the topic. list of candidates. Summarise what these people say are 10 Mark on the map where this took the significant aspects of the life and Then work out what criteria you are place. achievement of Nellie Melba and what using to make that judgement. And they can tell us about out history in the decide on a final choice. See Timeline 4 and map this page. Table overleaf. 20 Guy Sebastian
Layne Beachley
Clare Wright
Andrew O’Keefe
Dannii Minogue
16 What is the main message or most of the leading opera houses of the have created the story to appeal to the meaning in this segment about what world until her retirement. Divorced in audience. Comment on how they have happened in Australian History? 1900, she could be forthright, vain and used these aspects of filmmaking: scandalous. Australians saw her living a 17 The series is called Australia. The gilded lifestyle among the best of inter- • Computer effects Story of Us. Does this story have national society, and she became the • Music to create mood any relevance to who we are today? epitome of glamour and fame. She was • Narration to tell the story Explain your views. mobbed on her return home in 1902. • Reconstructions or re-enactments In 1909 Melba undertook a sen- to give a feeling for the times Applying or Testing timental tour of Australia, and was • Editing to influence the rhythm and the story greeted with adulation wherever she movement of the story went. During the war, international • Use of experts to help provide facts travel was restricted, but she was en- and to apply the story to today 18 Here is some more information ergetic in her war work. Melba was ap- • Any other aspects you can identify about Nellie Melba. How does it help pointed a Dame of the British Empire justify the claim that she was the most in 1918 and elevated to Dame Grand Extending the story famous Australian of her day? Cross in the order in 1927. In 1928 Melba held her last local perfor- Helen Porter Mitchell adopted the mance before going back to Europe, 20 Imagine that you have been asked professional name Melba to acknowl- but her health had begun to decline. to select an image of Dame Nellie edge her birthplace, Melbourne. She She returned to Sydney where she died Melba for a cover of her recording. You began to study singing seriously after on 23 February 1931, aged 69. have these possibilities. Explain which her marriage in 1882. Following ap- one you would choose, and why. SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015 pearances in Sydney and London, she http://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/ made her operatic debut in Brussels in forging/australians/melba.asp Finding out more 1887. It was the start of a phenomenal 38-year career on the world stage. Creating the story Melba won acclaim at Covent To hear Nellie Melba singing do a Garden, London, and the Metropolitan YouTube search. Opera, New York, and subsequently in 19 Look at the way the filmmakers 21 MELBA
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MELBA STATUE AT WATERFRONT, CITY
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23 SEGMENT 5
»»FIGHT FOR A FAIR GO
After the long gold boom comes the crash of the 1890s and the start of a vicious class war that threatens to rip Australia apart. Wool trader George Maiden battles to get his client’s wool to London during a maritime strike. On the other side, labourer Fred Townsend fights in the street for fair wages and conditions. Australia will pioneer a system that compels work- ers and employers to come together to settle disputes. In 1901, we found the Australian nation on the principle of Fair Go – but not for everyone. TIMELINE 5 Before you watch the story
1 What is a ‘strike’? Why do people strike? What impacts do strikes have? What ways might exist to end a strike?
Understanding the story 5 What impact will it have on the peo- strike? ple they are striking against? Putting the story in 2 What is the strike about? 6 How do the strikers try to stop the time and place wool getting through? 3 Why are the men striking? 7 What does Frederick Townshend do? 9 Mark on the map where this took 4 What impact will this have on them? place. 8 What is the outcome or result of the See Timeline 5 and map this page.
10 If the first block of time below represents 60,000 years, and then each other block of time represents 25 years starting at 1700 and continuing until today, in which block of time did this story take place? Write the main date or dates for this event in that block.
Reflecting on the story
11 List at least three things that you have learned from this story about SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015 Australian history.
12 List at least three feelings or emo- tions that you think the strikers would have felt about their strike.
13 List at least three feelings or 24 emotions that you think wool growers would have felt about the strike.
14 Australia is described as a ‘working man’s paradise’ What does this mean?
15 How had this ‘paradise’ failed the strikers?
Analysing the story
16 There are several people who give their opinions about the situation. Summarise what these people say are the significant aspects of the strikes of the 189os what they can tell us about Creating the story ‘Waltzing Matilda’ was written at the out history on the Table on page 27. end of the period of the great strikes 1890–1894 by a Sydney solicitor, 17 What is the main message or 21 Look at the way the filmmakers Andrew Barton Paterson. Paterson meaning in this segment about what have created the story to appeal to the wrote bush poetry for The Bulletin happened in Australian History? audience. Comment on how they have magazine under the name ‘The Banjo’, used these aspects of filmmaking: after a racehorse owned by his family. 18 The series is called Australia. The In 1895, Paterson, was staying at the Story of Us. Does this story have • Computer effects Queensland pastoral station, Dagworth, any relevance to who we are today? • Music to create mood near Winton. Family member Christina Explain your views. • Narration to tell the story Macpherson played a tune that she re- • Reconstructions or re-enactments membered from a race meeting in 1894 Applying or Testing to give a feeling for the times in Warrnambool, Victoria. It was ‘The the story • Editing to influence the rhythm and Craigilee March’, based on an older movement of the story tune, ‘Thou Bonnie Wood of Craiglea’. • Use of experts to help provide Paterson put words to it, and thus was 19 One major outcome of the strikes facts and to apply the story to born ‘Waltzing Matilda’, a song about a of the 1890s was the creation after today sheep thief who drowns himself rather Federation of the Commonwealth • Any other aspects you can identify than be caught. Court of Conciliation and Arbitration Paterson never spoke publicly about to settle disputes without strikes. A Extending the story thee writing of ‘Waltzing Matilda’. famous case of that court was the Historians who specialise in the area Harvester decision of 1907, which 22 One of the outcomes of the strikes believe that this silence was because established the principle of a basic or of the 1890s was the creation of the the circumstances in which the poem minimum wage — the least amount song ‘Waltzing Matilda’. Read the fol- was written led to the breaking off of that employers legally had to pay their lowing information about the song and his engagement to Sarah Riley, a friend workers. explain how the final version, created of Christina’s. They argue that when he for a Billy Tea commercial, has wa- wrote ‘You’ll come a waltzing Matilda Imagine that you have been asked to tered down the meanings of the song. with me’, Paterson was actually trying decide how you work out what should to seduce Christina. To ‘waltz’ referred be taken into account in deciding ••• to the old German system of an ap- on the minimum wage for a worker. prentice wandering for several years Suggest what you would need to In 1974 a national vote was held while learning his trade; and ‘Matilda’ consider. on an Australian national anthem. actually referred to women who slept The results were: with soldiers. For bushmen, their 20 You can see what the court de- ‘Advance Australia Fair’ 2,940,854 ‘Matilda’ was their blanket, keeping cided at the end of this Study Guide. ‘Waltzing Matilda’ 1,918,206 them warm while they wandered. So SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015 Do you think this is a good test for en- ‘God Save the Queen’ 1,257,341 the historians believe that Paterson was suring workers got ‘a fair go’? Explain ‘Song of Australia’ 652,858 actually flirting with Christina, and mak- your reasons. ing a sexual suggestion to her! ‘Waltzing Matilda’ became Australia’s That was in the chorus. The national song, though not its national verses go deeper. Paterson arrived at anthem. Dagworth Station at a time of vio- lent class war between the shearers’ 25 union and local squatters in outback box is so impenetrable. An extra level Queensland areas. The union wanted Conclusion of deterrence seems hardly neces- only union shearers to be employed; sary, but there we have it. the employers wanted to be able to 24 This episode has presented five hire non-union labour, at cheaper rates. incidents or stories that the filmmak- http://www.nma.gov.au/__data/ Dagworth had non-union shearers, ers argue helped to make Australia assets/pdf_file/0009/9954/Gold_ and a party of union members crept what it is today Bullion_Box.pdf up one night, shot at the shearers and the policeman on guard, and burned Do you agree with this assessment of The overland down a wool shed, together with the each of the stories? telegraph message 140 lambs inside it. The next day the squatter, Macpherson, and three police- Are there alternative stories that men rode out and followed the tracks of might have been presented which ‘Wish to confirm the completion of the party who had attacked them, and explain equally as well or better who the telegraph which is an important came upon a recent apparent suicide by we are today? link in the electric chain of commu- one of them, Samuel Hoffmeister, at the nication connecting the Australian billabong where the union shearers had You will get some ideas about this colonies and the whole civilised camped overnight. Paterson’s words by looking at the National Museum and commercial world will, I trust, seem clearly to draw on this situation in of Australia website http://www.nma. redound to the credit of South the song. gov.au/online_features/defining_mo- Australia.’ But the meaning of the song could ments for a list of 100 defining mo- go deeper again. It may be that ments as suggested by the Museum. The minimum wage ‘Waltzing Matilda’ is an allegory; that its words have other meanings. Some 25 Imagine that you have to select historians argue that the jumbuck rep- five key ideas or events or people Here is what Justice Higgins decided: resents wealth, the squatter represents that summarise who Australians the rich, the swagman represents ordi- are today. Who or what would you The standard of ‘fair and reasonable’ nary people, and the three policemen include? For example is there a par- must therefore be . . . the normal represent the law that was working for ticular sports person who represents needs of an average employee, the squatter, not the ordinary shearer, in who Australians are? Or an event, regarded as a human being in a civi- the union disputes. The billy boiling was perhaps Australia Day as a celebra- lised community. also seen as code for stirring up action, tion of multiculturalism, or Anzac standing up against injustice. So the Day as a symbol of sacrifice for the He explained this further: poem may really be a call to radical ac- nation, of a family member or friend, tion, for the ordinary person to seize the or . . . ? ‘If A lets B have the use of his horses, wealth of the land, for revolution! on the terms that he give them fair There is one more complication. The gold bullion box at and reasonable treatment, I have no The most popular version of the song the National Museum of doubt that it is B’s duty to give them is not quite the original. Paterson sold proper food and water, and such the rights to the poem, and it was used Australia shelter and rest as they need; and, as an advertisement for Billy Tea – a as wages are the means of obtain- copy of the song was included in every Have a really close look at the box. ing commodities, surely the State, packet. The advertisers changed the Could this box be prised open with in stipulating for fair and reasonable original opening line of ‘Oh! There once a tomahawk or a jemmy? No. There remuneration for the employees, was a swagman’ to ‘Once a jolly swag- is no point of entry. The box was means that the wages shall be suf- man’. The jumbuck also became jolly. not secured by an external padlock ficient to provide these things, and The advertising version also changed but by an internal lock. In addition, clothing, and a condition of frugal Paterson’s chorus of ‘Who’ll come the lid is flush with the sides: hardly comfort estimated by current hu- a-waltzing Matilda, my darling, Who’ll a feather could be inserted into the man standards. This, then, is the come a-waltzing with me?’ to ‘Waltzing gap. When the box was acquired by primary test, the test which I shall Matilda, Waltzing Matilda, Who’ll come the Museum it was locked, and it apply in ascertaining the minimum a-waltzing Matilda with me?’. came without its original key. Advice wage that can be treated as “fair and from locksmiths and historic lock reasonable” in the case of unskilled SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2015 ••• experts is that the lock is exceedingly labourers. Those who have acquired complex and virtually un-pickable. a skilled handicraft have to be paid Finding out more more than the unskilled labourer’s The outer box, a much rougher thing, minimum.’ was secured by straps and a pad- 23 Do a YouTube search to hear differ- lock. We do not really know why pro- ent versions of Waltzing Matilda. tection was needed when the inner 26 David Williamson
Michael Cathcart
Jimmy Barnes
Alex McDermott
Malcolm Turnbull This study guide was produced by ATOM. (© ATOM 2015) ISBN: 978-1-74295-554-4 [email protected] For information on SCREEN EDUCATION magazine, or to download other study guides for assessment, visit
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