Lucy Hodgkinson-Fisher

For my project I have created a 20 minute long film documenting the history of a 2004 - 2006 campaign to stop a proposed extension of the F6, known as the Johnston’s Creek Extension (JCE). Motivation for my project began in 2013 when, concerned about the recently publicised plans for the West Connex road development, I attended a community meeting at Leichhardt Town Hall. Despite being impressed with the scientific approach of the two speakers (whom I’ve since learnt were Gavin Gateby and Michelle Zeibots) in explaining the destruction and congestion that would result from the West Connex development, my overwhelming emotion was one of hopelessness.

What hope did grass-roots campaigners like me, even with the scientific backing of town and road planning experts, have in stopping such a huge and lucrative road project?

Despite this pessimism, when asked to pick an organisation for my HSTY3902 project, the No West Connex group was the first organisation that came to my mind. Except I wasn’t sure how I, a history student, would be of any use to such a fledgling organisation. Luckily, Mat Hounsell, the president of the No West Connex Action Group, already viewed West Connex through a historical lens, and as the latest chapter in a long and shifting history of road planning in Sydney. Mat particularly drew my attention to the JCE which, if it hadn’t have been for the tireless efforts of campaigners from Eco Transit and the Marrickville Action Group, would have been built through Newtown and Randwick in 2006, resulting in the destruction of hundreds of homes and businesses. I was shocked to hear of this, as my own house is only two streets away from the proposed four lane highway. Mat also informed me that a history of these events hadn’t yet been collated in any coherent way. It seemed the perfect topic to cover in my project.

When interviewing several members of the original JCE campaign, I learnt how the tireless efforts of campaigners, certain political events and economic factors stopped the road from being built. Furthermore, my contacts provided me with numerous primary sources, including letters, news-leafs and community notices, all of which feature in my video. I was also easily able to locate and include relevant Sydney Morning Herald articles and ABC radio podcasts.

I found the story of the JCE campaign interesting and eventful, and hoped my viewers would too. However, it wasn’t until I completed my community service with the No West Connex group, that I fully realised how my project could be useful to their campaign. Wendy Bacon, Sharon Laura and Lee Rhiannon, when speaking at a sit-in at the Alexandria Landfill, re-iterated my sense of hopelessness, when they said the most common statement from residents was; “but what hope really do we residents have in stopping West Connex?”. This sense of communal hopelessness was obviously a major problem facing the No West Connex campaign. Whilst many Sydney-siders are aware of the successful campaigns of Jack Mundy and the Green Bans in saving the Rocks and other heritage areas in Sydney, few of us are aware of the quiet, smaller wins of campaigners, such as stopping the JCE. The battle to stop the JCE was won through campaign tactics such as awareness raising, gaining access to documents in parliament and garnering political support. Whilst these tactics can often be time consuming and tedious, the JCE demonstrates how, historically, they can lead to very real effects on neighbourhoods and lives.

Thus, when I read Curthoys and McGrath’s Chapter 2 “Who is your history for?”, I immediately knew I was filming my documentary for those disillusioned members of the community who, despite being opposed to the West Connex and other road developments, needed to hear historical proof that their efforts could be successful.[1] My video is to be posted on the No West Connex Facebook page, therefore I needed to make it accessible, entertaining and relatively short. I did this through including engaging graphics and pictures, and explaining technical planning jargon such as “road reservations”. This is necessary to attract viewers, who, due to the rise of the 24 hour news cycle and the nature of Facebook’s newsfeed, mainly look at short, attention grabbing posts which are made increasingly more visible by the number of “likes” they receive.[2]

Furthermore, drawing on Curthoy and McGrath’s guidelines for filmed public history projects, my video aimed to evoke an emotional response from viewers to garrison their political support.[3] Largely I aimed for my video to evoke shock and sympathy (for the homeowners who could have lost their homes) and anger towards the RTA and NSW Government. My video also seeks to emote low level fear from my audience, as I demonstrate how road reservations throughout Sydney, largely unbeknownst to residents. The use of fear is a common tactic used in political advertisements as it helps to motivate audiences into taking action.[4]

The political nature of my project sometimes troubled me, as it felt like I was creating a political advertisement, rather than a historical source. However, postmodernists argue that history is always political.[5] Carr posits a similar notion when he states; “It used to be said that facts speak for themselves. This is, of course, untrue. The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context.”[6] Despite there being a few undisputed facts surrounding the JCE, e.g. the Eco Transit news leaf in 2004; the vast majority of “facts” have been interpreted and/or mis-remembered in a myriad of ways by the different players involved in the campaign. Thus, although my video will be inherently and explicitly biased, it is all part of my job as a historian to create a narrative and argument from the information I’ve been presented with. Hopefully future historians will keep this in mind when re-visiting my version of the history of the JCE and West Connex in future years.

— LUCY HODGKINSON-FISHER

NOTES

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[1] Ann Curthoys and Ann McGrath, “Who is your history for?”, How to Write History that People Want to Read (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2009), p. 40.

[2] Stephen Cushion, News and Politics: The Rise of Live and Interpretive Journalism (New York: Routledge, 2015), p. 156.

[3] Curthoys and McGrath, How to Write History that People Want to Read, p. 40.

[4] Jessica A. Zaluzec, ‘“The Use of Fear Appeals in Political Advertisements”: An Analysis

of the 2004 and 2008 Presidential Elections’, The Faculty of the Public Communication Graduate Program School of Communication, American University, Washington, D.C. (April 2010), p. 4.

[5] Hélène Bowen Raddeker, Sceptical History: Feminist and Postmodern Approaches in Practice, (New York, Routledge, 2007).

[6] E. H. Carr, What is History? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), p. 5.

Lucy Hodgkinson-Fisher, "Johnston's Creek Extension: Hope for Residents," History Matters, (24 October 2015)