Forty years ago, on 14th December 1982, the Franklin Blockade began after a seven year campaign failed to stop work on the Gordon-below-Franklin dam. Six months later, with the Hawke government elected, the High Court stopped the dam, but not before $70 million had been spent by Tasmania’s Hydro-Electric Commission.
During the controversy, HEC supremo Russell Ashton complained that “if parliament is to work through popular decisions, we are doomed here and we are
