After 50 years in blueribbon politics, Liberal powerbroker Dame Rachel Cleland is determined to save the last of Australia's legendary jarrah and karri forests. A founder of her party and a master tactician, Dame Rachel is warning Liberals that they risk losing government in the West if clearfelling continues.
With 87 per cent of Western Australians now opposed to logging, according to one poll, some Liberal politicians are looking worried as more and more highprofile protesters take to the forests. Multi-millionaire fashion queen Liz Davenport had thousands of supportive messages from all over Australia after her arrest at an anti-logging protest. Eminent orthopaedic surgeon Malcolm Hay was arrested in the forest on Monday.
Even WA's football demigod, West Coast Eagles coach Mick Malthouse, has come out against logging. Throughout Perth's wealthy western suburbs, the forests are a hot issue, with Liberals deeply divided, largely because of Dame Rachel's implacable lobbying. The federal Environment Minister, Wilson Tuckey, tries to play down her influence. "I've heard all her cliches - I'd be singularly unimpressed if she tied her frail little old self to a tree," he said in a recent TV appearance, unintentionally highlighting her importance. Senior federal Liberal officials swiftly phoned to apologise to their revered and much-loved founding member, according to friends.
At home, Dame Rachel is a warm presence with an assured air of authority, tall and slim in tailored grey suit, scarlet shirt and matching lipstick. Her smile is welcoming, her voice a gentle, cultured contralto. It rings with controlled anger as she speaks of logging in the ancient forests: "It must stop. It doesn't even make commercial sense. The government royalties are far too low -- so, naturally, the loggers are going for their lives clearing our forests."
Dame Rachel is a formidable opponent. Several years ago, she was the first WA Liberal to publicly attack then Senator Noel CrichtonBrowne over his extraordinary grip on the state party machine. It was an effortless display of political finesse. She invited TV reporters for a chat over afternoon tea on her terrace. Soon she was national news; saying what others had only whispered behind Crichton-Browne's back. His career never recovered.
Dame Rachel still attends countless Liberal Party meetings and functions. "She worked the room all night - I never saw her sit down once," a man half her age said in awe after watching her in action. "I like discussing policy matters with my own party; people seem to listen to me ... ," she murmurs.
One of her surprising forest allies is an acerbic leftist academic, the agricultural economist Dr Henry Schapper. "Rachel and I have become great mates -- I respect her enormously," he said. "She's a Boadicea when she goes into action. She can achieve things that I never could, that few people could."
Dame Rachel responds: "I love Henry - you can say what you like to him, and he's so very wellinformed. It's funny that he should call me Boadicea. When I was just a little girl, I enjoyed reading about her..."
In those days, the flower-strewn jarrah forest was her playground. Today, only one tree remains of her childhood forest, surrounded by mansions and exotic gardens. She sees it from her windows, a constant inspiration.
Long days are spent in her study, on the phone and writing letters on her laptop computer. "I adore it look, it comes with its own little case," she says, stepping nimbly on to a chair to get the laptop down from a tail cupboard.
Fitness and longevity run in her family, she explains. She was one of six children. "We grew up in a very progressive, political home. We were all encouraged to take an interest in social issues from an early age." Friends and neighbors were timber industry pioneers who believed in conserving the forests for future generations. It was the civilised thing to do; and it made economic sense.
Dame Rachel's famous suffragette aunt, Bessie Rischbieth, was a formative influence, ". .. a woman far ahead of her time - we all respected her very deeply''. Travelling the world with her aunt, she met many pioneer feminists. Later there was teacher training and her marriage at 22 to lawyer Donald Cleland.
Her elegant apartment is full of memories of their long marriage: paintings everywhere, antiques, Melanesian artefacts. She spent 27 years in New Guinea with her husband, who was the region's Australian administrator in the politically turbulent years before independence.
Earlier, he served six years as the first national director of the Liberal Party that he helped found, with the late Sir Robert Menzies. "It was a fascinating, exciting time," says Dame Rachel. "Robert Menzies was a truly remarkable man, reshaping Australia in those glorious years of' '50s prosperity.'' Sir Donald Cleland taught his wife how to win in politics. "To succeed, he said, you must choose the right time to act,'' she says.
"He was a highly intuitive person a typical Celt. Politics was in his
blood. He came from a distinguished Scottish family always active in public
life. My ancestors were Welsh. I feel much more like a Celt than an AngloSaxon."
Returning to settle in Perth in 1979, Dame Rachel looked forward
to more joyous holidays in the forests, only to find vast swathes had been
clearfelled for woodchips
"I was outraged at what I discovered: that most of the precious old-growth forests would be gone early next century, if logging continued at the same rate." But a hopeful sign was a burgeoning forest tourism industry. "I sent out around 300 questionnaires to tourist operator and I visited many myself. There was a good response."
Then she used her data to lobby politicians, pointing out that Western Australian tourism was already worth $500 million a year. She worked with a group of experts to develop and publish a new forest policy: logging based or tree plantations.
With a turnover of $850 million year, though, the existing Western Australian
timber industry has powerful friends in government. Dame
Rachel is calmly untroubled. "It is quite simple really. Do they want to
remain in government, or risk losing their most faithful supporters?"