Article by Peter Mckay
The rows of cells are unroofed,
a flute for the wind's mouth,
who comes with a breath of ice
from the blue caves of the south.
-- Judith Wright, "The Old Prison"
There is a permanent chill in the air at Port Arthur. The sun shines bright as ice into the gutted interior of the Broad Arrow cafe, and the wind whines over the old stones of the prison buildings opposite.
There are spirits in this place, and a tourist need not take the nightly Ghost Tour to feel a shiver up the spine. A few minutes alone in an empty cell or head bowed before the memorial cross on the shore and the shades of the dead are uncomfortably close to the living observer.
I spent a day in Port Arthur recently, and the experience will haunt me all my life. It wasn't just the cold wind that made me button up my jacket, and seek the warmth and noise of other people.
Australia was founded on penal servitude, and the convicts were put to work for the good of the British Empire from the moment they stepped ashore. Port Arthur began as a timber-getting operation and its isolation made it an excellent place for repeat offenders and escapers. Discipline was harsh and the work hard. Trees were felled and moved to sawmills by a carrying gang -- a large line of convicts bearing the tremendous weight, having "the appearance of a terrible colossal centipede crawling to attack you".
The sawmills, of course, contained no machinery, and logs were sawn by hand in pits, the man on the bottom often standing up to his waist in mud and water. Prisoners unwilling to comply with the brutal conditions were disciplined by flogging. In one year, out of a convict population of 475, there were 5534 total lashes awarded, at an average rate of 50 lashes per punishment.
"Two dozen lashes, which was considered a light punishment, always left the victim's back a complete jelly of bruised flesh and congealed blood. A pool of blood and pieces of flesh are no uncommon sight at the triangles after a dozen have been flogged..." wrote one prisoner.
Convicts, when eventually released, were bitter and vengeful, and frequently re-offended, to be tried, sentenced, and returned to Port Arthur. Clearly the system was not producing the reformation and rehabilitation that was sought in the new Victorian age.
Exactly 150 years ago, work commenced on a new establishment at Port Arthur, a "Model Prison" incorporating the latest experimental methods of penal reform that should be the example for all future prisons. Prisoners were to be kept in soundless solitary confinement, intended to allow convicts to reflect on their own sorry state in absolute isolation from the corrupting influence of other criminals. Frequent attendance at religious instruction provided the necessary guidance to a better life.
An early report stated "the effect of confinement in the block first completed upon a party of most refractory men was truly remarkable; the behaviour of some of these men while confined in the ordinary cells of the Hobart Town Barracks was so ungovernable as to render it unsafe to approach them, but on their transfer to Port Arthur cells they became within a very short period quiet and orderly in their behaviour."
The system was based upon complete silence and anonymity. Throughout the prison, no talking was allowed, no singing, no reading aloud, no unnecessary noise at all. Slippers were worn to reduce the sound of footfalls, and furniture designed especially to minimise noise. Prisoners were not referred to by their names, but by their cell numbers, which they wore on a badge over their left breast. They spent all of their time inside their cells, except for an hour of exercise daily, taken in a separate yard. When outside their cell, they wore a hood, which concealed their faces, and were not allowed to approach another prisoner closer than five yards.
Their labour within their cells was mainly the soundless occupation of tailoring. On Sundays and during the evening, prisoners were allowed to read the Bible or other religious books.
The chapel, at which the prisoners attended four or five times a week, was a most extraordinary place. It was divided into fifty separate stalls, each one roofed and walled off so that all its occupant could see was the parson in the pulpit. Apart from the voice of the clergyman, no sounds could be heard -- instructions were given by a signal board in one corner, visible to all. But one day of the week was looked forward to by the convicts. For on Sunday, despite a four hour sermon, they could sing the hymns, the only time that they could use their voices freely. No prison congregation ever joined more lustily in the responses and hymns than did that assembled in the chapel of the Model prison at Port Arthur every Sunday.
As I stood in the old prison, trying to imagine it in absolute silence, I wondered how such discipline could be enforced. How could even a low mutter or a whistle be punished without creating even more noise?
The answer lay close to hand in the punishment cells, known as the "dark and dumb cells". These had windowless walls of stone a metre thick and were sealed off by two stout doors. Any infraction of the rules was punished by a three to seven day sentence alone in these cells on a pound of bread and water per day. Without light or sound, even a few minutes of sensory deprivation can seem like an eternity. One guard noted that "the man who emerged was not the same man who had entered".
Another report on the prison as a whole concluded: "The punishment inflicted here is said to be of the most unendurable kind. The isolation, the silence, the total separation from all human fellowship and communion, the monotony of the bare white-washed walls makes confinement in the model prison a horrible torture to all confined in it."
Small wonder that an extension to the Model Prison was used to house lunatics, and eventually a complete asylum was built next door.
The physical and mental violence inflicted here came to an end in 1877 when the last of the convicts were shipped off, the buildings auctioned, and a series of official demolitions, bushfires and the passage of time reduced the once thriving establishment to a series of weathered stone ruins. Tourists arrived as the convicts left, and the old prison has been a place of curiosity ever since.
On the 28th of April 1996, exactly two years ago, Martin Bryant used two semi-automatic military rifles to murder 35 people and wound another 20 at Port Arthur. When asked by forensic psychiatrist Professor Paul Mullin ...why Port Arthur?, Bryant replied "A lot of violence happened there. It was the most violent place in Australia. It seemed the right place."
I shall not dwell on the events of that terrible day, which surpassed in infamy anything ever perpetrated by convicts at Port Arthur. Suffice to say that there is another order of silence laid upon modern visitors, who are requested not to talk to the guides and the staff about the murders, or the subject of firearm control, for many of them were shocked by the events, and lost friends and workmates.
But the Broad Arrow Cafe remains, roofless and gutted like the convict ruins. Down by the water's edge there is a rough wooden cross containing the names of those who died, and there is a little island of silence as visitors stop and reflect with heads bowed, and all too often tears in their eyes.
Maybe one day the guides will talk about the mass murder, and it will be as much a part of the site as the convict past, but for now the memories are too raw, and the wind blows past the cross and through the empty windows of the cafe.
The official response was swift and merciless. Newly-elected Prime Minister John Howard promised to a stunned nation that action would be taken to prevent a recurrence, and that uniform laws would control the sort of semi-automatic rifles that Bryant used and restrict all firearm ownership to those with a legitimate need.
From somewhere a set of national firearm laws was unearthed, reportedly drawn up by the previous Keating government and abandoned as politically unsaleable. The Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department dusted them off and presented them to the new Government. With the promised support of the Labor Opposition, passage through Parliament would be a formality.
However, the Constitution does not give the Commonwealth the power to control firearms, so it would be necessary for the six States and two Territories to enact the same legislation. This was achieved using a carrot and stick approach. The carrot was the Commonwealth's promise to fund the buying back of now restricted firearms from their owners -- the States would not have to pay any compensation. The stick was the threat to hold a referendum to give the Commonwealth the firearms power it lacked -- in the wake of the tragedy, the public demand for action and the promise of bipartisan support, the referendum would be carried and the States would have no power of their own to pass firearm laws.
So, without any consultation from the hundreds of thousands of responsible shooters, the Uniform Firearm Legislation became law in each of the eight jurisdictions.
The overwhelming majority of Australians saw this as a good thing. They did not want to be gunned down over tea and scones, they had no firearms of their own, and if the government wanted to disarm lunatics like Martin Bryant and the ranting extremists popping up here and there, chiefly in Queensland, then this was a worthy objective, providing a safer community for all Australians.
The only significant rumblings of dissent came from legitimate firearm owners and users. The new laws were a little too draconian to be swallowed easily. It was not just the high-powered military rifles that were restricted (and which were owned by very few shooters anyway), but a host of other weapons, ranging from popular pump-action shotguns to small-calibre semi-automatic rifles were now placed under heavy restriction. A lot of shooters discovered that weapons which they had owned and used for years were now forbidden to them, and they had a limited amnesty period to hand back their weapons for destruction, receiving a fixed price in return.
Worse still, those shooters who were legitimately able to own and use weapons under the new laws now discovered that they would have to complete a host of forms, provide proof that they had a legitimate need for a specific firearm, that they were of good character, and undergo various checks and restrictions that they had not had previously. As the new government had promised a reduction in red tape, this increased paperwork was seen as hypocritical.
Of course, there were those who vowed extreme action of one sort or another and seized upon all kinds of excuses not to comply with the new laws. Some wanted a move to a US style gun culture, saying that if enough people had been armed, then Martin Bryant would have been gunned down. These people ignored the fact that there was no certainty that a vigilante armed with a pistol could have outfought the more heavily armed Bryant, and that if a sizeable percentage of the population went armed habitually, then we too would share in the sort of massive number of firearm crime, gun deaths and woundings that characterise the USA. Some thought that there was a constitutional right to bear arms. (There isn't). Some thought we could defeat an invading army if the citizenry were armed -- obviously these folk have no idea of modern warfare.
Some people were concerned at the indecent haste and lack of consultation in the new legislation. Certainly there was a need for national firearm control, but these laws did not take into account legitimate concerns and the sensible suggestions of the various shooters' organisations. With a degree of consultation a more workable package could have been introduced, one that would satisfy the general community that effective action was being taken, but would not make legitimate shooters feel marginalised, ostracised and criminalised.
The end result was that a huge amount of money was spent in buying back weapons that were obsolete or inappropriate. For instance, some World War Two aircraft cannon were handed in, and the owners rewarded with a price far beyond anything they could have received on an open market. The concept of anybody carrying out a mass murder with one of these weapons is ludicrous, yet still the forms were signed and the money paid over in all seriousness. In many cases the owners of restricted weapons used their compensation money to upgrade their firearms, buying a heavier calibre hunting rifle to replace an old semi-automatic "bunny gun".
Another equally obvious outcome was that tens of thousands of shooters would choose to retain their weapons rather than hand them in. These folk, previously legal, were now potential criminals if their firearms were ever discovered.
One effect has yet to be determined. It is likely that many firearm owners, previously loyal Coalition voters, will feel betrayed by the Government they helped to elect in 1996, and will turn away at the next election, now only a matter of months away.
The published position of Pauline Hanson's One Nation is looking very attractive to these people, and it is almost certain that Pauline's party will win seats at the next State and Federal elections.
As I stood and pondered over Port Arthur, it struck me that the motives of the penal reformers of 1848 were as good-intentioned, but ultimately destructive as those of the firearm reformers of 1996. The ends were lofty, but the means flawed. A little more thought, a bit of consultation, and more effective methods could have been found.
Just as there were a few dissenting voices to the Uniform Firearm Legislation, so too were there contemporary critics to the Model Prison in both London and Port Arthur. There were grave doubts about the mental cruelty involved and the effect of the discipline system on men's minds.
But these voices were either ignored or discounted, and the refined barbarity of the Model Prison endured for a generation before being abandoned.
I snuggled deeper into my jacket against the chill of the wind outside the Broad Arrow and contemplated the roofless buildings. There is a lesson in Port Arthur, for those with eyes to see. The popular solution, the hasty response drawn up by well-meaning but ignorant reformers, the simplistic plan, need to be examined from all sides. A government that promises to govern "for all Australians" should take particular care that all Australians are consulted, especially those most affected.
I turned away, found my car, and drove down the road that Bryant took from
Port Arthur to Seascape and eventually to the prison in Hobart, where he
sits in a cell for the term of his natural life.
Peter Mackay
Canberra
28 April 1998
They did not breed nor love.
Each in his cell alone
cried as the wind now cries
through this flute of stone.
-- Judith Wright, "The Old Prison"