Tuesday, 4 February 2025

 Bill TILLEY (Benambra) (15:51): I am sick to my back teeth of the narrow-minded focus that this Labor administration has on and the ignorance and deliberate disregard it has for all those other seats that it does not currently own. Last week this Labor government trumpeted the World Heritage bid for Victorian goldfields, including Bendigo, Castlemaine and Walhalla – the best surviving gold rush landscape in the world, they said. But we have got Beechworth, Yackandandah, Chiltern and Bethanga. We all say hello. The gold rush happened at the same time in all the places in that claim zone, and it is living history today. We are all major players in it. Anyway, near Beechworth there are the Wallaby and Rechabite mines, where $3 billion of gold was extracted out of the tunnels during the 1850s. The nearby gold battery remains in place today. There are a lot of these historical landmarks that are largely forgotten, with tracks to the mines now overgrown and some just fenced off. The Spring Creek tunnel diverted water to get gold from the riverbed and still runs under Beechworth township today. Chiltern’s Magenta mine is a significant tourist attraction, but forgotten mines and tunnels litter the landscape. At Yackandandah Karr’s Reef mine has organised tours and is a testament to the skills of the Cornish miners of the day. I am well aware that the north-east is now being considered for inclusion in the World Heritage bid but only after the assessor demanded it, and how they were not at the top of the list beggars belief.