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  Issue No 113 Official Organ of LaborNet 28 September 2001  

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Letters to the Editor

Ian West on Trades Hall


Dear Editor,

Yesterday (27-9-01) during the adjournment debate in the NSW Upper House, I had the opportunity to raise the subject of the excellent recent publication by The Trades and Industrial Hall and Literary Institute Association of Sydney Limited entitled "Back to the Beginning." It is a highly informative and interesting historical interim publication . If anyone wants a copy they ought to call Lorna Morrison at the Trades Hall on (02) 9267 7603.

Adjournment debates are 5 minutes maximum in length, and due to time constraints I was not able to adequately acknowledge and congratulate the excellent work of Lorna Morrison OAM and Lynn Milne, and other members of the Association, for their valuable collation. I attach the text of my speech from Hansard (the Parliament record of debate) for Workers' Online readers.

Yours faithfully

IAN WEST MLC

"BACK TO THE BEGINNING -- A HISTORY OF THE TRADES HALL

The Hon. IAN WEST [5.08 p.m.]: Recently, I received a copy of a document from the Trades and Industrial Hall and Literary Institute Association of Sydney Ltd entitled "Back to the Beginning". It is an historical account of the early years of the Trades Hall Building in Goulburn Street, Sydney, and the efforts of those many working men and women to provide a facility in which to organise. The account begins:

"Towards the end of the nineteenth century, many working people in Australia had won two rights: the right to associate and the right to work no more than eight hours a day for a living wage. They could now form unions and they had the time to do so. Their next step was to acquire a suitable place."

The Trades and Industrial Hall and Literary Institute Association met for many years in a back room of the Swan With Two Necks hotel on the corner of George and Park streets, Sydney, before moving to the Temperance Hall.

Attempts to build a place to organise and advance working people's interests in Sydney date from about 1872. In late 1884 six members of the former Trades and Labour Council Committee joined nine delegates from nine unions to form the Trades Hall Committee, later known as the Trades Hall Association. The committee had �3 at its inaugural meeting. The conservative government of the day was asked to provide �6,000 from the 1884 parliamentary estimates to purchase suitable land, which it did.

In 1885 a block of land on the corner of Goulburn and Dixon streets was chosen. The Government bought the land and granted it by deed to appointed land trustees who were to oversee the use of the land and any buildings erected thereon. In 1885 the land posed a collection of challenges. Again I refer to the historical account, which states:

"There was an old mill at the foot of Goulburn Street, and the neighbours include Kents Brewery, commercial stables, a farrier and a tannery. All overflowed or gave off smoke and odours and generally caused nuisance to the Trades Hall land. There was a horse trough on the muddy footpath and the lighting was poor. There were rowdy hotels nearby and houses of ill repute and when the first stage of the Trades Hall was built bars were needed on the windows facing the Darling Harbour railway station. The cottages numbers 22-26 Dixon Street came with the land and were in various states of repair and tenancy and earned some �4 a week."

The Trades Hall Association was incorporated on 6 August 1886 into the Trades and Industrial Hall and Literary Institute Association of Sydney, a company limited by shares. Its objects were to build a hall in which to provide housing for meeting rooms, a lecture hall, a library and reading room, entertainment, a labour bureau and a waiting room for the unemployed.

In 1886 John Smedley, the first Australian-born architect, won the Trades Hall Association competition for his design of the future Trades Hall. The name given by John to the plan was pro bono publico, meaning "for the common good." The building which resulted remained mostly true to his design. Under the deed of grant the right to mortgage the land required an Act of Parliament. The association was in a fairly tight financial situation and had to manage its affairs in a businesslike manner, whilst remaining in the realms of a non-profit organisation.

The foundation stone was laid on 28 January 1888 by Lord Carrington, great nephew of the Governor, who spoke of the need for working people to help themselves. He cited the efforts of strikers in Edinburgh, who had organised themselves to build houses and had set up a successful scheme to let working people own their own homes. Some time later some people had begun to doubt that the Trades Hall would ever materialise. The Australian Workman on 6 December 1890 reported the venture's proponents as "a class of mere talkers and not workers".

The Trades Hall was finally completed in 1916 and still stands not only as a major architectural icon of Sydney but as living testimony to the efforts, results and resilience of many thousands of working people during those times and since. The Trades Hall has housed many community, religious and recreational groups over the years. It has stood through many local and world events: the caretaker, Mr Andrew Price, was killed at Gallipoli; the Second World War saw blacking out and sandbagging; and an influenza epidemic closed down the hall, along with most of the city. It escaped the bubonic plague in 1905, possibly because it was well away from the rat-infested Circular Quay........"

(Time expired


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*   Issue 113 contents

In this issue
Features
*  Interview: The Custodian
Labor's arts spokesman Bob McMullan on the role government can play in nurturing national culture.
*
*  Media: Chucking a Wobbly
Veronica Apap meets Dan Buhagiar, the programmer of Labor Council's new online initiative, Wobbly Radio.
*
*  E-Change: 3.3 Unleashing a Networked Culture
Politics does not occur in a vacuum - it's is as much a product of its culture as it is an influence on it. In the post-Industrial Age how will this relationship change?
*
*  Unions: Are You a Terrorist?
Away from the talkback noise, Mark Hearn reports on how a Sydney workforce is taking up the cause of racial understanding and tolerance.
*
*  Organising: STAA Performers
Film industry workers are acting collectively to ensure they don't become Mexicans with Mobiles.
*
*  Workplace: Making Art Work
The Workers Cultural Action Committee is a community cultural development provider. What is this? And what does it mean for the union movement?
*
*  History: Creative Alliances
Neale Towart wanders through the archives to look at how unions' have worked with artists to promote progressive casuses.
*
*  Performance: Tales from the Shop Floor
Peter Murphy profiles Sydney's New Theatre and the role it has played in fostering working culture.
*
*  Review: Homegroan
In an extract from her new book, The Money Shot, Jane Mills argues that the local film industry needs more than patriotism to get bums on seats.
*
*  Satire: PM Pleads To Nauru: Take Our Aborigines Too
In the wake of Nauru�s acceptance of the Tampa refugees, Australian Prime Minister John Howard has struck a new deal with the small island nation to take our Aborigines as well.
*

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»  Union Power Gets Tilers Paid In Full
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»  NSW Nurses (Pro)Claim Their Worth
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»  AOL Sheds Non-Union Staff
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»  Building Inquiry Faces First Test of Integrity
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»  Telstra Guilty Over Union Discrimination
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»  Paint Workers Finish the Job
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»  New Project Agreement A Template
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»  The Workers United, Need a New Slogan!
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»  Activists Notebook
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Columns
»  The Soapbox
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»  The Locker Room
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»  Trades Hall
*
»  Tool Shed
*

Letters to the editor
»  Hamberger on Stellar
*
»  CHOGM Agenda
*
»  Ian West on Trades Hall
*

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