CHARLES WOOLEY
In a week that has seen Beijing exclude two Australian conservative politicians we should remember that China has a long and deep distrust of all Western powers, including us. It’s a historical resentment which predates the relatively recent advent of the communist state.
After the Opium Wars of the 19th century, the American and European powers forced China to become a mere colony of the West. The Treaty of Nanking (1842) — a shameful and racist document — granted all trade rights and protection to the western nations and none to the supine Chinese.
In context, all the political shouting and sabre rattling we hear from China today stems from the humiliation and disgrace of their subjugation by superior western firepower and technology.
Young Chinese who have no knowledge of the Tiananmen Square massacre in the spring of 1989 (officially it didn’t happen) can recite chapter and verse the details of the atrocity of the western invasion in the Opium Wars almost 200 years ago.
It is not unusual for totalitarian regimes everywhere to resort to historical grievances for legitimacy.
In just a few words; “Comrades, now it’s payback time.”
Liberal MPs James Paterson and Andrew Hastie were off on a study tour of China. They had packed their grundies, Gastro Relief and copies of Lonely Planet and the useful “Idiot’s Guide to Mandarin” when suddenly they learnt they weren’t going anywhere.
The gates to the Great Wall of China had been slammed in their faces.
Andrew Hastie is chair of the powerful Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. He knows too much. It’s doubtful our security people would have been overly enthusiastic about the planned visit, and possibly relieved when it was off.
ASIO spooks are paid to be every bit as suspicious of China as China is of us. They caution our travelling officials not to “party too hard”.
High ranking Aussie tourist blokes are briefed: “If you are not the kind of guys whom pretty girls usually come up to in a bar and it happens in China, then be very careful.”
It is also customary for all Australian officials travelling to China to hand in their devices before leaving home, in exchange for temporary ones which will be debugged and discarded on return.
Underlining the mutual state of SinoAustralian paranoia, spooks warn:
“Nowhere is safe. All phones will be monitored. The privacy of your hotel room doesn’t exist. Always speak and behave as if you are being video-taped, which you almost certainly will be.”
They should know. Remember a few years ago, our clumsy spooks were caught out bugging the phone of the Indonesian President’s wife. How embarrassing.
And how dumb to be caught! Now we can’t be holier than thou in China.
Learning the trip was off, Hastie concluded that the decision was “politically motivated”.
He didn’t need to be Henry Kissinger to work that out. In August this year he compared China’s global ambitions and militarism to “the rise of Nazi Germany”.
For some people, the jackboots and the goose-stepping during the CCP’s 70th birthday celebrations might have sent a shiver of remembrance down the spine. Hastie and Paterson have also called out those huge Chinese concentration or “reeducation” camps.
So, it’s well and truly too late now “not to mention the war”.
The CCP likes to invoke history but only when history is on their side. So, the Chinese Embassy in Australia was quick to order those bad boys from the History 101 class to “repent and redress their mistakes”.
Meanwhile, this week’s leaking in the New York Times of Chinese state documents reveals the avuncular-looking leader, Xi Jinping, ordering a “show no mercy” policy in the mass detention of ethnic minorities and dissidents.
Mr Xi recently had himself declared president for life which, unfortunately, will no doubt invoke further unpleasant historical associations.
But let’s not make things worse.
The Chinese President called for the “struggle against terrorism, infiltration and separatism” to use all the “organs of dictatorship”.
This bodes ill for Hong Kong, and even raises the question of why it hasn’t already happened there.
The Chinese Communist Party’s high level of tolerance for dissidence in the former British colony is highly uncharacteristic.
Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne poured yet more petrol on our inflamed Chinese relationship when she said: “These disturbing reports … reinforce Australia’s view. We have consistently called for China to cease the arbitrary detention of Uighurs and other groups.”
While Chinese officials are displeased with the Senator, it seems the lady is not for turning.
Nor did 60 Minutes ease the tension this week with a comprehensive report alleging the CCP is buying and bribing its way into the Pacific, and even into the mining riches of Bougainville.
The report which underlines the naïvete and venality of small Pacific Island politicians makes you wonder whether we shouldn’t look more closely at how an asleep state government and a hayseed and callow country council could facilitate the massive Chinese landgrab at Swansea on Tasmania’s East Coast?
But then perhaps not. There’s probably nothing to see here. Because, thank goodness, the politicians on our own small Pacific Island are neither naïve nor venal.
On the brighter side for meat-pie-andchopsticks-diplomacy, Australia threw China a bone this week.
The Federal Government approved the sale of the Tasmanian baby formula outfit Bellamy’s Organic to Chinese interests.
Our very own Senator Jacqui Lambie soured the milk of human kindness just a touch when she described it as “a Communist Chinese takeover.”
Colourfully, she declared: “Every time they open a cheque book we roll over like a dog.”
Another bone we are throwing to China is a huge hambone. Australians might have to forgo their traditional Christmas ham this year.
The death of 200 million pigs in China from African Swine Flu created a massive market shortfall which we are going to fill.
But it’s a sweet and sour pork story. Sweet because our exports are up 100 per cent. Sour because here at home the price has doubled.
It seems that whenever a pig sneezes in China, Australians catch vegetarianism.
Will the Chinese forgive us our trespasses now that we have so selflessly sacrificed our Christmas lunch?
Will the relationship be smoother? Will CCP back off in Hong Kong?
Will they stop shouting at us, and can the troublesome Hastie and Paterson still have their Chinese banquet?
Pigs might fly. But only if they are frozen or chilled and on a plane to China.
The weather is alternating between foul and glorious as I drive in to Stanley on the North-West Coast, flipping between scorching sun and violent outbursts of wind-driven rain, in that peculiar fashion Tasmanian spring is known for. But like so many parts of this incredible island, Stanley wears this wild weather well, possessing that surreal ability to look even more beautiful and dramatic in foul weather than fine.
The immense volcanic hump of the Nut is hidden from sight with each passing squall and bathed in stark sunlight in between. In the distance, far out beyond the unfeasibly blue water of the bay, a mountain of grey cloud is dumping a dense column of rain into Bass Strait, surrounded by blue sky.
And despite the unpredictable mood of the weather, car after car is pulling into the car park on Alexander Terrace and people are filing into Hursey’s Seafoods for lunch.
A local institution famed for its fresh crayfish, this restaurant is owned and operated by the Hursey family, who have fished the waters of Tasmania’s North-West, West and South for three generations. Steve Hursey strides through the dining area in the midst of the busy lunch service and well-dressed diners, looking strangely out of place in shorts, boots, an old woollen jumper and a battered baseball cap.
But this 27-year-old, third generation fisherman is happy to leave the restaurant side of the business to other family members to look after. His job is at the pointy end of the operation — catching the fish that they sell — and his well-worn attire is as much his uniform as the black worn by the wait staff.
Sitting in a far corner of the dining room, a little way away from the lunchtime chatter, Hursey doesn’t exactly look uncomfortable about being inside, but he is quite clearly a man who prefers to have nothing but sky above him.
“I sometimes like to sit inside and chill like everyone else but, yeah, really I love all the outdoor stuff,” he says.
“I love taking photos. Everywhere I go I take photos. I spend a lot of time with my dog, Gus. I play football, I like camping, riding my motorbike, and fishing. Fishing on land. I love the thrill of catching something just as much as I love eating seafood.”
Hursey is featured in season two of Foxtel’s Discovery Channel series Aussie Lobster Men, which follows a number of cray boat crews from around Tasmania as they fish through a rugged winter season. The other crews are all based in the south of Tasmania, though, and Hursey’s boat, the Ella Rose, is the only one from the north of the state.
So the young skipper sees the series as an invaluable tourism and business opportunity, as well as a moment in the spotlight.
“I saw it as good advertising for our area and our business. Not many people know much about the North-West, the Hunter Island group, and this will be a great way for people to find out some more about this place.
“I’ve travelled all over the world and I still think this is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.”
Season one of Aussie Lobster Men was filmed last year and screened on 7mate and Discovery, also following an assortment of cray fishing boats from around Tasmania, home of the highly prized southern rock lobster.
Hursey says he was approached by the producers to appear in that first season but his travel bug proved to be his downfall.
“They got in touch with me for the first season but I was in Japan at the time so I couldn’t do it.
“But they touched base again this year and asked if I was still interested. So they came and did some interviews and camera tests and it all took off from there.
“I had a few things going for me as far as the show was concerned,” he laughs. “All the other crews were in the south so I was in a different area, and we’re a family business, not just a solo fisherman. And my dog, Gus, was a selling point too.
“People love dogs and he’s like my good luck charm, he comes with me on every trip. And I’m a bit younger than all the other guys!”
There was one habit that Hursey had trouble controlling for the cameras, though. He had trouble using the word “lobster”.
“They’re crayfish,” he says with a smile and a shrug. “It took me a long time to get used to saying lobster on camera.
“During the interview process, the initial takes, they stopped me a few times and told me to stop saying ‘crayfish’, I had to say ‘lobster’.
“I mean, technically, yeah, they are called southern rock lobsters, but we say cray here.”
Other than that small issue of Tasmanian dialect, though, Hursey says filming was a breeze, and he very quickly stopped paying attention to the extra crew members moving around the deck of his boat.
“Filming wasn’t so bad, to be honest, it didn’t bother me at all. I was just being me and doing what I do and they were just filming it. I forgot they were even there after a while.
You get into a rhythm and they stay out of the way. They’ve done this before so they know what they’re doing.
“Then every now and then I’d be trying to think my way through a problem or something and this camera would appear in my face and they’d ask ‘what are you thinking right now?’ and I’d be like, ‘well, I’m still trying to figure that out, myself!’.”
The TV crew came out for two trips on the Ella Rose, filming Hursey and deckhand Jamie as they dropped and retrieved lobster pots around the Hunter Island region off the coast of Stanley. It is a region Hursey knows extremely well, but even with his local knowledge and many years of fishing experience under his belt, he admits he was still nervous about looking unsuccessful on camera.
Before filming started, they went out on a sample fishing trip just to get a feel for each other and Hursey says he caught virtually nothing, which immediately made him worried. And the schedule for shooting the rest of the footage did not provide a confidence boost, either.
“It was all shot over winter just gone, so we didn’t get a lot of fishing done because the weather was so trash,” he says.
“I think they picked winter because Tassie is known for the Roaring Forties and the wild winters, so I think they really wanted to be out there to capture it when it was wild and rough.
“In the summer it’s just cruisy, nice weather and lots of fish, so I think they wanted to increase the drama a bit.
“And there’s a lot of pressure to get a good catch. The world is watching so you want to perform really well.”
Hursey has lived in Stanley his whole life, surrounded by a family who has been fishing those waters since the early 1970s. He has fished his whole life. When he was 15 he started going out on the cray boats with his Dad, Mark, during school holidays. He was 21 when he first skippered his own boat.
“I think at the time I was one of the youngest people in Australia to hold a licence for it,” he says. “It was challenging. I’d worked on boats a lot but running your own is a whole different scenario.
“I was lucky just to have great teachers like Dad and Pop and my family around me, there was lots of knowledge I could draw on. I’m still learning every day but anything I’m unsure about, they’re only ever a phone call away.”
His Pop is Jim Hursey. Originally from Dover in the state’s south, Jim and wife Val relocated to Stanley in 1973 following the tragic death of their oneyear-old daughter, Julie.
Jim and Val, with the help of their children, started accumulating fishing vessels and building a fishing business. Their son, Patrick “Kermie” Hursey, had the dream of establishing a retail outlet to sell their catch directly to the public.
But in 1986, Patrick was lost at sea while attempting to rescue a lone kayaker who was attempting to cross Bass Strait and got into distress.
Patrick’s boat, Moya Ann, was one of seven vessels who set out to locate the adventurer in heavy seas but the boat pitched over and sank. The other crew member on the Moya Ann was later rescued, but Patrick went down with his ship. He was only 19. The kayaker also drowned.
In Patrick’s memory, Jim and Val bought the current site of Hursey Seafoods and built the retail business their son had dreamt of.