Broadcast: 08/12/2006

Reporter: Rachel Fisher

RACHEL FISHER: The 1970's ... and excitement was in the air - Queen Elizabeth II and her son Prince Charles arrived in Hobart.

30 years ago, the forestry debate was in it's infancy, but the more things change, the more they appear to stay the same.

This story marked the first woodchip exports to Japan, from the newly-built Triabunna mill.

REPORTER: A vast new forest industry is growing rapidly in tasmania, the export of woodchips to Japan where they are used for making paper, almost any timber is suitable. This means that in an area cut for woodchips like this on the East Coast, virtually no tree is left standing

RACHEL FISHER: And while the great fox hunt is on today, in the early 70's the discovery of a fox carcass prompted the Government to offer an amnesty to anyone "harbouring" one of the predators.

GOVERNMENT MINISTER: If anybody is holding foxes we would much rather them surrender them to us, than risk the chance of escape or let them out, whcih would be a disaster for the State in so many ways.

RACHEL FISHER: The early decade was marked by anti war protests ... and more liberal attitudes.

REPORTER/PEOPLE ON STREET: What do you think about the Labor youth calling on govt to legalise marijuana? I think i'd be up against that. I think it'd be something like alcohol. If it's s drug that really does harm i would be against it, but if it is a drug that really does not, and it pacifies anybody, it gives them alot of enjoyment, it's no more than a lot of old people taking umpteen tablets every day

RACHEL FISHER: Even the topic of embarrassed husbands buying their wives' underwear made it onto our screens.

The Miss Australia Quest no longer exists, but in 1971 there was much to celebrate as Tasmania's Gillian Beswick returned home with the Miss Australia charity crown.

GILLIAN BESWICK/REPORTER: I think it will give me a lot of experience, but i sincerely hope it wont change me. What have you won by becoming miss aust charity queen? As far as I can gather I win four month overseas tour and also instead of getting a Ford Escort car, I get a Ford Falcon.

RACHEL FISHER: The 70's gave birth to a Tasmanian institution ... when 15-thousand people turned out for the opening of Hobart's Salamanca market.

REPORTER: A very old trading centre in Hobart has been revived alogn quite different lines from its former role a century and a half ago.

RACHEL FISHER: In 1972, as the campaign against plans to dam Lake Pedder reached it's peak, two protestors, pilot Max Price and his passenger Mrs Heane, pledged to take their battle to Canberra.

MRS HEANE/REPORTER: The natural flora and fauna really of the area, hasn't been properly investigated. Just at what stage will you call it a day? Never

REPORTER: Exactly a week ago from this very airfield, a tigermoth aircraft Alpha-Quebec-Lima piloted by Mr Max Price and his passenger Mrs Heane took off for Canberra, neither the pilot, Mrs Heane or the aircraft have been seen since.

RACHEL FISHER: No trace of the pair or their plane was ever found ... To this day many believe the plane was sabotaged, after revelations of a break-in at the plane' s hanger, on the night before the journey.

The flooding went ahead as Premier "Electric" Eric Reece's Gordon power scheme took shape.

Big construction projects weren't limited to wilderness areas ... On Hobart's foreshore a Tasmanian landmark was rising upwards to become Australia's first legal casino.

JUDY TIERNEY: Well this isn't every person's ideal occupation i wouldn't think, but i'm now travelling up the 230 feet above ground level to the top of the casino, and believe me that vibration in my voice isn't nerves, this is absolutely superb, it really is, but i don't think i'd like to do it every single day

JUDY TIERNEY: There was a cameraman and myself, cameraman was Warwick Curtis. I remember and Granny Hawkins was the sound recordist and he was terrified of heights, the sound recordist we had the old nagra tape recorders in those days they weighed about 30 kilos. He's squatted in the corner of this box cos he's terrified, we're going to be lifted right to the top of the casino and he's there recording as i'm saying this is exhilarating or whatever I said look at the views as we're going up. We got right to the top and he said I haven't turned the tape recorder on, he was so terrified, so we had to go all the way down again all the way up again he's still crouched in the corner.. but at least we got it on sound,

PREMIER ERIC REECE: There's casino fever in this city, i've never known it to be like it over anything else

RACHEL FISHER: But it wasn't all celebrations and openings ... The 70's are remembered for some terrible tragedies.

In October 1973, the coastal freighter Blythe Star sank off Cape Pillar after being hit by a freak wave. Three men died, but miraculously seven survivors srambled ashore on the Forestier Peninsula, after spending eight days adrift in a lifeboat.

REPORTER: He's just been helped onto a stretcher, he's got looks like rough canvas bandages around his feet, perhaps made from a life jacket cover or something like as bandages on his feet, Captain Cruickshank is the master of the Blythe Star, Captain Cruickshank, i'm feeling alot better now i've got here,

RACHEL FISHER: A year later, another tragedy ... 8 people died and 21 were injured in a boiler explosion in the laundry of Hobart's Mount St Canice convent.

REPORTER: What happened when got down? everyone hollering and screaming out for ambulances, started ripping through the wreckage for anyone who was injured

PREMIER DOUG LOWE: I'm horrified, it's a scene of complete devastation.

REPORTER: So for the workers behind me it's a night in the rain turning over each brick and piece of timber until they're sure no-one else remains. Jeremy Fabini in Hobart for ABC News.

KEN SHORT: Hobart's Tasman Bridge as it looked less than an hour ago, smashed in two in an incredible accident which has claimed five lives, eight people are still missing, a complete span was ripped out of the bridge by the 11-thousand tonne freighter Lake Illawarra, now lying at the bottom of the River Derwent.

RACHEL FISHER: 12 people died ... Murray Ling was one of the lucky ones.

MURRAY LING: I stopped three feet from the gap roughly, i got out and started waving but a car came through fast and just went straight thru space, and there was a thump, we pulled up when we saw a car that flew past us drop out of view.

REPORTER: If anything the scene looks more grotesque now than it did in the rain and darkness of a few hours ago, Hobart is a city cut in two, Adrian Wild ABC Hews Hobart 9:46

TONY WELLS: Our bulletin that night was transmitted live throughout Austraila and to other parts of the world, in my view ABC Television News on that day came of age in Tasmania.

RACHEL FISHER: 1975 marked a historic turning point in television broadcasting - with the arrival of colour.

REPORTER: Grey days are gone ... even if you do have to watch it on someone else's set.

RACHEL FISHER: But at 800-dollars a set, not every one was rushing to embrace the new technology.

REPORTER: Can you afford to buy a colour televison set? No where we are because we cant get black and white properly let alone colour. Can you afford a colour set, no, are you going to get one? No. Are you going to buy one sir? Not in the immediate future, it's too expensive.

KEN SHORT: I had the priviledge of reading the first colour television bulletin about eight o'clock i think it was, on the first day of colour transmission.

REPORTER: Talk to anyone on TV industry today and they'll tell you that colour TV is the next best thing to actually being able to smell, and feel this rose, in fact if you're susceptible to hayfever i suppose a colour tele might even be preferable to the real thing.

KEN SHORT: I think it's quite remarkable the technology development and you see now they can broadcast anywhere in the world and the quality is superb.

RACHEL FISHER: Colour certainly jazzed up the next royal visit ....

REPORTER: Children came from as far away as King Island for a special welcome from the youth of Tasmania

REPORTER: Hobart isn't a sin city, quiet by day. But perhaps thats all changing, with erection of the casino and the coming of black jack, maybe our virgin is falling to the way of sophistication and sin.

RACHEL FISHER: In 1975 politcians debated the need for legislation to ensure massage parlours weren't a front for houses of ill-repute ... 30 years on, brothels remain illegal.

In 1978, Tasmanians stopped travelling by rail , with the end of the Tasman Limited.

Local current affairs continued to rile the politicians ... But there was also plenty of fun to be had, especially with a performer like Bruce Goodluck on hand.

REPORTER/BRUCE GOODLUCK: Speaking about your ego it must surely annoy you know that Mr Burr is in the headlines and you're not there at all ... You know i think that's a distasteful remark and my ego's quite ok, you know the whole tone of this interview i think's been slanted the wrong way, my ego hasn't changed a bit.

RACHEL FISHER: Traditional north-south rivalry flared with the move of the Tasmanian College of Advanced Eduction to Launceston ... It's arrival helped offset closure of some major industries in the city, like the Coats Paton Woollen Mills.

1979 delivered a sporting high, not repeated again till 2004

Before a packed crowd at Hobart's TCA ground, Tasmania defeated Western Australia,to win it's inaugural one-day cricket trophy, the Gillette Cup.

RACHEL FISHER: The decade was to end as it began ... with the battle to save Lake Pedder lost, the burgeoning environmental movement turned it's focus to the new battle brewing, the plan to create a Gordon below Franklin.