State Border Dispute

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (16:18): I rise to commend a passionate South-East local, Dale Edward Button (I will talk on Generations in Jazz next week) of Eight Mile Creek. Mulga Button, as he is affectionately known, is adamant that the South Australian and Victorian border is still in dispute. As a proud South Australian, he believes that we should be fighting vigorously to have it correctly identified and the land reclaimed by South Australians. Taking a bit more of the beautiful Glenelg River and rich farming land would certainly be a benefit to us.

Most people may not know that about 1,800 square kilometres of South Australian land was incorrectly surveyed. The line that was agreed was the 141^st degree of longitude and the actual position of the border is west of this longitude by approximately 2.96 to 3.3 kilometres. In February 1851, a firestorm came through wiping out many of the timber markers, which means that today the exact border is unknown and has been lost for over 161 years.

The story began when the survey of the South Australian-Victorian border began in 1847 to 1850. It was a three-year saga of dogged persistence through heavy rain, flooded swamps and harrowing escapes from the waterless Mallee country near the member for Chaffey's country and then the almost instantaneous destruction of the border markers by a devastating firestorm once they were put in place.

It was soon proven that the surveyed border was several kilometres west of the intended 141° east longitude sparking a 64-year long battle between the two states for possession of what was commonly called the disputed territory—that thin slice of land between two states. The immediate loss of the border markers to fire meant that even today, more than a century and a half after the survey was supposed to eliminate a lawless haven for criminals, a no-man's land still exists between the state of South Australia and Victoria.

Before the South Australian-Victorian border was surveyed, the east of Mount Gambier and north to the Little Desert had become a lawless haven for criminals. Some might say some still live down in those parts. It could have been in either the colony of South Australia or the Port Phillip District of New South Wales. The Port Phillip District was created as a separate colony of Victoria in 1850.

The men who pegged out the borderline through the vast Mallee desert nearly lost their lives three times. Once they were stranded without water by a thoughtless visitor to their camp at Scorpion Soak. Another time their leader, Edward Riggs White, was without water and near death and only survived by drinking the black stinking blood of his dying horse. The third time was when they had to ration water in a last desperate push to reach the Murray River. On reaching the river in 1950, White's men mutinied after they were ordered to re-enter the desert to clear scrub to the required width either side of the line.

The war of words over the disputed territory lasted 64 years. At the peak of the disagreement, South Australia threatened to invade Victoria and subdivide the disputed country, but the Victorian government threatened to arrest any such invaders and thus the threat was not put into action. Eventually, the Privy Council in London ruled that Wade and White's line was the legal border, but since the border markers were wiped out by fire the location of this line has been lost for 160 years.

Complicating the resurvey of Wade and White's line is the loss of their original field survey books, so there are no detailed notes on its location, only a few scattered fixes from other surveyors who came later. The border fence is certainly not on the border, but well inside the state of Victoria and Mulga Button would like this land back. I raise this on behalf of a dedicated and parochial South Australians.