From Quarry to Oasis: Dominique Hes on the incredible story of Newport Lakes, circular economies & beyond

Dr Dominique Hes is deeply embedded in the regenerative movement. A renowned educator, author of Designing for Hope, advisor on the Federal Circular Economy Ministerial Advisory Group, Chair of Greenfleet, and featured presence in some of Damon Gameau’s wonderful films, Dominique started working in regenerative development 20 years ago, and ‘sustainability’ for ten years before that. Her focus is on real projects, on the ground, in place. And today, we visit one of them. In her place. Newport Lakes. What was a quarry, is now an extraordinary landscape right in the inner-west of Melbourne. And all on the back of the community here. This is now the subject of Dominique’s next book. Which is just as well, as nobody I’ve spoken with in Melbourne even knows it exists.

So join us for a walk through Newport Lakes, as Dominique shares this incredible story with us, along with the story of her life - its transformations, hopes, struggles, breakthroughs, and regeneration reflected in this place.

Head here for automatic cues to chapter markers (also available on Apple and some other apps, and the embedded player on the episode web page), and a transcript of this conversation (the transcript is AI generated and imperfect, but hopefully serves to provide greater access to these conversations for those who need or like to read).

Recorded on 26 February 2024.

Title slide: Dominique at Newport Lakes as we pressed record (pic: Anthony James).

See a selection of 'before and after' photos on the episode web page, and to see more from behind the scenes, become a member via the Patreon page.

Music:
Green Shoots, by The Nomadics.

Sacrosanct, by Duel Native aka Stephen Choi.

The RegenNarration playlist, featuring music chosen by guests (with thanks to podcast member Josie Symons).

Transcript

Dominique: 0:02

And so - not one of my students, but I heard of a young 19-year-old engineering student committing suicide because he'd gotten into the whole peak oil thing and he got so depressed that he saw no hope. And I became so - and I'd just had my daughter, so I had this three-month-old bundle of potential in my arms. And to think of that potential giving up at 19. I was like no swear word. No, there is so much good stuff, there's so much potential in humanity, there's so much we can do if we're in right relationship with place.

AJ: 1:02

G' day. My name's Anthony James and this is The RegenNarration tracking the story of the regeneration of life on this planet. Thanks JP, Mark Duncan and Helen Lynes for your very generous subscriptions. Like rain to a farmer, you made it feel like it poured this week. If you're also finding value in all this, I'd love you to join JP, Mark and Helen, part of a great community of supporting listeners for as little as $3 a month or whatever amount you can and want to contribute. Subscribing members get special offers and invitations and, of course, the warm and fuzzies. Just head to the website via the show notes RegenNarration. com forward slash support and thanks a lot. It's greetings from Canberra this week. Y es, amidst another heat wave, a lazy four to five degrees above average so far in March, and forecast for the next week too, with unusually zero rain, which makes this episode all the more prescient.

AJ: 2:05

Dr Dominique Hes is deeply embedded in the regenerative movement. A renowned educator, author of Designing for Hope, advisor on the Federal Circular Economy Ministerial Advisory Group, chair of Greenfleet and featured presence in some of Damon Gameau's wonderful films, Dominique started working in regenerative development 20 years ago and sustainability for 10 years before that. Her focus is on real projects on the ground in place, and today we visit one of them in her place, Newport Lakes. What was a quarry is now an extraordinary landscape right in the inner west of Melbourne, and all on the back of the community there. This is now the subject of Dominique's next book, which is just as well, because nobody I've spoken with in Melbourne even knows it exists.

AJ: 2:59

Dominique and I first met through my old mate, professor Frank Fisher, what must be nearly 15 years ago now, and I've been graced with her support and correspondence from day dot with this podcast, which is really just indicative of how she is with everyone. So join us for a walk through Newport Lakes and the heartfelt life and times of Dominique Hes. Dominique, it's so good to be here with you. T his feels like a long time coming in many ways, but to not only be with you but have you bring me to this place here at Newport Lakes, I feel very grateful, thank you.

Dominique: 3:36

Oh, you're very welcome. Yeah, it has been a long time coming. We're both doing such amazing work and been circling around each other so much. And, yeah, I really, really love this place and I have no right to speak for this country, but I talk about it as my place, so I'll use the word place, and that for me means this my heart is in this place and the people that looked after this place before we came as white fellows were the Yellow Cooke Willam and they called this, this area and much more than this area, court Book Book, and for them it would have been Bitteruck, bitteruck season Well, that's the Eastern Coole Nation name for it. I expect that the traditional owners of this place, the seasons would have been slightly different, because the Eastern Cooleland is sort of wetter and more tropical and whereas this is drier and so, but I don't know what they would call it.

AJ: 4:34

On that note, let us indeed turn around and head out into it.

Dominique: 4:40

So back in 86 they made the decision to turn this back into lakes, as opposed to filling it up with rubbish and then turning it into sports fields and playgrounds and so forth. That had taken about 25 years of the community fighting for it to get there. So from the early 60s people started saying we've had enough. In 1968 they stopped quarrying and then from there it was a you know, we want this to be something special for us and used to be a treeless waterhole but, people still loved the look of the escarpments and the feeling, and there were lots of birds and so forth, because where there's water you'll get life.

Dominique: 5:26

But at the moment you wouldn't recognise the sort of place that it was after it had been quarried. So as we walk around, I'll have some photos from before and after, which I'll send to you so you can share them.

AJ: 5:37

Yeah, put them on the website.

Dominique: 5:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that you can get a sense, but this is an example. So here and this was in the mid 90s when Martin, who was the horticulturist that was looking after the redevelopment of this area, really fought to keep the escarpments. He really fought to because the council wanted to just cover them all up and make this a nice smooth hill down to the lake. They very much had that sort of European garden idea and some of the councillors the initial people that brought the idea, plus Martin, kept fighting for it to be a natural bush setting. But it's nothing like what would have been here. It would have been grasslands, grasslands leading up to some bluestone or basalt escarpments with lots of boulders laying around that people would have picked up and used for various purposes.

Dominique: 6:32

I imagine the Yellowcote Willam would have pulled up a rock and had a chat in the shade of the trees at the escarpment. That would have been an address to meet it. I don't know, of course, but that's my expectation and I think the colonial people, when they came here, went oh, we need shelter. Oh, there's lots of rocks around, there's a few acaches and some gums, let's use those to build our first shelters and from that the bluestone would have become an industry, as basalt or as building stones for roads and houses and so forth.

AJ: 7:05

And this is topical right in the regenerative sense, because it's not restoring what was. We are heading to new ground. That's an important concept, sort of, for everywhere to be embracing.

Dominique: 7:22

That's right. We did talk about restoration, but it's not really the intent to bring it back to what it was, because we have been here and we have done stuff to this place. It is actually increasing its vitality and viability so that it can become whatever it needs to be in the future, and it has the resources to do that, just like we build a healthy body so that we can become who we need to be physically and mentally, same with the ecosystem.

Dominique: 7:48

Support it to be the best it can be, and it is very different. You know, two hundred years ago there would have been no lake, there would have been outcrops, occasions running down into swamps.

AJ: 8:05

All right, all right, let's keep going.

Dominique: 8:07

Let's keep going. We are going that way. So as we are walking along here, we have got the lakes to our left. There would have been five quarry holes in this area Paby's Hole, north West Hole, the two holes that are now the lakes and there would have been a central hole which is now called the Ampe Theatre. And in the mid-1800s when people would have been quarrying here, they would have used their chisels and hammers and some simple pulleys to make holes into the rock and then they would put in some gunpowder, light a fuse and run the powder monkey was the highest paid of the gang. A lot of people use this area for recreation, running and so forth, as we have a jogger walk past us, a run past us, and there's really been a place that during COVID, many, many people say really saved them, really held them safe through that period.

AJ: 9:20

Which is so interesting because you might think humans saved this, yes, and then you have that. That's right. Yeah, and when you least perhaps think you need it, there's layers to that, isn't there? And this is so topical, dominique, because this is a current book project.

Dominique: 9:37

That's right.

AJ: 9:39

You're pulling the stories together to the extent you can.

Dominique: 9:42

Yeah. So the background of the book is really interesting in that I was walking around here, pretty much doing what we're doing right now, with Brian Dunbar and his partner from Fort Collins and he said you know, dominique, you've got to write a book about this. This is exactly what Designing for Hope is about, which is the title of your previous book.

Dominique: 10:05

That's right. Ten years ago or so, exactly ten years ago and I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, stick that on the back burner, think about it. And then two years ago, I knew a friend of mine was looking for a house to buy and I saw this house to sale and I thought, oh, this is going to be perfect for them. And I wrote and I rang them and I said I see this house near Newport Lakes, do you want to have a look? And then two weeks later the house was sold and so I'm being distracted by a beautiful little, superb fairy ren that is showing off his blue feathers.

AJ: 10:44

Oh yeah.

Dominique: 10:45

Just down there.

AJ: 10:46

And you were saying there's been a reed warbler here too.

Dominique: 10:50

Yes, yes, down by the water, we may hear him. We may hear him. Wonderful oh look, there's two little ones.

AJ: 10:54

Topical.

Dominique: 10:55

Yes. Anyway, two weeks later I saw it sold and I said hey, did you buy that house? And they bought the house and she said oh, but also, the person who sold it to us is Mary, and Mary Burbage was one of the two labor counsellors that crossed caucus to save Newport Lakes, to not get it filled in with rubbish, and so you know it's such a critical. And then she said but she's very ill, so if you're serious about writing this book, now's the time to talk to. Mary.

AJ: 11:27

Well, that's beautiful, isn't it? So?

Dominique: 11:29

yeah, I got three chats with Mary before she passed. I thought I'd have more time, as we always do.

AJ: 11:37

Well, this is why it's so yeah, it's like there's no time to waste. No time to waste For any of it, for any of this, for all sorts of reasons.

Dominique: 11:46

in that sense we can see a black swan on the stepping stones. The stepping stones are kind of the most famous kind of icon of Newport Lakes. Again, martin fought very hard for those stepping stones because obviously if you're disabled it makes it a difficult way to go and but it's also it's steep.

Dominique: 12:13

So from a disability perspective, it is a very difficult to give access to all of it. But he also intuitively understood, you know, those biophilic needs to be able to take risks, for children to be able to climb and jump over rocks and things like that, and that's, you know, critical for our development.

AJ: 12:36

I love John Marsden's motto up at his school candle bar take care, take risks. We cite it with our young nine-year-old and he carries it with him now, even though he's not at that school. It's such a lovely encapsulation of what you say.

Dominique: 12:49

Yeah, it's amazing the veneer has a better a broken bone than a broken spirit. Wow, that's a ripper yeah so it's like, and so you know, and it is one of the things that's most loved about this place is those stones? Yeah, has been through that One side to puzzle my bike over there, which is closer to my house, and we will be able to go over those stones. Yeah, cool. So I'm being very naughty everyone online, I'm walking my bike through.

AJ: 13:17

That's what you're busted.

Dominique: 13:19

I'm busted.

AJ: 13:19

Totally because I didn't bring mine in the end.

Dominique: 13:21

anyway, long story, but yeah, once we get down to the stepping stones, I'll show you the original photos of this escarpment. But what Martin did was he created these different levels so that we could still. You know, he says if you fall off from up there to down here, then you know you've just been silly, you haven't taken care, you're not going to die, whereas before it was a 20 to 30 to 40 meter drop straight down. Yeah, I won. And so also the lakes are got filled in with inert rubble, bricks, concrete, stuff like that, because they were 9 to 12 meters deep at points and they were got raised to 3 meters deep again as a sort of part of that safety aspect.

Dominique: 14:13

It then has consequences to the quality of the water and it means that we need to have a more active relationship with place to manage that water, which takes money and time, which is one of the things that's very difficult for a large council to have, and one of those stories that if we're going to be in partnership with nature, then we need to consider what that means, and it's not just it being behind a gate and leaving it alone. It's actually having that active because we have changed it. Yeah, we have changed it.

Dominique: 14:48

I'm desperately looking for an example of the powder monkey thing, because I know there's a few here and I have photographed them, but I can't see them.

AJ: 14:59

How would you articulate the connection between the two books, because I know in your mind that there's no dichotomy between what you're doing now and what you were doing then. I mean maybe where you're situated and the actual focus, but not in a general sense. How do you see the connection, the thread?

Dominique: 15:21

So designing for hope came out of a deep frustration of young people not having hope for the future, and so not one of my students, but I heard of a young 19 year old engineering student committing suicide because he'd gotten into the whole peak oil thing and he got so depressed that he saw no hope. And I became so and I just had my daughter, so I had this three-month-old bundle of potential in my arms and to think of that potential.

Dominique: 15:56

Giving up at 19, I was like no swear word. No, there is so much good stuff, there's so much potential in humanity, there's so much we can do if we're in right relationship with place, and so I wrote designing for hope. Very much from that. Well, I developed a subject actually for the University of Melbourne called regenerating sustainability. And that subject and when are we talking. This was straight after that, so 2009.

Dominique: 16:27

Okay, and I developed that subject with the specific purpose of taking students through all of the good stuff that they could be doing within their built environment profession. So it was something like 52 different case studies across a whole bunch of theory and then weaving the theory in with the case studies and stories, and that's what this book is.

AJ: 16:50

It's just the story with the theory woven through instead of the theory with the stories woven through Very good so but also helping you as, as your individual case connect with your place and your heart, as you described it before.

Dominique: 17:05

Yeah, yeah, my place, my place, our place, it's not a it's not a my yeah, nice my is only the. What relationship do I have? So you can see, see that hole there there's kind of an overly hole. Yeah, you can see it goes down yeah that would have been an old, where they would have rammed through a rod and blown it up. There's a better version just up here but, I love this escapement, this just. I'm taking you through my favorite bit first there you go.

AJ: 17:36

Yeah, it's beautiful, but it's actually doubly profound. I think that you walk in and you walk down. Yes, it shifts your world view entirely you can see another one there. See that it's got like a little cross thing and it's right down yeah so that's some thin shutters, though, to think, yeah. So, speaking of place, yes, you were from a place far from here right, yes, oh, my goodness, tell us about that.

Dominique: 18:08

Well, by the time we moved to, let me just pop my bike down or it's going to be very crunchy, because I want to just spend a minute here cool, let me just pop my bike.

Dominique: 18:17

Yeah, so, um. So I was born in South Africa and then we moved to Brazil when I was four and a half and then between that we went in the Netherlands for six months and then we moved back to the Netherlands for six months and then came to Australia. I think that was the order when I was about 10, 10 or 11, to Melbourne no we moved well, we stay.

Dominique: 18:46

So friends in Sydney sponsored us, which is what happened at that time in the early 80s. And then from that my dad was a civil engineer with backgrounds in sort of mining, dams, roads, things like that, and so we went to the Hunter Valley and he worked for cable belt mining, you know the things, the conveyor belts for coal that's right, you were in a town with a great name.

Dominique: 19:10

Grestford yeah so Grestford's up near the Barrington tops. But yeah, it took us a little while to land there. But my parents bought a little house there with a little post office because my mum wanted to do something yeah and so typical migrants went to a place, started a shop and so yeah. So that's where I went to the last bits of primary school and then went to Dungog High School. Dungog, that was the no most thing yeah, yeah, dungog seems to be like a crucible of regenerative stuff at the moment.

Dominique: 19:44

It's really interesting really yeah, yeah, there's a lot of really interesting stuff. I don't know a lot about it, it's just. There seems to be lots of little stuff, particularly around the relationship between farming and forestry and people and community and healing, and but also that cognitive dissonance between people that are working the land and feeling that they can't love the land because, that would mean they needed to change the way that they've been taught. I don't know what that looks like.

AJ: 20:13

It just feels like that oh yeah, I think you've put your finger on a pulse there. Yeah, that I see a lot of around the country you would see a lot more of it Charles Massey wrote about, really, but most people suffered en route to the incredible stuff they're doing.

Dominique: 20:31

Yeah, in that sort of way yeah, so I think that's what's happening there. But, um, but by the time we landed in Gressford I'd moved 35 times, been to 15 different schools and I was 13, wow, and so that was very much a shaper of my identity and my luck of self-esteem, my luck of ego. So, you know, I'm still recovering 52 and I'm still recovering from the impact that that had on me.

AJ: 20:58

Um, what else did it give you? Because that's that's got to be, yeah, no small part of who you are yeah, yeah, oh, I'm very adaptable, I'm a chameleon were. You were an only child.

Dominique: 21:10

I know my sister is seven and a half years younger okay but, um, but she was two, two and a half yeah when we moved to Gressford, and so she had a lot more stability. Not that served her very well either well, that's interesting too, right?

AJ: 21:29

yeah, yeah, lots, you lot yeah, I'm adaptable.

Dominique: 21:32

I'm a chameleon, I'm anywhere with an accent. I'll pick up that accent very quickly because, in a fit-in quicker. It took me a long time to look people in the eye. I think I'm an observer of patterns, just so that I can adapt quickly that's interesting.

AJ: 21:49

Yeah, it's not, depending for who I am.

Dominique: 21:51

Do you see that stripe? Yes there's a very clear version of the of the shaft that they would have yeah, stuck the jellignite or um gunpowder and then run yeah, that is very clear.

AJ: 22:08

I might get that on an image, hey yeah, yeah and Dominique, I'm also curious, then, with what your old man was doing. So I gather he was working for multinationals doing that stuff in these places and that's a good period.

Dominique: 22:21

No, no, I think I mean he wouldn't. Um, I think it was part of I've got a neurodiverse child. I think many people have neurodiverse and and the system that they're placed into doesn't really support them to be the best they can be, and I think my father is an example of that.

Dominique: 22:44

So I think he was just changing jobs all the time because he would rub up against the system that didn't understand how to align with him and how he could be. But he's brilliant, absolute brilliant man. But um, born in the second world war, at the age of 13 got sent to work to bring money home. Never finished high school, was dyslexic. Um always amazing. Lots of ideas all the time. I think he solved most of the world's problems, just didn't know how to bring them to a place where they could be listened to and crikey.

AJ: 23:17

Doesn't this sound familiar?

Dominique: 23:20

But yeah, so we're probably standing about there. I'll send you these photos, but yeah.

AJ: 23:30

Cool, it's very hard to see.

Dominique: 23:33

I can take the thing out. That's pretty good. Yeah, so there's a secret little path up that way and you can go up the skarpment up there and go up there. I don't know if I've got time to scamper up there.

AJ: 23:51

The wind's blown up hey.

Dominique: 23:52

Yeah, we'll get out of the windows, just because you know we're right in the flow. So we're now going to go to my favourite bit, and then I'll put my bike back. All right, and then I'll walk you back to and tell you some other really fun stories.

AJ: 24:13

Cool, but yeah, that's looking like my ocean.

Dominique: 24:14

Now, dominique, I'm an afternoon with the doctor that's coming in Yep, we'll get it, we'll get out of that, but yeah, so Martin and the crew created these terraces. But this, this escarpment, would have gone straight down on all the way to the water. But to go through kind of the 1800s, people would have come here, seen the bluestone come with the mentality of running away or getting away or being sent away from home. So, whether you were entitled, lawdling, trying to prove themselves, or whether you were, you know, a child that had stolen bread for the family, it wasn't. They weren't coming from somewhere beautiful and pristine where they were taught to have a healthy relationship with place, and they came to this place and just saw opportunity to take from place, because that's all that they've ever been taught.

AJ: 25:17

Well, this is so important and it relates to, you know, my, my ancestors. First arriving here, I think there was the literal stealing of a hanky, you know that sort of thing. He got lashes for it as a kid my kid's age, I think, he might have been 11 maybe. But also it's where I'm so conscious, it's where that famous peace tragedy, the commons, comes out and the Hobbesian thinking like that life is short, brutish and nasty, or something Like take what you can, take what you can. It's a contextual place in time.

Dominique: 25:52

And then you bring it to this very different place, expecting it to be the same and seeing your chance to win.

AJ: 26:00

Yeah.

Dominique: 26:01

Instead of to participate. Yeah, it's very much this place, but I think, over the last 200 years, what we're doing is we're on a journey to change that mentality, from that winning to building that relationship, to having that partnership.

AJ: 26:16

It really changes everything about how you view the world, people yourself even. Geez, that relates to a really big topic. I think we were talking before about even the burnout in people who've led the way for a bunch of decades, like your good self, and I wonder what you would say to people who might be feeling a dose of that, who are listening to this.

Dominique: 26:46

Yeah, makes me think of the Lorax, right, you know, if we don't care? Yeah, you know. So I'd rather have burnout than not care.

AJ: 27:01

But it's a bit like the broken bone versus broken spirit. That's right, but in this case it can sort of break your spirit.

Dominique: 27:07

It can. So the thing is to build around yourself people that will support you when that happens, Because sometimes in my case, it was completely hormonal. It wasn't actually quite happy one day and suicidal the next. It was just like crazy Mysteries of the world and then to be able to get help for that.

Dominique: 27:27

But I've had two other burnouts related to caring so much and hitting up against a system that didn't care and not being able to, in that point, step back and understand that. So and so, there is a journey for each one of us. And there's another little blue, blue, red. No, I'm distracting myself, let's go A very red.

AJ: 28:04

But when I, if I draw the threads, yeah you know, when you said, you come with the mentality you have to win rather than be part of something, it's the being part of something. So the better you've got at that, the more ready you were, in a sense, not individually, but you had others that were there for you and indeed, thankfully, yes, we're able to put you in the right place.

Dominique: 28:27

But I think I think another thing we were talking about earlier is just wait for the helicopters to go over. So it feels like there shouldn't be helicopters flying over everybody, because you can't see a single building. All we can see is trees and water and blue cliffs. There's no one around yet where four train stops away from central Melbourne business district.

AJ: 28:56

So did you ever hear of the Square Inch of Silence project?

Dominique: 29:00

No.

AJ: 29:00

Out of the States. Literally just one bloke who went seeking a square inch of silence, the criteria being it had to be half an hour, I think, or 15 minutes, half an hour something, 15 minutes perhaps, without an industrialized sound.

Dominique: 29:12

Yeah.

AJ: 29:13

And that was very hard to find. He found it in the Redwoods in Oregon, I think. And then it captured people's imaginations. When he rode it up and they went seeking and it became a thing. People were mapping square inches of silence around the place, but yeah, with air traffic and even just the distant train horn and there's always a leaf blowing up far away. But it was a great metaphor, more than just the actual mapping. The metaphor was powerful, I thought, and so it stayed with me clearly to bring to attention the stuff you can normalize that does have an impact, even if it's just just quite unquite noise.

Dominique: 29:50

Yes, but it's also like we live in a city and we need to accept that we're part of that, and so I think there is a, there is a yes, and with all of the, the sounds that are part of the world that we have chosen to live in right now, and getting frustrated at it, it's just adding more, more pain. But you know, just yeah, it's, it's. It's a modern sound. I live in a modern place.

AJ: 30:20

It reminds me of the elder to Tysian Yankaporta when he's talking about devices and so forth. He said, yeah, it's part of the dreaming, yeah, but I'm taking note. I'm taking note, but it is a perfect segue of sorts into so much of what you have dedicated your work to and the story, the plethora of stories, that not only did you write up in your book of 2014, but you have continued to assist, be a part of, observe, document, spread the word about stories everywhere. Give us a sense of what's captured your imagination among all these stories that you're privy to in in urban spaces of regeneration.

Dominique: 30:57

Yeah. So there's so much going on and I think much of that you wouldn't call regeneration. You wouldn't call. But there are community groups and things that people are doing, whether it's, you know, the Mums of St Kilda collecting stuff for refugees, or West Welcomwagon there's wonderful stuff everywhere.

AJ: 31:24

Oh, that one. What was the motto? Warm, warm houses, warm hearts, or something like that. Yeah, I was just talking about that with Tim Fisher actually because he's with the Energy Efficiency Council now and there's such a focus on what that means. It's not just a house, not just bricks and mortar.

Dominique: 31:41

So there's so much of that going on, but, oh my goodness, I help out anyone that asks. Basically, and you might not see the legacy or you might not even know it hit. So that's Mary's house right there. So that one there, and so that's the one that my friend Emily bought, and that's where we sat and had our three interviews.

AJ: 32:06

Wow, now that's layered up with the story.

Dominique: 32:09

Yeah, that's right, and this is where the biggest hole was. That got filled in with rubbish and this was the compromise between the community and the council. So this is filled in, and so it would have looked. The rest of Newport Lakes would have looked like this. So it's not that it would have looked like a tip right now. It would have looked like this, but there's so much more to it over there than there is over here.

AJ: 32:36

Yeah.

Dominique: 32:37

As we, as we walk over here, you see that stack.

AJ: 32:40

Oh yeah.

Dominique: 32:41

So I'll send you photos from this point looking over that way and this is the dog park. So dogs aren't allowed in the in the lakes bit because we're trying to protect all of the native species. They don't like the smell of dogs. We can't do much about the foxes, unfortunately, but again there is a yes and conversation with that too, because they are now part of this place.

Dominique: 33:09

So, there is a long term evolution that needs to enable whatever needs to come into the future. What we also see here is a lot of dying trees and, at the end of the day, this is a quarry, and all of this is man made and it's all fill. That was oh, gotta tell you another story it's all fill and so, and below that's rubbish, and so you know there's methane and so forth everywhere.

Dominique: 33:40

So because this was a place for the council and other people to dump stuff, at some point they were flattening out bits of the dunes in Eltona for development and they dumped it all over here and the rangers, just six months ago, were trying to get rid of all of the dune species that have popped up here because they were worried about it not being. They were restoring it.

Dominique: 34:10

That's not of here, so we need to remove it. And they actually found the eastern I'm not going to say the name properly Tussick Skink. Anyway, it's now endangered, threatened species and the viable population has been scooped up and plonged here and they went. Okay, we're backing away slowly, we're going to leave it.

Dominique: 34:29

We're going to evolve and that skink's now being seen elsewhere. So it developed a viable population here because they dumped this sand and dune, salt, bushes and so forth, and then it's made its home and it's the same. These trees will fall over, but in 50 years time they will mulch and new things will grow, and it's just. It just takes time for the place to get to know who it's new self is.

AJ: 34:58

Yes, but isn't there such a big story in that too, of like the irony of colonial culture looking to boot species that weren't there from the area Because we want to conserve it.

Dominique: 35:12

We weren't here, so what?

AJ: 35:13

are you going to do with that? But you know, I'm reminded. Of course it's just because it's the flagship story on the podcast, but it relates to so much the donkeys at Kachana Station in the Kimberley. So we really have to come to terms with that, and the same with the donkeys. They're wild antecedents in other places of the plant. They're not there anymore.

Dominique: 35:32

This is one of my favourite plants. Sorry just to interrupt you there, but this is one of my favourite plants because it's the kangaroo apple and it's a signal for a particular season of again the eastern coolant of the Yellowfoot Willam, but it's still one of my signals.

Dominique: 35:49

So when the flowers come out, it's a certain season. When the fruit's ripe, it's another season. It's a way to connect into those stories of what would have been here. And there's so much of that that you know. I only know the five-year-olds version of it, the picture book version of it, but there's so much in that.

AJ: 36:09

It's still in fruiting.

Dominique: 36:10

Every story is like a. We were talking before. Every story, every word, every place, every rock, every tree is like a hyperlink that goes to a Wikipedia full of information that has hyperlinks that takes you elsewhere, and the traditional people of this place would have known all of that in their heads.

AJ: 36:30

Well, collective heads, collective heads, yeah, yeah.

Dominique: 36:34

And when you hear just the five-year-old picture book version of it, you think there is so much in that for us to learn so much.

AJ: 36:43

And it's so interesting. That's a good thing. Recovery even is so interesting, it's needn't depress, it is the enthralling bit. And this is something I want to come to with you too. Right, because you wrote I want to come back to this. I took note of this. The last time we saw each other, in fact, I think, was here in this hood at Yarraville yeah, in the cinema there because we were with Damon Gammo. After regenerating, australia came out, we were talking together afterwards on stage and after you heard, the same thing happened, but back at home in Lederville. You heard that discussion on the podcast and you said you said you oscillate between joy and fear. At times it feels like painting nuclear bombs green, especially in offset and circular economy spaces, and I wanna get to what you're doing in those spaces a bit more too. But just relating it to that point of there is the joy bit there, but it doesn't discount the fact it doesn't paper over, and nor should it the fact that there's the hard stuff too.

Dominique: 37:48

Eh, yeah, yeah, there is. We're gonna get out of the wind in a second.

AJ: 37:52

All right.

Dominique: 37:53

Yeah, I'll talk to you about all of that in a second. I'll send you some photos of this as well, because this was like grassland and then they put mulch on it and then as a because friends of Newport Lakes every month have a working bee and so a lot of the I mean the ranges do a lot, but they're looking after 150 MCG's worth of place countries. So you know there's four of them, maybe six now, but yeah, that's a lot of places to look after and so it's really important that the community be part of that knowing place.

AJ: 38:31

Oh, that's the joy bit.

Dominique: 38:33

Yeah.

AJ: 38:33

Why would you not wanna be? Yeah, when you come to understand it like this and see what's possible, anyway, which is why this is so wonderful to be amongst right now.

Dominique: 38:42

So when I'm walking into the area that's called the arboreum, and this area would have just been a place where people would have dumped stuff and then it would have been moved into, people would have picked over it or whatever, and then it would have been moved into one of the tips. But when Martin designed this, all this was meant to be a contrast. So you'd look that way to the arboreum and then you'd look this way to Australia. So it's like Europe.

Dominique: 39:11

Australia, but the council and this is the importance of that we haven't listened to the first peoples of telling the story, because the council don't know that story and so it's no longer that clear divide and maybe it shouldn't be. And so they're planting a lot of native species now intermingled with that idea of contrast.

AJ: 39:37

Hmm, there is the conversation right there that we need to have as people. Yeah, isn't it?

Dominique: 39:43

Yeah, how do we pass these stories on here? We can see on the side. So this is a non-dog bit. So the rest of all of the bits we've walked that way is non-dog and that bit's dog.

AJ: 40:02

Come back to the circular economy stuff. So let perhaps let's start with the fact that you're on a ministerial advisory group now, as I understand it, To the federal minister for environment and water I gather that's Tanya Plibersek. Yep Minister Plibersek yep, that's been a year or so.

Dominique: 40:16

Yep, tell us about that?

AJ: 40:17

What are you doing? How does it feel?

Dominique: 40:20

Really interesting. It's some sort of 15-odd people from very different disciplines, not picked because they're representing particular industries, but picked because they have been interesting thinkers in this space and doers in this space. So there's some great conversations and everyone is in there to really contribute. They say that circular economy is a huge potential, that our idea of no longer throwing stuff into tips because this is what if we're gonna throw stuff away, we need to throw it somewhere and so can't have, or ideally, use it for something.

Dominique: 41:00

Yeah, yeah. So how do we design the system so we don't need to throw it away? And so there's a mixture of things that are like let's implement them really quickly. What does that look like? What are the key kind of pain points that we can deal with and what are the things that are slower burns, that are policy changes, that are developing industries and so forth? So we're sort of working at the kind of three speeds of quick, medium and long-term.

AJ: 41:24

Nice.

Dominique: 41:25

But what I really love is the collaboration between all the other ministers.

AJ: 41:28

So we've had.

Dominique: 41:29

Minister Husek in there, we've had the Minister for Trade in there, our next one's on education, so you know. And so the ministers are taking time to spend time. Minister Bowen's been with us.

AJ: 41:41

Energy and climate.

Dominique: 41:42

Yeah, so it's, and their portfolios are then the ones that we discuss. And how do we collaborate? How are the outcomes of what we do? And so the sectoral plans for zero economy will include circular economy stuff in them.

AJ: 41:58

Is this? Has the Treasurer been in? Is this relating to his well-being economy stuff?

Dominique: 42:01

Yes, the Treasurer's been in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

AJ: 42:03

So they are seeing it as integrated. It's just what name do you put on it isn't?

Dominique: 42:07

it, but it's the same thing yeah integrated, but my particular role. We're going to go down here into the Ampitheatre.

AJ: 42:13

Oh yes.

Dominique: 42:14

But my particular role is the regenerative thinker kind of thing. And so how do we build that social capacity? How do we build the vitality in the system so that it becomes? We have the potential to do it because you know like we're at Newport Lakes and the reason that you know they quarried here and they didn't have a relationship with place when they got here was because they didn't understand how to have that relationship. And so how do we build the understanding of stuff in people's minds so that the circular economy just becomes the right way to do things and it makes sense to everybody?

Dominique: 42:52

And so that's kind of one of my roles is continuing to say where's the social capacity building within it? Because we're very good at fixing the stuff, the things, the numbers, but what we really need to build is the heart and minds that's right. Because if we do that, everything else makes sense, and we just do it.

AJ: 43:10

That's why this just can't be up to the ranges. It's the same thing.

Dominique: 43:13

Yeah, that's right, that's right.

AJ: 43:14

Circling back to that, yeah, so it doesn't sound like you feel like that's painting nuclear bombs green.

Dominique: 43:23

Well, it depends. It depends right, Because if we make our nuclear bombs recyclable, they're part of the circular economy, right? Yes, it's still. You know, what we need to develop still needs to have the purpose to be contributive to the system. So it is broader than just.

AJ: 43:40

In the first place.

Dominique: 43:41

In the first place. That's right.

AJ: 43:44

And that, yeah, that raises bigger questions. Oh wow.

Dominique: 43:47

This is one of my favourite spots.

AJ: 43:48

Wow, take a picture of that. I can't just say wow and leave listeners Well, maybe I can to imagine it.

Dominique: 43:57

But there's, yeah, so there's a waterfall that goes. You can see, there there's a pipe and there's a waterfall when it rains and it collects the water from all the way to the back there and brings it through and there's a waterfall here, but it only works when it rains, which is fine. It's part of the story of this place.

AJ: 44:14

Indeed, I'm not going to know if we've heard the re-bobler. If anyone hears it, let us know.

Dominique: 44:22

But this is the place where people have weddings and bush dances, because it's surrounded by bluestone. So when I send you the photos which is why it's called the Ampitheatre- that's why our sound has just taken a step change in quality.

AJ: 44:37

Yeah, it's magnificent.

Dominique: 44:38

Yeah, this is why we should do all that important talking yeah, and here they've actually done a burn, and so the kangaroo grass and things have come back.

AJ: 44:49

Oh, look at that orange hue. I love that so much.

Dominique: 44:52

And unfortunately it's very hard. I mean, people get concerned when they see smoke coming out of here and so it's very difficult for council to continue to to honour place by bringing fire to this country. But we can see, here we've got my favourite grass of all, the kangaroo grass, just there, which is the sign of late summer, the sign of late bitter up, and we won't have those signs if we don't look after country the way that it was telling the people of this place about the seasons.

AJ: 45:24

And there are so many stories now up this South Eastern part of the continent after Black Summer especially, that I've started to see, yeah, okay, I mean, weren't there so many stories after the fires about the places that didn't get wiped out because they had been doing some of those fire practices? Yeah, and to even find that that was true in the context of those fires, wow, yeah, so there's certainly been a bigger uptake.

Dominique: 45:48

It's too marginal, of course but the thing is, though, that if we want to work with the knowledge of this place, we have to work with the calendar of this place. So, if we only use cool burn, we need to do it when it fits within the season and not when it fits within our annual planning calendar for our budgets, and that's really difficult, you know, if we have on the calendar, you know, april 1st, we start burning, because that's when we've planned it and we've got the money in place, and so forth, and it happens to be a hot dry, you don't do it, then You've got to watch out. I think you've got to watch out for it to be the right season. Here is a memorial to a memorial stone for Geraldine Schultz, schultz, schultz. Geraldine Schultz, who was one of the two councillors that crossed the caucus floor to create this place, to save this place.

AJ: 46:42

Another story in itself. Yes, another story we're taking guts at that point.

Dominique: 46:46

Yeah, and she was young, queer in jeans and sneakers wow. And a mare.

AJ: 46:55

Wow. Knocking heads together and saying this is important.

Dominique: 46:58

This is important.

AJ: 46:59

Yeah, but back to what you were just saying about the burning. It also says I mean again, you can just see it here can't you go from a mechanised view there's got to be this time in the calendar to a relational and looking at actually what's happening, but also that you're going to? It's what you said before about it not just being about fixing a joint but bringing people to culture, to each other, to place, and in this instance, of course, the people that created those methods in relating with country it's got to be. We can't be doing it in their stead.

Dominique: 47:32

No, no, no.

AJ: 47:33

Appropriating still.

Dominique: 47:35

No, no, never.

AJ: 47:37

But again the opportunities in doing that and I see plenty of it, of course, around Western Australia, all we can do is start learning to listen to place right.

Dominique: 47:44

So, we can start building our own knowledge. Yes, together, though Together but if, like, knowledge is always in place.

Dominique: 47:51

That's what I've learned from listening to all of the Indigenous elders that I've had the privilege to listen to is that partly it's being invited to be part of their knowledge system and I mean the first donors but it's also being quiet ourselves and listening to our own place. Because, just like we can't conserve a place like up there and throw out all of the plants that have come and therefore the animals that have come, when we change this place, we can't take ourselves out of the need to build our own relationship with place Because it's changed and we're here and so there is a. It's very easy to say I can't find a yellow quitwill in person to talk to, so I'm not going to get. I don't feel that I have the agency to build relationship with place.

Dominique: 48:44

I think we all always have the agency to build relationship with place. It would just be so much richer with them on the journey with us. I love this place here.

AJ: 48:56

Something else we've landed on a lot in our exchanges and even before we pressed record today, speaking of place, speaking of people, is ownership. The concept of ownership. You keep coming to the point, as I do around the country and I'm about to meet someone who's broaching this as well in a very explicit way, but as have you in various ways. The concept of ownership, the furfie that everyone is coming to understand that you can't own nature. Yeah, we live out of this artifact of land ownership. Tell me a bit about how you're coming to think of it and work with it.

Dominique: 49:36

So one of the things that I struggle with is the traditional custodian versus the traditional owner, and this goes to my very heart of my thinking. I'm comfortable with traditional owning owners because they own the right to be custodians.

AJ: 49:52

It's a beautiful time for us.

Dominique: 49:53

And so that, for me, is the critical thing. If we see our ownership of something as a way of building relationship with it and improving it and enabling others and the place to be better off because of it, then that's the type of ownership I'd like to sign up for. If it's ownership out of a sense of fear and wanting to be better than and that being a sign of success, I'm not interested. So I want to own the right to look after the place that I am a part of, so I struggle with that. I mean, my husband and I own a house, but I see that ownership as I want to leave that place better.

AJ: 50:39

And.

Dominique: 50:39

I don't need to have four or five different places to own because I don't have the energy to look after those four or five different places. I don't have that. But it's also really, you know, you need to be really careful not to make people feel because they've been brought up just like they've been brought up to expect. Success is the amount of money you have, the car you drive, the house you have, the other houses that you have, because that means that you've made it. For me, success is I have time to walk here with you.

Dominique: 51:08

I have time to look after my daughter and my husband and myself, and I have time to be with friends. For me, time is much more valuable than having another house.

AJ: 51:17

Well, we talked about the shortness of life, and don't wait for things before. Yeah, Just to sign off on that point. You did some work with trust for nature not long ago.

Dominique: 51:28

Yeah, so I was on the board for trust for nature, but only for a year, because then I became chair of Greenfleet, and so Greenfleet's a 26 year old not-for-profit that offsets people's carbon, but we do that not through batteries or retaining it. We do it by restoring ecosystems and ideally we do that with the traditional custodians of place because their stories are intimately connected to nature, and so if they have a story connected to the platypus, then we need to work with them to plant the things that will also help restore the creek so that the platypus comes back, if they have stories to the acacia and so forth. So there is a relationship there that we're hoping to create between the people who know the stories of place and would like those to come back and the people who are wanting to invest their money to offset their impact on the environment in a way that restores.

AJ: 52:22

So that is a way for offsets to actually be of value.

Dominique: 52:26

Yeah, I think so, I hope so. That's our aim.

AJ: 52:30

Let's go on with that another time.

Dominique: 52:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're briefly going to go over the because I want to point out the telecom tower over there, because that's another point.

AJ: 52:39

Oh, yes, cool.

Dominique: 52:40

We have some ducks that we're walking past. It's going to be way too windy to record here.

AJ: 52:43

Probably See. If they're good bikes, We'll see how we go. Oh, this is cool. I'm going to get a photo of you walking across here. Oh yeah, fall in. That would have been good.

Dominique: 52:55

Martin designed this. You can see there's a shallow bit here.

AJ: 52:59

Yeah.

Dominique: 52:59

So that if you fall in, you don't fall too far. And that's a place for the swans to a nest. This is a safe place, but from here not quite yet. You'll see that there's a whole bunch of dead trees that were planted by Martin in the water Well. They emptied it out, they filled it up and then they refilled it. Mosquito fish, which is a whole other story.

AJ: 53:27

No doubt.

Dominique: 53:28

People thought they were doing the right thing. They don't like mosquito, so we'll put mosquito fish in there. Yeah, oh, we want a fish, so we'll throw carp in here.

AJ: 53:36

Oh dear.

Dominique: 53:38

And that's why it's muddy and unhealthy and people feed the things, the animals, bread and that's not good for their tummies.

AJ: 53:47

Yeah.

Dominique: 53:49

Anyway, so you can start seeing the dead trees over there, yeah, but also on the on the island there and that was Martin's. So there's the cup. So they swim along the bottom and they use their fins to kick up the dirt and that means no plants established and it slowly silt up. So hopefully the council does have a conservation plan and if it can get funded, then this side will become mostly wetland. This side will be the deep water.

AJ: 54:17

Okay.

Dominique: 54:18

And the carp will be, and the mosquito fish, particularly the carp first, will be replaced with native species. There is a yes and conversation. How do we create carp that are of place of this place? But it's a difficult one to do because I need. When you're stuck in one place, there is no opportunity for rest for that place, just like very generally farming is about moving things around. You don't have that in a closed system.

Dominique: 54:48

So often you'll hear read warblers in this little piece, but it's the wrong time of day, all right, so there are. We've done maybe a quarter or a third of the paths that are designed in here. We're going to skedaddle this way. All right, so we're basically walking in parallel to what we walked at the start, when I still had the bike.

AJ: 55:08

Yes, amazing.

Dominique: 55:10

So, yeah, so Greenfleet very much is. We're hoping to and do more and more of our work with the people that want to restore cultural knowledge to place so that we can plant the things that will support that, and that's so in the Noosa example. We're working with Cubby Cubby and you know the credits for that. The carbon credits for that include a component that then goes to the Cubby Cubby so that they have just the permission, which seems crazy, to give the people of the place permission to be part of the place, but anyway commission to be part of the project, but also the resources to enable them to be part of the project.

Dominique: 55:49

Unfortunately, noosa is really expensive, and so you know the resources that we can support through our process doesn't necessarily provide them the capacity to live on country because it's so expensive.

AJ: 56:08

Well, comes back to the ownership. This is why it has to be face down at some stage.

Dominique: 56:16

Well, in a sense of entitlement and power and success, not ownership in terms of responsibility and care, and so there's just a reframing in that. That's very powerful, I feel. How beautiful is this.

AJ: 56:32

So good.

Dominique: 56:34

And you know you saw the images of the before.

AJ: 56:38

Yeah.

Dominique: 56:45

And the rangers all. Hate me to say this, but these are probably all full down soon because they need to fall down to create the next layer, for the next trees to grow.

AJ: 56:52

Well, that's what's missing, isn't it? Exactly Because the material was taken away. And now?

Dominique: 56:56

needs to be rebuilt. Yeah, but I love this so much.

AJ: 56:59

Oh yeah. So how do you dance with the offset thing? So, putting it to good things, great, but where that money comes from? How do you dance with the essence of disconnection? Is that a fair way to put it? That can come with offsetting. When you're the one paying the offsets, you can stay disconnected and that's not what we're after. So how do you sit with that? There's another one on the ZSN yes it is not a dichotomy right.

Dominique: 57:37

It's not a let's not do it because we can't do it authentically. We're going to start on the journey and keep improving the journey. Carbon offsetting is much simpler than ecological offsetting. Right. There is a very different story to say we want to develop on this grassland and therefore we're going to protect that grassland 100 kilometres away. That's very different to saying we're going to restore a piece of forest that has been degraded, turned into a pine plantation or whatever, and we're going to use carbon credits stored in that forest for the next 100 years, protected for the next 100 years. It's very different conversation and where possible, we'll do that with the traditional custodians of place.

Dominique: 58:24

So the nature side of things I find much more contested and difficult for me to get my. Is it better or should we just stop developing on fragile places? I think there is a. There is some putting on our big girl and big boy pants in there where we just go okay, we got to stop doing the bad stuff and then do the restoration stuff for the stuff that we can't get away from doing.

AJ: 58:55

Which does come back to those first principles, questions of what do we want to actually achieve here? How do we want to live? Which is everything, well-being, circular economy. Back to first principles.

Dominique: 59:10

It's back to the potential that humanity has. Why did we evolve? Why are we just a random chance of genetics? Or actually are we here for a purpose? And is that purpose to work with place and care for place and to, as a First Nations people would say, place gets lonely without us. You know it needs us. It needs us to be part in relationship.

AJ: 59:35

And vice versa with what you said at the start about COVID and how this place came into its own for people.

Dominique: 59:40

Yeah, cared for people. So there's a whole other side which we'll have to do another time.

AJ: 59:46

Yeah, good Done date.

Dominique: 59:49

This time you're here.

AJ: 59:50

Yeah, but of course, before we go, I've got to ask you about music and I can give you a little saving grace here, because I remember you telling me that there's a piece of music you already know you're going to say whenever we got to do this you might not remember it in the moment, but it was by Steven Choi.

Dominique: 1:00:10

Ah, yes, it's very much about putting those big boy and girl pants on and just realising that we need to step up to the potential of who we are. It's very much the song. How did you come across it? I just love everything Steven does. He's very much a kindred spirit who doesn't just talk and does, really, does stuff, really pulls people together and makes stuff happen Much bigger scale. I mean, brickworks wouldn't have happened without brickworks, you know, the living building challenge wouldn't have got the kick that it has. So, yeah, I think that's yeah, I just. And he's shifted away from being full time within the green building industry into music. He's kind of passion and you know, steven came here from the UK and he refused to fly, so he worked out how to get here, you know, from the UK boats and trucks and bikes and buses and trains, I assume. But yeah, there's some fascinating stuff AJ: Outstanding.

AJ: 1:01:15

Dominique, thanks so much for taking me through there. Couldn't imagine a better place to have not only weaved through that space and the stories of it, but to weave further afield and then back into it. Thanks a lot.

Dominique: 1:01:30

Ah, you're very welcome. It's a pleasure to show it to you.

AJ: 1:01:33

That was author, educator and policy advisor, Dr Dominique Hes. For more on Dominique, see the links in the show notes, and her book on Newport Lakes is expected out later this year. My great thanks, as ever, to you generous listeners supporting the podcast, for making this episode possible. If you have been thinking about becoming a member or other kind of supporter, please join us. Just head to the website or the show notes and follow the prompts. Thank you Thanks also for sharing the podcast with friends and continuing to rate it on your preferred app. The music you're hearing is Sacrosanct by Duel Native, and at the top you heard Green Shoots by the Nomadics. My name is Anthony James. Thanks for listening.