Mr HARTSUYKER (4:25 PM) —I thank the member for Greenway for raising this motion and for the opportunity for the parliament to note the 1804 Battle of Vinegar Hill. It is unfortunately an event which is not as widely known about as it should be. It was Australia's first rebellion. It occurred during a rich period of our nation's history, and the years leading up to the battle are filled with interesting events.

Unrest amongst Irish convicts had been running for some years before the battle. Governor Hunter wrote in 1796 that the `turbulent and worthless characters called Irish Defenders' had been threatening to resist orders to carry out convict labour. He formed a committee of inquiry which reported back that plans of an insurrection amongst the Irish had been developed. Governor Philip King came into office in 1800, and it would seem that the threats continued to loom. There was clearly a great sense of a real threat to the colony being posed by the possibility of convict insurgency, and this led to the formation of the Sydney Loyal Association and the Parramatta Loyal Association—groups of citizens which had banded together to meet any such danger.

The level of fear continued in 1801, when 135 convicts arrived from Ireland. The number of United Irishmen in the colony was then 600. Governor King wrote he believed they were `only waiting to put their diabolical plan into action'. Professor Manning Clark tells us in his book A History of Australia: From the Earliest Times to the Age of Macquarie,Volume 1 that 1,414 convicts were deported from Ireland to the colony between 1791 and 1800; 710 between 1801 and 1802; and 546 between 1803 and 1810. Irish convicts made up about 28 per cent of the colony's population.

The convicts involved in the 1804 rebellion were convict labour being used in a government farm at Castle Hill. The rebellion took place in March of that year. In February, Governor King ordered the strengthening of the guard at Castle Hill in response to concerns about the `daring behaviour' of the 200-odd convicts there. On 3 March, the commandant at Parramatta had received intelligence that there would be an uprising the following day. History records that intelligence to be correct, and at around 8 p.m. on Sunday, 4 March 1804 some 200 convicts rose up, set a house on fire and began their rebellion under the cry, `Death or liberty.' Military troops and loyalists set out from Sydney, marching through the night. The forces—about 230 rebels and around 80 soldiers and armed civilians—met mid-morning on the 5th. Not all of the rebels were convicts and not all were Irish. There were 15 killed in the ensuing Battle of Vinegar Hill. The immediate aftermath saw a declaration of martial law in the Parramatta area. Nine rebels were hung, and several others were flogged severely and exiled to what was then Coal River, now Newcastle.

It is interesting to note the years subsequent to the battle. In February 1806, Governor King reported that there had been `no seditious appearance of any consequence' since the March 1804 rebellion. However, Bligh, who succeeded King as Governor, stated in March 1807 that an attempt at insurrection had been in preparation for some 18 months. Of course, Governor Bligh's later concerns are another matter and are well recorded. It is befitting that that history and the rebellion be marked 200 years on. I understand that the Blacktown, Parramatta, Holroyd, Baulkham Hills and Hawkesbury councils have arranged, together with countless members of the community, to mark the occasion and recreate the 200-year-old battle this week.

Many of those involved in the rebellion were transported to the colony as punishment for their role in the failed 1798 uprising in Ireland. Volumes have been written about the deplorable living conditions in Ireland at that time and the harshness of life as a convict on the colonial frontiers. They had been sent—exiled—to the farthest corner of the earth as punishment for political, social and other crimes, where they endured some of the harshest of conditions. Their desire was a natural one—to improve their lives. Perhaps the following quote from a book written by Lynette Ramsay Silver titled The Battle of Vinegar Hill sums it up:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. I.R. Causley)—Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired.