03/07/2005 - The site
of Ned Kelly's last stand, at Glenrowan in
northern Victoria, has been added to the Australian
Government's National Heritage List, the Minister
for the Environment and Heritage, Senator
Ian Campbell, announced today.
"Ned Kelly has become a part of the Australian
story -both as one of our best-known historical
figures and also as a mythological character
- to some a bushranger, some see him as a
larrikin and some a hero," Senator Campbell
said.
"The 8ha Glenrowan siege site being
listed today played a defining role in both
the story and the myth of Ned Kelly.
"This is where the Kelly Gang, after
being hunted by the law for almost two years,
laid siege to this small rural town and finally
confronted the Victorian police on 28 June
1880. The ensuing battle between gang members
in heavy armour made from ploughshares, and
the Victorian police, led to the ultimate
deaths of all four gang members.
"Three were killed that day and Ned
Kelly was wounded, captured and hanged five
months later (on 11 November 1880) in the
old Melbourne Gaol for the murder of three
policemen at Stringybark Creek, north of Mansfield,
two years earlier. More than 125 years later,
we are all familiar with the figure of a faceless
bushranger in heavy blackened armour. This
is an image that has haunted and inspired
many of the nation's greatest talents to express
his story through art, literature, film, music
and other forms of popular culture.
"That is why the Glenrowan site is of
outstanding national significance.
"One of Australia's great artists, Sidney
Nolan, created his celebrated Ned Kelly series
of paintings with square-headed bushranger
figures in a stark Australian landscape. Nolan
described the truly Australian essence of
the Kelly tale when he said that it was 'a
story arising out of the bush and ending in
the bush'.
"What is believed to be the world's
first feature film, The Story of the Kelly
Gang, which was made in 1906, was one of many
which have been centred on the bushranger.
Numerous actors have played Ned Kelly including
Heath Ledger, Mick Jagger, Yahoo Serious and
John Jarrett.
"Fiction writers immortalising the bushranger
include Robert Drewe, Jean Bedford, and Peter
Carey who won a Booker Prize for his novel,
The True History of the Kelly Gang. Kelly
has also been celebrated in song by musicians
such as John English, John Williamson, Kris
Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, Midnight Oil
and Redgum.
"In trying to project the essence of
what it means to be Australian, the opening
ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics featured
a myriad of Ned Kellys.
"The National Heritage listing of the
Glenrowan Heritage Precinct, which includes
the key sites of the final Kelly conflict,
will ensure that this symbolic place in Australian
folklore is protected for the future."
