Take the events of 1982 and ’83. In one of the most stable democracies on Earth, 1500 Australians were arrested and 500 locked up in Hobart’s Risdon jail for peacefully breaking laws that made it illegal to “lurk, loiter or secrete” in the Franklin River rainforests as bulldozers were barged upriver to begin work on the Gordon-below-Franklin dam.

A jaunty song reverberated through the prison, with the line, “We’re gunna lurk, loiter and secrete…” For the hundreds of first-time offenders filling the prison, the song raised spirits. It also ridiculed then premier Robin Gray’s laws, which had been rushed through the Tasmanian parliament so fast and shoddily that the prosecutions failed and all the charges were eventually dropped.

Bob Hawke’s federal government was elected in March 1983 and legislated to protect the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area including the Franklin catchment. The High Court found Gray’s dam works were illegal and the Franklin was saved. The right of politics was apoplectic.

These days, the Franklin, which offers one of the world’s top whitewater rafting adventures, is an icon for the island’s job-rich tourism industry. Tasmanians escaped a $2 billion debt for building the unnecessary dam and few remain who think the hundreds who defied the law by joining the pivotal Franklin blockade should not have done so.