In the early 1970s, mission brown and yellow were the colours chosen for signs and other labelling by the National Parks Service in Victoria. This revealed some USA influence. A decision was taken in the early 1970s to shift to olive green and cream. Notes of a Rangers’ Training Course held at Kiata in the Little Desert in 1973 indicate that a green uniform was modelled.

Uniform emblems from Victoria 1961-75 and Queensland 1978.

Ron Turner, Ranger in both Victoria and from 1978 Queensland (see his memoir First Ranger in the Document Library), writing for PaRC in 2023, has supplied the following recollection:

“When I joined the National Parks Authority in 1961 rangers were issued with clothing made by the Cushen Clothing Company of Melbourne. Shirts and a dress jacket carried a shoulder patch on each side. The jacket was never popular with rangers who often commented on its inadequacy. Issued clothing included both dress and working shirts with a brown tie, and both long trousers and shorts. Wet weather clothing, and a rubber-soled golf shoe and/or riding boot were supplied on an annual request basis. Complementing the uniform was a scout commissioner’s type of hat. The only good thing about this hat was the shade afforded but it was so stiff it could only be worn quite flat. There was no tilting it or pulling it down to reflect personality; it was an awful thing to wear. To make the point at one stage one of the country rangers pulled it down onto the Director’s head!

“Having been superseded more than 40 years ago, these uniforms would now be collectors’ items.

“The Victorian rangers had formed a Victorian National Parks Rangers’ Association of which I was the Secretary. The issue of a better uniform was often to the forefront of our discussions and we were modestly active in evaluating styles of clothing and colours, even viewing uniforms as made by various manufacturers. We had also opted to have the Wedge-tailed Eagle as an emblem for shoulder patches, etc.

“I had been to the first ever NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service conference held at Royal National Park, Sydney, in 1967, and been very impressed with the style and colour of their brand new uniform with its lyrebird insignia.

“Dr. L.H.Smith, the then Director of the renamed National Parks Service diplomatically led with his concept of having the kangaroo as the official emblem. The rangers, as a group, felt the kangaroo was already vastly ‘overdone’ on commercial logos and ‘Skippy the Bush Kangaroo’ had not long been released on television. Our efforts were not entirely in vain for I was asked if I would ‘model’ a uniform as proposed by the National Parks Service at our forthcoming annual training course. In due course my measurements were taken at the Commonwealth Government Clothing Factory. In 1973 the training course was held in the controversial Little Desert National Park area and I fronted the conference in this new uniform, complete with a softer, more appropriate hat.

“As far as I was aware the above uniform was the only one of its kind ever made and those six metal buttons must now be ‘scarcer than hen’s teeth’!”

Cream-on-green later replaced sunflower-on-mission brown (but the colour in the image below is somewhat duller than the original).

US “preservationist” Col. Gordon Wallace presented on ABC radio in 1971. Click here for a transcript.

The controversy following the demand by the Australian Football League that the Tasmanian Government build a stadium at a specified location in Hobart has significant implications for urban planning, traffic planning, city amenity – and in general, due process wherever a major facility is proposed.

In research for an article for The Mandarin online newsletter in August 2026, I found it difficult to find a copy of one of the benchmark reports about this complex issue, so have decided to assemble several here.

To the best of public knowledge, the Macquarie Point project resulted from a deal between the Premier and the Australian Football League https://aapnews.aap.com.au/glance/news/tasmanian-government-releases-details-of-afl-deal without reference to Parliament or (at the time) Treasury and the Tasmanian Planning Commission. The AFL is not known to have expertise in urban or transport planning or to enjoy democratic accountability to Tasmanians, yet it specified the location, the form and a date of completion. (The TPC’s Integrated Assessment Report was issued in September 2025).

Eminent economist Nicholas Gruen’s report of January 2025 was scathing about the project – costs “significantly understated”, benefits “overstated”, benefit-cost of only 44c in the dollar (subsequently revised downward), “hallmarks of mismanagement”, likely at the wrong site and with heavy opportunity costs.

The Macquarie Point Development Corporation published a comprehensive report and summary on October 2024.

The Government’s response with summary was published in October 2025.

PaRC Secretary’s comment: What’s the point of environmental, planning or economic investigation and what’s even the point of the Tasmanian Planning Commission if deals are struck at a political level before any assessment? Further, the codes of conduct of the professions of planners, engineers and architects require their practitioners to serve the public interest. Denying them the opportunity to evaluate where the public interest lies in major proposed projects demeans their expert status and establishes a regressive precedent for subsequent assignments.

PaRC has not been able to locate a copy of the “Club Funding and Development Agreement”. The hotlink https://www.stategrowth.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/435572/Club_Funding_and_Development_Agreement_-_Signed_3_May_2023.PDF is dead.