Four Corners: Aquarius counterculture descends upon Nimbin, 1973
Text on screen - 'This media resource contains content that may be considered inappropriate for younger children.' Early 1970s black-and-white archival footage of a debutante ball. A child in white carrying a basket walks down some steps into a crowded hall.
MAN:
Miss Sheree Berger.
REPORTER:
They've just held the deb ball at Nimbin. Three local girls present themselves for initiation to Police Superintendent Clout of Lismore.
MAN:
Miss Rhonda Bryant. Partner - Mr Robert Butcher.
A young woman walks across the hall to a middle-aged man standing by the wall. She shakes his hand.
REPORTER:
A stylised ritual with the sweet vibrations of country culture.
A boy sings on stage.
BOY:
# Anything your heart desires // Will come to you // If your heart is in your dream // No request is too extreme // When you wish upon a star // As dreamers... #
Young people dance wildly to psychedelic rock music in another venue.
REPORTER:
Not 1,000 miles away come the vibrations of something else - the alternative sound of hippies and dropouts. And across the main street, the decorous debs step to the sound of another drum.
At the debutante ball, a couple step and bow to sedate organ music. Couples waltz.
REPORTER:
Nimbin will never be the same again. 100 years ago, it took a week for the pioneers to travel from Lismore to Nimbin. A frontier town with a frontier mentality. A do-it-yourself town for generations. And now it's do-it-yourself with a vengeance.
Out in the Nimbin streets, conservative-looking locals watch hippies coming and going. A makeshift signpost has been erected with directions pointing to places with names like 'Subjectivity', 'The Source', 'Lightfoot's Leap', 'Fun', 'Boggle', 'Quantum Tunnel', 'Universal Mind' and 'Ripoff Merchants'.
REPORTER:
The Aquarius takeover must be the most unlikely experience in the village's history. The signs point away from local values and traditions. The festival's an exercise in rejecting the uptight social order. Some of the locals think it's an exercise in arrested development. But there is enormous goodwill. And why not? Before Aquarius, Nimbin was on its uppers - lots of dead shops and dispirited residents. Today, it's never had it so good, and the future looks rosy. You could search for a century and not find a nicer little town - encased in hills and folding pastures and a rainfall of 80 inches. But aesthetics didn't save it from the dairy depression, and in the late '60s, it took a beating almost to bankruptcy. The Martians from the campuses have found the right place to land. It has all the services in miniature, even an undoctored six-bed hospital. But above all, it's a private place, off the semitrailer and tourist track. Nimbin is co-hosting the festival with Aquarius. Nimbin's biggest landowner, a festival prime mover, is Dave Smith.
The reporter interviews Dave Smith, a moustached middle-aged man, in a field.
DAVE SMITH:
Well, Aquarius came to Nimbin and put a proposition to the townspeople and they had inspected various towns on the north coast. They'd had problems in the south previously and they wanted to get up where it was more sunshine, warmer in the winter months, over the May vacation to hold their festival, and on their preliminary inspections and investigations, they found that Nimbin had everything to offer for them.
REPORTER:
But what about your own personal feeling there, because you're a very big landowner here - how happy were you about the idea?
DAVE SMITH:
Well, I wasn't particularly worried. I felt that the publicity that would come from this festival must draw attention to Nimbin.
REPORTER:
Is that necessarily a good idea, though?
DAVE SMITH:
Well, that's a matter of opinion and, uh... Well, I'm happy to go along with it.
REPORTER:
Would you say economically it's had a very big effect already?
DAVE SMITH:
Well, up to date, I dare say that there has been business houses that have done quite well and will continue to do so. Matter of fact, I think that the business that will come over the festival period will really amaze them. From my observations now, the cafe proprietor and the hotel people are really suffering under the strain of catering for the crowd here already.
REPORTER:
I've heard the baker's taking on an extra baker, too.
DAVE SMITH:
Oh, this would be for sure, yes. Basil, he's got a very big job producing this hippie bread.
REPORTER:
Have you got any doubts at all that the hippie population is going to somehow spoil life for people living locally?
DAVE SMITH:
Change must take place, no matter where one lives. The time moves on and, uh... this hippie movement, as you call it - we call it the Aquarius movement - has come to Nimbin and they've selected, they want to do their thing here and... I'm not altogether against them coming because if they didn't come here, they'd go somewhere else.
REPORTER:
What about your own children? Do you think that they might be influenced enough to join this sort of lifestyle?
DAVE SMITH:
Well, I'm rather pleased that my children can live in the comforts of their own home and see the way these people are living. I'd far sooner see it this way than for them to hear of this movement in other places and then wanting to go and join and not having the comforts of a home to observe it. I feel sorry for the young girls and the children. They're the ones that I really feel sorry for because... Especially the young children, who don't know the comforts of a real home. They're brought up in this environment, and I think in later years, they will resent what their parents are doing for them now.
REPORTER:
The other misgivings that I've heard are related to sex because social diseases like syphilis and gonorrhoea and so forth, VD, seems also to be a big worry in the town.
DAVE SMITH:
Well, in my experience, anywhere there's a large congregation of people, this will raise its head. And no doubt there'll be that percentage of it here.
A half-naked hippie family construct a teepee from hay beside an idyllic creek.
REPORTER:
Tribal living is what the festival is all about. The commandments of the counterculture forswear the consumer society. The injunction is to use the resources of nature, and from it will flow love and an end to competition. And there are moments when a middle-aged, middle-incomed observer could give it all away and join them. It's only momentary.
An elderly lady in conservative clothes receives acupuncture to her wrist from a hippie woman and man.
REPORTER:
Interaction between Aquarius and the townspeople comes with little needles from China. Mrs Sunderland, a Nimbin identity, is crippled with arthritis. Carol Elliot and her assistant dispense alternative medicine and earn, through their acupuncture, the gratitude and the gossip of an entire community.
MRS SUNDERLAND:
They've all worked hard on me, and they haven't had much to work upon, but if it's gonna help somebody else, well, we're gonna be very happy, all of us. Even if it only eases the pain, it's something, isn't it?
ASSISTANT:
Think we'll work on the other leg now.
A police car drives down the main street of Nimbin. An officer chats calmly with some hippies.
REPORTER:
The smell of the alternative cigarette sweetens the main-street air, and the word is out that the police are not bent on busting the town. It's rumoured the plain-clothes men are camped in the bowling club. For more than two months, festival workers have laboured on logistical support for an expected 7,000 visitors. A bulk food store sells at cost, and the honour system of paying for food would make a tough auditor whimper with worry. And the money's not chickenfeed. More than $75,000 spent here and there on buying up shops and buildings and leasing land at $10 an acre. The videotape set-up will cost $25,000.
A noticeboard. One note attached reads, 'Could anyone who knows how to tune or play a sitar properly please help me. Hare Krishna hut. Near the orange igloo.' Another note reads, 'Gary - take yourself and your kayak toward Mulgum. The dome is on the north of the creek and next to a billabong. John.' Another note reads, 'Ann Noble, Brisbane. Please ring home. Love, those who care about you.'
REPORTER:
Each day, more cryptic notes on the board. 'Baby, won't you please come home?'
Yet another note on the board reads, 'Ross Richter, Lions Cres., Redcliffe. Please ring home. Love, the people who care about you!' A puppet show in the woods shows a witch being attacked by a dog. Naked hippie children watch the show intently.
REPORTER:
The townsfolk are scandalised by naked tots in the streets. This puppet show is a concession to the passive society of infants as yet unsullied by the excesses of rabid capitalism and the ravages of the work ethic.
Young hippies and naked children at a large campsite play a violin, hand drum and recorder together. Shot of milk pails sitting abandoned on the floor of a large barn.
REPORTER:
But where have all the Friesians gone? 20 years ago, this dairy factory churned out its business. Aquarius has taken it over, and now it's a temple of spontaneity.
Serene Eastern-style music plays in a barn. A weathered sign on the front reads, 'Norco Ltd'. Inside, musicians sit on the floor while audience members meditate and sway to the slow rhythms.
REPORTER:
But it's hard to stop the habit of sitting and listening. All this is not in the spirit of the doing festival. The Blue Moon Cafe invites you to a vegetarian supper and corporate consciousness. Everywhere there's so much pressure to be together.
A middle-aged, conservative-looking woman is interviewed by the reporter.
MRS OLLEY:
I'm quite worried about my children and the environment that they are in while the Aquarius are here.
REPORTER:
Mrs Olley is a local farmer's wife. She says they've spoilt the town. They don't even know the meaning of the word 'conventional'.
MRS OLLEY:
Now, my daughter went up to a friend's place, and they went to the park, and one of the Aquarius girls, she started speaking on Hinduism, Buddhism and all the other -isms, my daughter told me - came home and told me. Which I didn't feel was right. And if they want to have their festival, maybe keep to themselves. And... Because they're making out they've taken over the town.
REPORTER:
How has that inconvenienced you on a day-by-day basis? How has the Aquarius interrupted your life?
MRS OLLEY:
Well, you can't find a parking spot, to start with, when you go uptown. All their vehicles are there. And they're wanting to come through our land, and my husband has it all planted down with pastures, and they're quite annoyed about that because they can't come through.
REPORTER:
What about your shopping and things like that?
MRS OLLEY:
Well, mainly I go to Lismore to do my main shopping. And, um... But the bakery, I believe, has been leased to the Aquarius for a month, and the locals are going to be supplied from Lismore with bread.
REPORTER:
You wouldn't eat the bread they made?
MRS OLLEY:
Oh, I had tried once. Give anything a go once. And... But I wasn't happy and I haven't bought more.
REPORTER:
But don't you agree, Mrs Olley, that if Nimbin gets the sort of publicity that Aquarius is bound to bring it that that will mean that perhaps young people from this area will come back to live here once more?
MRS OLLEY:
Apparently, a lot of the Aquarius is going to stay on. And if they'd have came and they'd have gone, perhaps everyone would've been happy. But we've had them around, you know, going back six weeks or more already, and they quite openly say that they're going to stay on.
REPORTER:
Well, they have bought land and shops and houses.
MRS OLLEY:
This is right, yes.
REPORTER:
And you don't like that?
MRS OLLEY:
Well, our children are going to grow up in that environment, and they don't believe in their children going to school, and so there's another generation that's going to be affected.
REPORTER:
So what you're saying, then, is that these counterculture people really are threatening your way of life, in some way.
MRS OLLEY:
That would be, yes.
REPORTER:
And you're fearful for the future?
MRS OLLEY:
That's right, yes. As far as hygiene goes, they don't know the meaning of the word. And, um...
REPORTER:
Is there nothing about them at all that you admire? Their relaxed attitude to life and their seeming happiness, anyway?
MRS OLLEY:
Well, maybe I'm square, but... apparently they're on drugs. They're openly admitting that. And maybe that's where you get all your laughs from.
Shots of Nimbin. A makeshift signpost has arrows pointing the direction to places like 'Consciousness III', 'Where Oysters Think', 'Ripoff Merchants' and 'Cynics'.
REPORTER:
Nimbin these days is really like a wayward Scout jamboree. The tourist traffic magnetised by tales of bare-breasted girls and orgies down by the riverside should get their money back. The festival is as much about toilets as anything. At least that's true for Graham Dunstan, the chief guru of Aquarius.
The reporter interviews Graham Dunstan, a bearded man wearing a pith helmet, who digs trenches in a field.
GRAHAM DUNSTAN:
Well, right from the beginning we've set out to create an anti-consumer festival, with the idea that the festival is what people make it. And right now my contribution is drains. The festival's about drains.
REPORTER:
So it seems to be going very well. The townspeople are taking the whole thing tremendously well. No hassles?
GRAHAM DUNSTAN:
Yeah, well, it's quite an adventure for them. Oh, we have our ups and downs.
REPORTER:
What are they?
GRAHAM DUNSTAN:
Oh, people getting busted for growing dope in the hills. Swimming naked in the creek, you know. Usual things.
REPORTER:
What's the mood like, do you think, as far as the Aquarius people are concerned? I mean, do they feel relaxed here?
GRAHAM DUNSTAN:
Oh, the people that I.. you know, the drain diggers and the toilet makers and the showers, they're people that are pretty well drained of energy, because when it comes to getting anything done, they're the people that actually get down to it. So if you've been here for four weeks digging drains six days a week, or doing whatever, it gets you down. You just feel exhausted and you can't sit around in the cafe and enjoy it. But the feeling's still here. When people arrive at the town for the first time and take in the scenery and see the potentials of what's happening, they get very high about it and very enthusiastic. So the enthusiasm's there, it's just left me. (Chuckles) Flowing in the drains...
REPORTER:
Do you think that the townspeople have got any idea about what counterculture means, what opting out by non-consuming means?
GRAHAM DUNSTAN:
Um... no, they don't really.
REPORTER:
Does it matter that they don't?
GRAHAM DUNSTAN:
Well, when we started planning the festival, we started looking for a site, and our initial idea was that we should go somewhere where we didn't have this sort of interaction with the so-called straight people, that we could build a festival and a community with a minimum sort of reaction... interactions and reactions from the straights. And then we came across the possibility of Nimbin, and our thinking changed, and we thought, 'Well, look, why should we try and run away from this sort of interaction? Surely this is part of the growth of the community?'
REPORTER:
You don't feel the townspeople owe you something because you've given them something?
GRAHAM DUNSTAN:
Uh... another learning process - I'm constantly aware just how money brings out the worst in people.
The reporter interviews a number of Aquarius festival-goers.
MAN 1:
This is the Aboriginal reserve type of thing, and there's people coming from New Zealand out here, too, about 120 or something, tomorrow.
MAN 2:
Hang on, it's more than that - 620.
MAN 1:
620?
MAN 2:
That's what I heard.
MAN 1:
Crikey. Oh, well...
MAN 3:
I'd never even heard of this place before I came up here. I met someone on the road who told me about it, and I came up to have a look. I planned to spend a day and I spent a week, probably three weeks by the time I've finished.
REPORTER:
Where do you come from?
MAN 3:
England.
REPORTER:
But you're just travelling around Australia?
MAN 3:
Yeah, I'm moving around Australia for a year.
REPORTER:
Tell me how it grabs you, though, really. What's particular about the place?
MAN 3:
Oh, the people, the people. Mainly the people. That's the first thing that hit me as soon as I came here, the people.
A bearded, bare-chested man meditates at the edge of a cliff with panoramic views of the lush Nimbin countryside.
REPORTER:
And when the festival is over, some hundreds plan to stay on and make a living out of cash crops and handicrafts, under the gaze, perhaps, of a lonely yogi sitting on Nimbin Rocks.
As the man meditates, a dreamy choral version of When You Wish Upon A Star plays.
SUBJECTS: History
YEARS: 9–10
What would you do to save your home town?
By the early 1970s, the northern NSW town of Nimbin was in serious decline. Somewhat hesitantly, local residents agreed to allow the huge Aquarius Festival to come to town, bringing alternative music, lifestyles and values. And money. And people who stayed.
Discover how Nimbin locals responded to the changes in their town.
Things to think about
- 1.Have you heard of Nimbin, a town in the eastern foothills of the Great Dividing Range in northern NSW? What do you associate it with? Can you imagine how the local residents of this farming region would react when thousands of counter-culture 'hippies' descended in 1973 to hold the Aquarius Festival? Would the town change for the better?
- 2.Why was Nimbin chosen as the site for the Aquarius Festival? What terms does the reporter use for members of the 'Aquarius movement' (there are plenty of them)? Why might local residents welcome the festival and the people it attracts? What are their objections?
- 3.This report seems to fluctuate between respect and contempt for the alternative society being established in Nimbin and its surrounds. Which of the reporter's terms indicate his attitude, both positive and negative? Do you regard this clip as being a reliable source of information about the influx of the Aquarius culture on the Nimbin community? Why or why not?
- 4.The Aquarius Festival was held at Nimbin in 1973 and was designed to celebrate alternative thinking and sustainable lifestyles. Using the internet or other sources, investigate more about the festival. Then decide which of the festival's ideals have been embraced, and which have been rejected, by mainstream Australian society in the years since? What does this suggest about our society today?
Date of broadcast: 12 May 1973
Copyright
Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).