Our Logo and Vision
The Loddon Campaspe Community Legal Centre is located within a geographical area covered by six local government areas: Macedon Ranges, Mount Alexander, Central Goldfields, Greater Bendigo, Loddon and Campaspe. While this area is a defined “catchment” for a range of government services and funded programs, it is also a water catchment for two rivers which traverse its landscape; the Loddon and Campaspe rivers.
Just as these rivers were essential to the first nations of this land and subsequent colonisers, so too do they continue to define and sustain our communities. Like these rivers, the CLC aspires to become a feature of this landscape, recognisable and relevant to the community that we intend to serve.
As a Community Legal Centre, we intend to undertake our activities within a community development framework. Empowerment, participation and safeguarding rights and confronting structural disadvantage are all hallmarks of this framework.
Consistent with our desire to be contextual, we searched for a local story that would give voice, at least in part, to the community development framework. We found that in the story of the Red Ribbon Rebellion, the lesser-known and non-violent struggle by gold miners in this locality, which preceded the infamous Eureka Stockade.
The central goldfields of the 1850s were a colourful time; in more ways than one. The major issue upsetting the diggers was the cost of the miner’s licence and its enforcement. In this pressure-cooker environment the diggers began to assume a power of their own: the power of common rights and suffrage.
On 15 December 1851, 14,000 diggers gathered for the Monster Meeting at Forest Creek, Chewton. This was followed by The Bendigo Petition, containing over 23,000 signatures, which was sent to Melbourne. The petition’s demands included dramatic reforms to the licensing and enforcement regime.
The diggers' banner soon flew at a gathering of over 10,000 diggers, which assembled at View Point to greet the return of the petition representatives. The flag featured the pick, shovel and cradle (representing labour), a kangaroo and emu (representing Australia), a Roman bundle of sticks (representing union), and scales (representing justice).
By August 1853 diggers protested against the failure of government to reform the licencing laws. Engaging in non-violent protest, the diggers took to wearing a red ribbon in their hats as a symbol of their unity in defiance of the law. Nine out of 10 miners on the goldfields wore the red ribbon after the meeting. La Trobe’s Chief Commissioner of Police rode back to Melbourne to tell the Governor that “Bendigo was in a state of revolution”. La Trobe panicked and agreed to the suspension of the September fee and the establishment of a Committee of Inquiry into the diggers’ grievances.
Of course, that is not the end of the story, and we know that only after the tragic scenes at the Eureka Stockade was the government finally forced to heed the recommendation of the commission of inquiry that the licence fee be abolished.
