100 Years of Federal Policing Print Page

The cork oak tree was planted to mark 100 years of Federal policing. The tree was planted in the centenary year of the Cork Oak Forest.  

On 29 November 1917 while campaigning to introduce military conscription, Hughes was the target of eggs thrown by protestors when he arrived at Warwick Railway Station in southern Queensland. Prime Minister Hughes was incensed that the attending Queensland Police would not arrest the offenders under federal law, so when he returned to Parliament he set about drafting legislation to create the Commonwealth Police Force (CPF). The 'Warwick Incident' was the last straw for the Prime Minister who was engaged in a range of jurisdictional struggles with the Queensland Government at the time.

While the CPF operated for only two years, it was the first time the Australian Government clearly recognised that it needed a law enforcement agency at the federal level. During the following years a variety of federal agencies were formed to meet the Government's law enforcement needs. Included in those agencies was the Commonwealth Police (Federal Capital Territory), which was formed in 1927 after Federal Parliament was installed in Canberra. In time this organisation was renamed the Australian Capital Territory Police.

On Monday 11 December 2017, Mr Andrew Barr MLA, Chief Minister of the ACT, joined Mr Andrew Colvin APM OAM, Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, to plant a Cork oak tree (Quercus suber) in the Cork oak forest at the National Arboretum Canberra. The Cork oak is a medium-sized evergreen tree with a broad spreading canopy, native to southwestern Europe and northwestern North Africa. It has thick, deeply fissured grey bark which is fire retardant. 

The first cork oak seedlings planted at the Arboretum site in 1917 were propagated from acorns sent by Walter Burley Griffin to Charles Weston at the Yarralumla Nursery.

At the time, Walter Burley Griffin, the designer of Canberra, and Charles Weston, the Officer in Charge of Forestry for Canberra, were keen to trial different types of trees in and around Canberra, to see which trees would produce the best timber and other wood products.

Cork was hard to get at the time because of WW1, and that also stimulated demand for growing cork in Australia. Walter Burley Griffin saw the potential for growing cork oaks in Canberra's dry climate and sourced the initial acorns from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. Charles Weston propagated these at the newly established Yarralumla Nursery and they were planted in October 1917.

Charles Weston originally planted the Cork oaks in a quincunx pattern – a rectangular planting of five trees with one tree at each corner and a tree in the middle. This planting pattern gives the forest its radiating cathedral-like avenues.
National Arboretum Tree Plantings. 

Location

Address:	Cork Oak Road, Cork Oak Forest, National Arboretum, Molonglo Valley, 2611
State:	ACT
Area:	AUS
GPS Coordinates:	Lat: -35.282501 Long: 149.079381 Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate.

View Google Map

Details

Monument Type:	Tree
Monument Theme:	Government
Sub-Theme:	Federal
Actual Event Start Date:	29-November-1917
Actual Event End Date:	29-November-2017

Dedication

Actual Monument Dedication Date:	Monday 11th December, 2017

Source: MA