PART ONE

STEELS CREEK

Steels Creek is not a very large slice of Australia. Within the space of a few hundred metres, this land takes us on a compressed journey through the history of post-settlement Australia. We go from bushland that has been virtually untouched since settlement, across paddocks that have served to fatten cattle and sheep, over a creek that has given up gold as well as water, and past the vineyards that exemplify the indulgent economy of the post-industrial rural–urban fringe.

Located beyond the Melbourne metropolitan area, this valley lies outside the mainstream of modern Australian life. Its community seems like an ideal of — or even an aberration in — Australia today. It is commonplace among commentators on Australian society to bemoan developments and changes which signal that Australia as a whole seems to be a very different place from Steels Creek. Australia as a nation is large, with most people living in cities and their suburbs; Steels Creek is rural in setting, even if a proportion of its people commute to work in Melbourne.

Steels Creek is small, and, although its two-hundred-odd people are scattered thinly over twenty square kilometres, many know the names of most of their neighbours. While Australian society as a whole sustains weak communal bonds — fewer than one-fifth of Australians are active members of an organisation, and even fewer are involved in more than one — Steels Creek massively exceeds the average. It offers its people a choice of about a dozen local interest groups, making them between three and six times more active than the average.

Is Steels Creek so exceptional that its story should be treated as a curiosity? Is it irrelevant? I would argue that it is, in fact, a microcosm not of Australia as it is, but of the country as it might be. Steels Creek offers a model for how many Australians would like to lead their lives. The people of Steels Creek have been able (mainly because they are old enough, wealthy enough, or sufficiently motivated or fortunate) to make a life in a beautiful part of rural Victoria, close enough to commute to Melbourne if they need to, but far enough away and with enough space to enjoy the benefits of the tree-change experience. They live in a place where they can know their neighbours if they choose to, and that at its best is healthy, life affirming, and socially nourishing.

Before we look at the day of fire that devastated the valley and its people, we need to understand it and them. How did this place come to be as it was?