HE’S well known for playing Molly’s husband Brendan in A Country Practice and lifeguard John Palmer in Home and Away, but on Friday, December 16 actor Shane Withington was playing historical activist at Thompson Square.
He pushed back the hood on his jacket as he entered the CAWB tent on Friday morning, saying hello to everyone sheltering from the rain, as he smiled and fluffed up his hood-flattened hair.
He explained to Macquarie MP Susan Templeman and Councillor Danielle Wheeler that he found out about the state government’s Windsor bridge plans after seeing the CAWB tent while out filming in Windsor a couple of months ago.
“This square is from the 1700s!” he said, sweeping his arm out at the square. “We’ve got nothing from the 1700s!
“This is an egregious decision! Maybe you would consider it if they were building a cancer centre or an orphanage here, but they’re not. I couldn’t not do anything!”
He likened the government’s plan for a big road through the square to the ISIS forces’ destruction of stone Buddhas in Palmyra in Syria last year. “We’ve got the Baird government to destroy our cultural icons! This is a culturally significant site. If an old actor can see it, anyone can see it.
“I shot here for Country Practice, for Home and Away. Every time you come past historic Windsor there’s a film unit here as it’s all gone everywhere else! How romantic is it to have a square where Macquarie walked? And they want to put a f****g big highway though it!”
He mentioned that the Vinegar Hill uprising was only down the road, and the Gazette told him that the main rebel, Philip Cunningham, was hanged only metres across the road. His eyes widened at that and he threw up his hands in further exasperation at the current situation.
Councillor Pete Reynolds then came over and told Mr Withington that Macquarie naming the square after a former convict, “sent shockwaves through society, all the way to the House of Lords”.
“This was the birthplace of the fair go,” Cr Reynolds told him. “It sent the message that no matter what you’d done, you could get another crack at it.” Mr Withington smiled and replied “I named my first boat after Lachlan Macquarie”. CAWB member Noel Butler then told him that Macquarie “was a hippy” in his views, which were at the forefront of humanitarian philosophy.
“This is where European Enlightenment touched ground,” he said.
Mr Withington said he would be joining CAWB, and strode off to talk to Channel 7.
