Australians were yesterday mourning the death of a 200-year-old tree that became a symbol of the workers’ movement in the country.
The Tree of Knowledge, a ghost gum in the Queensland Outback, was pronounced dead almost five months after vandals poured toxic pesticides around the trunk.
Revered by generations of Labor politicians, the ghost gum sheltered thousands of striking sheep shearers who gathered in Barcaldine in 1891 to oppose the region’s landowners who wanted to break organised unionism.
Pat Ogden, the local Labor Party president and custodian of the tree, said: “In May we noticed the leaves falling off it. Now there are no leaves and the limbs are up there in the air just like a ghost.”
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