By Bob Cummins
BALLINA, NSW - Extensive bulldozing of Aboriginal sacred sites on
an East Ballina housing estate and river lands has been
temporarily halted after years of protests.
Bundjalung Aborigines from the Jali and Far North Coast land
councils, supported by the Australian Conservation Foundation,
are also opposing Ballina Shire Council's plans to build a second
bridge over North Creek.
Colin Markham, the NSW ALP spokesperson on Aboriginal affairs,
who recently visited the area, said there had been insufficient
consultation and that Aboriginal people were finding out about
development issues when it was too late.
``Thousands and thousands of years of Aboriginal culture is being
wiped off the map'', Markham said. ``Ballina is sitting on some
of the oldest Aboriginal culture on the coast.''
The shire council plans road works, a resort and residential
development at a well-documented tribal gathering place. Works to
link the coast road with the second North Creek bridge are under
way.
A recent study concluded that artefacts from the area suggest the
only known ice age site on the NSW north coast. The area between
North Creek and Prospect Estate is the second largest shell
midden in NSW.
Aborigines claim the council has divided an area of 50 hectares
into separate compartments instead of seeing it as one whole
heritage area. They say they have not been advised of extensive
overnight earth works and that many areas are now covered by
roads and land fill.
Sue Salmon of the ACF says that National Parks and Wildlife
Service decisions to execute consent to destroy notices before an
environmental impact study were illegal.
The notices were issued last November, three months after a
council consultant's study proposed a full field investigation to
consider ``options and constraints on management of the study
area which arise from the significance of the burials and
skeletal remains''.
Jolanda Nayutu, spokesperson for the Jali Land Council, says the
site had been a meeting place for Aborigines from a wide area.
There had been big festivals, trading and marriages arranged. It
was logical that there would be burial sites.
Remains of Aboriginal people killed in a massacre on the lower
Richmond were also present.
Drainage would ruin the middens, some of which are three metres
above ground level and continue for two kilometres along the
river bank.
``Portions of middens near Chickiba Lake, first documented by
white archaeologists 100 years ago, have been destroyed, along
with the site of a massacre of Kooris at Angels Beach'', she
said.
The site where the North Creek bridge would finish was one of the
most important.
``We need a thorough examination of areas bulldozed. They have
turned up artefacts, but promises by council to contact National
Parks and Wildlife or Jali Land Council have not been fulfilled.
``In Western religion you can pick up a church and plant it and
pray anywhere. Our sacred sites were given to us by our ancestors
in Dream Time and cannot be replaced.''
The chairperson of the Far North Coast Regional Aboriginal Land
Council, John Roberts, said there was a heritage order on
Ballina's post office but not on the East Ballina area.
``Historical societies preserve European settlement in the past
200 years, but because this [the middens] sits out in the open,
it is destroyed.''
The Byron Environment Centre says consultation with local
Aboriginal people has been subverted and the possibility of
credible scientific analysis of many sites has been eliminated.
Spokesperson Elizabeth Smith said Ballina Council had approved
its own applications for the North Creek bridge, road works and
dredging. But the council's first archaeological consultant had
recommended against the bridge construction.
Jolanda Nayutu has achieved hero status for sanely repelling
bitter attacks from truck drivers and local residents at a recent
information session on the sites held by the Jali Land Council.
She had to endure a barrage of racist slurs and redneck ignorance
which shocked observers.
The state Land and Environment Court is to begin hearing
objections to the development on May 16. In the meantime, an
interlocutory injunction prevents further work. Restoration of
vandalised burial and sacred sites could well cost the Ballina
ratepayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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Reprinted from Green Left, weekly progressive newspaper.
Copryright by the author.