By Carla Gorton
ADELAIDE — Kumarangk (Hindmarsh Island) will be in the national spotlight again in coming weeks. The federal government wants the Hindmarsh Island bridge to go ahead and has introduced the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Bill 1996 to prevent any further declarations being made in relation to the bridge site under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Heritage Protection Act.
Many organisations have been campaigning to stop the building of the bridge, which would cause environmental destruction and desecrate a site sacred to Ngarrindjeri women. The bridge proposal has resulted in unprecedented attacks on the Aboriginal community, local residents and other activists opposed to its construction.
The Ngarrindjeri have been through the ordeal of several inquiries and a state royal commission into their spiritual beliefs. As Sandra Saunders from the national native title negotiating team said, "To legislate away the rights of the Ngarrindjeri to protect their heritage is a violation of natural justice".
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act was recently reviewed by Justice Elizabeth Evatt. The recommendations of her report would provide a basis for the Ngarrindjeri people's claims to be appropriately heard. Evatt states: "... the act does not recognise that there are Aboriginal restrictions on information which play an important role in the protection and maintenance of their cultural heritage. The act does not protect confidential information or respect Aboriginal spirituality and beliefs which require that confidentiality to be maintained ... Aboriginal people want the act to be maintained and strengthened."
Evatt proposes: "The act should recognise and respect Aboriginal customary law restrictions on holding, disclosing and using information about significant areas and objects ... Confidential information given by Aboriginal people would be protected from disclosure contrary to Aboriginal tradition." Evatt's completed report is still sitting on the desk of Aboriginal affairs minister John Herron.
The Ngarrindjeri women boycotted the South Australian Royal Commission into the Hindmarsh Island Bridge, so any claims, such as that by journalist Chris Kenny, that their beliefs were found to be fabricated are totally spurious. There has been no satisfactory examination of the Ngarrindjeri people's claims.
There have been five investigations into the bridge, the most recent being the Mathews report. Herron fatally compromised the outcome of Justice Mathews' inquiry by his refusal to appoint a female minister to read the final report — another demonstration of a complete insensitivity to Aboriginal heritage.
Professor Garth Nettheim, writing in the Aboriginal Law Bulletin in May 1996, said that because of the refusal to appoint a female minister, "... the applicants face a grave dilemma. In so far as their concern about the bridge project relates to women's beliefs, they need to specify those beliefs in order to have any chance of gaining the protection of the act. But if they specify those beliefs in circumstances where they might be read by a man, they violate the very laws and beliefs which they are so concerned to protect ... [this will] render the inquiry largely futile."
Both Liberal and Labor governments have a shameful history in regard to Kumarangk and the treatment of Aboriginal heritage concerns. The former SA Labor government first committed taxpayers to underwrite the bridge construction despite evidence of considerable environmental and Aboriginal heritage significance. The current federal Labor opposition has also lined up with the Liberals in support of the bridge.
It was at a community consultation meeting hosted by the Kumarangk Coalition, the umbrella group for all of those opposing the bridge, that the idea for the "Long Walk to Kumarangk" emerged. Aboriginal elders and non-Aboriginal activists were inspired by international examples of solidarity walks such as the "Million Man March" in the US and the spontaneous walk across Tahiti by local people to greet the Rainbow Warrior during the 1995 anti-nuclear testing campaign.
The "Long Walk to Kumarangk" will start on November 25 with a send-off rally at noon in Victoria Square, Adelaide, and will culminate on November 30 with a concert at Amelia Park. For more information and to get involved telephone (08) 8223 7438 or write to 120 Wakefield Street, Adelaide 5000. Detailed information kits about Kumarangk are available for a small donation.