The sentiments of the early colonialists' attempted genocide of Tasmanian Aborigines are repeated today in their modern form: denial of the identity and culture of Tasmanian Aborigines, and refusal to return even token areas of land to Aboriginal control. Nevertheless, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Land Council, against huge odds, is making progress in some areas. Kaylene Allan reports, in the first of two articles, from Hobart.
The Groom Liberal government has rejected land rights, claiming that they are contrary to its policy of treating all citizens equally. This is a thin disguise for its commitment to the historic policy of assimilation and its unwillingness to challenge vested interests.
In a meeting at Rocky Cape early this year, the Aboriginal community decided to sidestep the state government and approach the International Court of Justice, in conjunction with other mainland Aboriginal groups, in the hope that this will create pressure to return land to the Aboriginal community.
The existence of a strong and growing network of Aboriginal organisations across the state is indicative of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community's resolve to survive and fight for justice.
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Land Council (TALC) was formed in 1989, with funding from the Labor government, in the expectation of land being returned to the community. TALC's function was to hold title to and administer land on behalf of Aborigines in the state.
While the 1991 Aboriginal Lands Bill was rejected by the notoriously conservative Legislative Council, the invaluable role of the Land Council continues to grow. Its work includes policy development in such areas as the operations of Aboriginal site consultants, treatment of Aboriginal remains and sites, land rights, land management, enterprise development in conjunction with sites and, importantly, the training of Aborigines in the wide range of associated work.
In February 1991, TALC created the Aboriginal Heritage Unit. Its role is to develop policy and initiate projects involving sites and the land they are part of. The unit acts as a consultant for many government departments including the Education Department, the Hydro Electric Commission, the Department of Roads and Transport and the Department of Parks, Wildlife and Heritage.
In Tasmania there are more than 6000 recorded Aboriginal sites, and potentially thousands more in the many areas yet to be surveyed. Most of these sites have no protection, and an unknown number are destroyed each year by the clearing of land, forestry, building of dams and other "development" projects.
The Liberal government is proposing to mine in World Heritage areas. While to date the federal government has rejected such a move, Steve Stanton, chairperson of TALC, believes that mining in World se a threat to many important but unrecorded sites.
The Forestry Commission is another state agency showing blatant disregard for Aboriginal people and their heritage.
"They are turning over thousands of acres of land with no consultation with the Land Council", Steve Stanton says. "There is no recognition of Aboriginal peoples, sites or culture within that organisation. We have approached them open-mindedly, indicating ways the problems may be resolved. These include a strategy to employ Aboriginal workers and put in place a system of surveying all their logging coupes, which are known two to three years in advance.
"But they haven't come to the table. They train district officers in archaeological procedures, involving a one- or two-week course before they are sent out to proposed coupes to look at areas of high potential. There is no way that those people have the depth of experience to identify sites and make determinations of site significance. In the time that the Heritage Unit has been operating, we have had not one notification of a site being found or destroyed."
The Aboriginal Relics Act, 1975, does not give Aboriginal people any control of sites and requires no consultation. Steve states, "Sites are being destroyed every day by forestry, roads and transport ...
"We rely on cooperation with individuals in government departments to ensure that an Aboriginal person is present during work and that there is consultation before, during and after the survey to give us the opportunity to comment on the site's significance and look at minimising the impact. This process was good under the Labor government, but we are already noticing under the Liberals that joint projects with Parks are being restricted. For example, mentioning land rights on signs is practically taboo."
In the middle of last year, the King River valley in Tasmania's south-east, which contained more than 130 Aboriginal sites, was flooded in another one of Tasmania's short-sighted and extravagant hydro schemes. This destroyed forever crucial links to a culture dating back more than 30,000 years.
Under pressure from the Aboriginal community and requirements by Parks, Wildlife and Heritage, which issues permits to destroy the sites, the Hydro Electric Commission indicated it would survey the area just prior to the scheduled flooding! TALC became involved and undertook a complete survey. However, "we had an uphill battle from the start", says Steve. "The government expended millions of dollars on this dam project, making it impossible to turn around something that was a foregone conclusion.
"It was made more difficult by the perceptions of individual bureaucrats within the Hydro, who were asking: 'Have you found any sites which are highly significant in the world arena, such as hand stencils, burial sites, cave sites?'. We couldn't get across to them the difference between scientific, as balanced against Aboriginal,
"Any Aboriginal site is highly significant in that it has survived dramatic changes to the environment over the last 200 years and, more than that, it provides the Aboriginal community today with a tangible link to the past.
"We conducted tours of that area for Aboriginal people before it was flooded. Some had had no exposure to west coast sites, and all were highly moved by the type of sites they saw and the fact that in six months' time they would be gone."
The King River is just one example of the daily disregard and destruction of Aboriginal sites in Tasmania which places immense pressures on TALC.
[To be continued.]