By Carla Gorton
The defeat of the federal government's Hindmarsh Island bridge bill in the Senate on February 10 has, for the moment, prevented it from overriding the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act.
The Kumarangk Coalition in South Australia has campaigned for many years against the building of the Hindmarsh Island bridge, in solidarity with the Ngarrindjeri people of the region. It has issued a statement thanking the Senate for blocking the bridge bill and calling upon the government to strengthen the Heritage Protection Act in line with recommendations in the 1996 Evatt Report.
The previous federal government, recognising that the federal and state Aboriginal Heritage Acts were not working effectively, appointed Justice Elizabeth Evatt to investigate the problem. She reported to minister for Aboriginal affairs John Herron earlier this year.
Evatt's recommendations are clearly informed by the Hindmarsh Island experience. The report proposes that: "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."
These recommendations are central to the handling of the bridge issue. Herron has already said that if another inquiry is held he will not appoint a female minister to handle it — something that respect for the Aboriginal women involved demands.
A media release issued by Dr Doreen Kartinyeri on behalf of the Ngarrindjeri women suggests that Herron has prejudiced himself through his public statements and should therefore disqualify himself from dealing with the issue.
Ngarrindjeri women believe that they have already been tried and convicted by the federal and state governments, without a fair hearing. Their statement says: "Firstly, the state government called a royal commission and found 'fabrication' without hearing our evidence. The findings of that royal commission are under challenge for a serious breach of the rules of natural justice and should not be relied upon. Secondly, the federal government, through the minister of Aboriginal affairs, Senator John Herron, called us 'fabricators' on national television and [in] the print media on February 11 without meetings, even though we requested meetings with him on two occasions."
The statement added that the Ngarrindjeri women were not responsible for wasting public resources: it was not they who called the royal commission, nor could they be held responsible for making the mistakes that caused the other inquiries to be declared invalid. "The challenges have been brought by disgruntled developers and the 'dissident' women, who have been rounded up by the Liberal Party and who admitted they were never told about the importance of Kumarangk (Hindmarsh Island) to Ngarrindjeri people." The dissident women do not represent the Ngarrindjeri, who strongly believe in the protection of their heritage.
The Ngarrindjeri women said that they are not against development per se — there are many examples of this, including the marina on Hindmarsh Island and the Granite Island development at Victor Harbour. But they emphasised that the bridge to Hindmarsh Island is not negotiable.