Pledge to block Hindmarsh Island bridge
By Carla Gorton
The passing of the Commonwealth Hindmarsh Island Bill by federal parliament on May 12 will not end the controversy over the building of the Hindmarsh Island bridge.
The Kumarangk Coalition, which has been organising against the proposed bridge since 1993, and Stephen Kenny, the lawyer acting for the Ngarrindjeri women, have outlined the next step in the campaign to prevent the construction of the bridge.
Kenny said that the government's bill, which was supported by the ALP, "takes away the rights of Aboriginal people to protect areas of great cultural and heritage significance to them. It does this in spite of the fact that both the Saunders Report and the Mathews Report found that the Ngarrindjeri people were genuine in their belief and support of the heritage and cultural claims relating to the Hindmarsh Island area."
On behalf of the vast majority of Ngarrindjeri people, Kenny has been instructed to lodge a challenge in the High Court as soon as the bill is proclaimed.
The Kumarangk Coalition has pledged to blockade construction work on the bridge. It is collecting names of people who will participate in a non-violent "long blockade" if construction begins.
Jen Lindon from the coalition told Green Left Weekly that the coalition "condemns the passing of the bill, which denies Ngarrindjeri people their legal right to apply under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 for protection of their spiritual and cultural heritage interests.
"For more than four years, church groups, unions, social justice and environmental groups have been protesting the abuses of government and law which questioned the spiritual beliefs of Ngarrindjeri people and threatened their culture and heritage without allowing them to freely and fully put their case."
The coalition recently received the National Council of Aboriginal Reconciliation's state award for a community project, for organising the "long walk" in which hundreds of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people walked from Adelaide to Goolwa in a journey for peace, knowledge and understanding in support of the Ngarrindjeri people's struggle to stop the bridge.
Lindon says: "Our award-winning journey in November 1996 mobilised massive community support for Ngarrindjeri people, and we know that hundreds of Australians are prepared to disrupt their work and family lives to show that racism is unacceptable and that justice can prevail on this issue."