Hindmarsh Island bridge controversy
[3][4][5][6][7] In 1977, Adelaide developers Tom and Wendy Chapman, trading as Binalong Pty Ltd, purchased 30 hectares (74 acres) of land on Hindmarsh Island in the Murray River estuary and later received planning permission for their company to build a 560-berth marina, car parking, residential development, conference centre, golf course and associated buildings.
The Planning Assessment Commission rejected the proposal, stating that the development couldn't expand unless a bridge was built from Goolwa to Hindmarsh Island as the existing Cable ferry would not be able to handle the increased traffic.
Originally numbering around 6,000 members, they are the only tribe in Australia whose land lay within 100 km (62 mi) of a capital city to have survived as a distinct people as recognised in the 2002 Kungun Ngarrindjeri Yunnan Agreement.
One of its terms of reference dealt specifically with the propriety of the government's decision in conferring private benefits at taxpayers' expense.
Shortly before the 1993 elections the Labor government had instructed archaeologist, Dr Neil Draper, to survey Hindmarsh Island and the mainland foreshore for Aboriginal sites[citation needed].
Justice Jacobs, unaware of Draper's survey, finished his report in early 1994, concluding there was no way out of building the bridge without significant financial liabilities.
On 3 May the State Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Dr Michael Armitage, now used his powers under the act to authorise damage to the identified sites if required for the bridge to proceed[citation needed].
Saunders consulted with a range of interested parties, including a group of Ngarrindjeri women who claimed Hindmarsh Island was sacred to them as a fertility site, and for other reasons that could not be publicly revealed.
As a part of this process some of these cultural secrets were written down and sealed in two envelopes marked Confidential: to be read by women only and forwarded to Tickner with the assessment.
In March, Shadow Minister for the Environment Ian McLachlan was forced to resign after tabling some of the secret documents in Parliament misrepresenting how he obtained them and falsely claiming they had not been marked "Confidential".
This knowledge was claimed to be of great antiquity, and passed only to a small number of properly initiated women, hence the ignorance of prior anthropologists to the myth.
[16] The most prominent aspects of the claims are listed below: In 1994, Binalong went into liquidation owing Partnership Pacific $18.5 million with Westpac taking possession of the marina as mortgagee.
The "dissident women" were diverse in age and cultural traditions or awareness, and were considered by the Commissioner to be 'credible' and their testimony was corroborated by support from two anthropologists from the South Australian Museum.
[19] In December the Royal Commission found that the idea of Hindmarsh Island as being significant to the Ngarrindjerri women had come about at the meeting of the Lower Murray Aboriginal Heritage Committee.
[19] The first Section 10 application brought by the so-called "proponent women" in 1994 under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 (Cth) succeeded.
[21][22] On the basis of the Report of Law Professor Cheryl Saunders (1994), Minister Robert Tickner declared a 25-year ban on the building of a bridge.
[24] In part due to the furore over the bridge, Tickner lost his own seat in the 1996 election, at which Labor was heavily defeated by the Coalition under John Howard.
Doreen Kartinyeri and Neville Gollan, speaking on behalf of the Ngarrindjeri people, challenged the legislation in the High Court.
[26] This controversial judgment did little to limit the scope of section 51(xxvi), and has been criticised for failing to create adequate protections against discriminatory legislation and disregarding the context of the 1967 amendment.
The last respondent is the Commonwealth of Australia which is sued for compensation on the basis that the declaration under the Heritage Protection Act resulted in the acquisition of property belonging to Binalong.
[3]One of the two key independent expert witnesses from the South Australian Museum, Philip Clarke, was found by the Federal Court at [373] to have erred in terms of professional objectivity before the Royal Commission when it was discovered that he had been secretly helping the lawyers for the "dissident" Ngarrindjerri women.
[3][20] Developers Tom and Wendy Chapman and their son Andrew took defamation action against conservation groups, academics, politicians, media operators, printers and individuals who had spoken out against the Bridge.
The judgement was of concern to environmental activists because any form of direct action such as non-violent picketing, boycotting, or attempts to coerce changes of policy or behaviour, while not illegal, could be imputed as "malice" in any resulting defamation claim.
As a result of the Chapman defamation actions, the Environmental Defenders Office has called for the introduction of a "Protection of Public Participation Act" for South Australia.
Based on North American legislation, the proposed Act would ensure that those engaged in non-violent public participation would be protected from threats or suits that infringe free speech.
[31] In early 2002, Peter Sutton, a former head of Anthropology of the South Australian Museum, who had been unable to take a position on the claims, stated that additional evidence discovered since the von Doussa judgement had changed his view.
"I still allow that aspects of these beliefs may have been embellished or given greater weight than before ... but the patterns and matches with earlier materials on some strands makes the overall fabrication theory insupportable.
"[33] In September 2002, redevelopment of the Goolwa wharf, which lay adjacent the Hindmarsh Island bridge, unearthed the remains of an Aboriginal woman and child.
However, the Alexandrina Council decided that as the wharf was South Australia's first inland port, colonial history should take precedence over Ngarrindjeri interests and construction went ahead.
[34] On 7 July 2010, in a ceremony at the foot of the bridge, the Government of South Australia endorsed the finding that the "secret women's business" was genuine.
