News Flash

Westralia Airports Corporation Convicted for Destroying our Sacred Site

12 December 2007

Traditional Land Title Elders of the Swan Coastal Plain have had a decision handed down in their favour today.

Westralia Airports Corporation has been found guilty, convicted and ordered to pay a fine of $10,000 for destroying a registered Aboriginal Site.

Up until a couple of years ago the fine would have been $500. On 5 November 2003 the law was changed because the old penalties "no longer reflected the seriousness of such offences and failed as effective deterrents to ensure protection of Aboriginal heritage". (John Kobelke, West Australian 6/11/03)

This Aboriginal site was destroyed to make way for the Coles Myer Distribution Centre. They bulldozed right through the area and dug a drain through it. Ancient Aboriginal artefacts, from the beginning of Time, the Sacred Belongings of our First Grandmothers and Grandfathers were dumped in a heap.

This was a important site for Aboriginal People. The Government of Western Australia has gotta take our Sacred Sites seriously. Damage has been done to our Sites far too many times in this state.

All sites have gotta be respected.

We lost Mount Jackson, Two Man Dreaming been lost.

It's time State and Federal Government lived up to they rules and regulations and laws. Let it be known that Aboriginal Sites, Spiritual Dreaming and Culture has gotta be respected.

This decision in the white man's court today, let it be an example to other developers who are aiming to destroy Aboriginal Sites in other places scattered across Western Australia.

We the Old Fellas, the Traditional Owners of the Swan Coastal Plains and the Swan River, we wanna send a message to all you Old Fellas out there wherever you may be, especially you in Roebourne where the Burrup Peninsula has been under attack. All the Spiritual Dreaming Old Fellas in Yule River right through to Millstream, Yandeyarra down to Marble Bar back to Port Hedland through to Sandfire into Broome, Wilare Bridge, Looma, Derby, Nookanbah, especially the Old Fellas at Fitzroy Crossing and all other Outstations in the North West and Inland down to Nightwell, Stirling Ranges, Albany, Busselton, Port Augusta back east to Bremer Bay and Salmon Gums, Kalgoorlie, Merredin, Menzies, Leonora, Laverton, Wiluna, Warburton Ranges, Docker River, Snake Well and Linton Bore.

We been to the whitefella court today and we had a small little win fighting State and Federal Governments, in the Swan Coastal Plains and Swan Valley where the Airport is, we had a small win because we stand up and cry for all the things that belongs to us. We know that the Sacred things at the Burrup Peninsula where the whitefella took em and chucked in the yard and you cried, not only you fellas but us too in the Spiritual Dreaming where we hear the crying at Nightwell. We still hear the guns going off where the great massacre took place at Pinjarra. We still cry for our Warrior Yagan who had his head chopped off, and he’s still not buried, he’s here in Perth.

So our message to all you Old Fellas, Old Men and Old Women and our Spiritual Dreaming, understand that we down here are still fighting for the protection and saving our Sacred Sites and Spiritual Dreaming.

We want you to know this.

Your hurt up at Burrup Peninsula
Your hurt at Noonkenbah
Your hurt at Wilare Bridge
Your hurt at Broome
Your hurt at Fitzroy Crossing
Your hurt at Oomblegarrie
and all outstations
is our hurt too

Cause we are all of one Race of People and one Nation of People.

This little win in the white man’s court today is something. It’s better than nothing. But we make this statement to let you know we don’t give in. We say don’t you give in and sit under a tree.

If we stand you stand.

If we fall we all fall together.

That is the code of our Aboriginality. To stand and protect our First Grandmothers and Grandfathers Belongings which is our Spiritual Dreaming.

We watching you Burrup Peninsula and we always have you and your struggle at Burrup Peninsula under surveillance in our Silent Minds.

The Perth Airport decision today says we try to save and preserve all the Sacred things that belong to us, all that has been destroyed. But we had a small win. That’s the message from us Old Fellas down here to you Old Fellas out there across the lengths and breadths of the Land.

We put it on the internet so you can read it.