CRISIS at Bulahdelah

To:  The Hon. Tony Burke, Federal Minister for Aboriginal Cultural Heritage & recipients listed below 

Posted on Prime Minister Julia Gillard's website and on www.worldatpolarity.blogspot.com  

This is a crisis.   And it appears that none of you have any understanding of the enormity of this situation or the scale of the destruction you are wreaking at Bulahdelah, without any need, without any justification, and without any concern for the hundreds of people affected, especially the Worimi. What you have already allowed at this beautiful, unique place of extraordinary cultural and environmental value, eminently worthy of even World Heritage listing, is nothing less than an atrocity  –  you’re job is to PROTECT these important places, not destroy them!  And what you intend to allow to happen,  i.e. the COMPLETE DESECRATION of The famous Sacred Alum Mountain and ruination of the town, while you inexplicably delay processing the now numerous s.9 and s.10 protection applications, is so utterly reprehensible, so heinous that we people who care have no option but to vigorously oppose it.

Do you really think you’ll get away with vandalism of this magnitude to one of Australia’s most precious icons? That the custodians and culture/environment protectors will just give up and forget all about it?  I am not an ‘extremist’, but your inexplicable and it will be alleged, fraudulent denial of the relevance and sanctity of this revered place in the face of overwhelming evidence of the Aboriginal custodians' deep & enduring traditions and relationship with it; your complete contempt of due process in delaying for an inordinately long time (a year and a half in one case) the many ‘top-priority’ applications for protection, and your obvious intention to continue with this INSANE route through the mountain instead of the sane route to the west of the township, is forcing me to personally consider some form of extreme action to focus media attention on the overt corruption that has been revealed in the Karuah Land Council, the Great Lakes Council and in both federal and state government departments. Whatever I do, it will not involve putting anyone or anything at risk of harm.

You WILL face accountability for your actions, hopefully sooner rather than later, for denying the evidence that has been presented to you, for the destruction of the Guardian Tree & 20 other scarred and significant ancient trees, for the destruction of the Healing Stream, for clearing many hectares of a unique forest ecology, and for the risks of illness and harm you are exposing residents and drivers to. The truth will come out - it always does – and there are enough people committed to bringing you justice to ensure it does.

Maureen Brannan  905 Wilsons Road CLOYNA QLD 4605  ph:  0427710523

PS:   Mark Nizette, via your A/g Director of Indigenous Heritage Law Reform has told Estelle Carrall that he proposes to recommend to you that he finds Worimi Date's s.9 application invalid. It is simply not possible that this application is invalid given the enormous evidence to the contrary, so this advice would not just be bad, it would be a LIE. No-one likes to admit they've made a mistake, but most of us don't lie to perpetuate our errors, and we don't expect federal government ministers and bureaucrats to either, especially concerning such momentously significant issues.

PPS:  Peter Graham may be interested in this seminar - I'm sure the outcomes would be instructive for him in his undertakings in Indigenous Heritage Law Reform, and also considering the Federal Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 is similarly 'much outdated' and badly in need of reform, evidenced in its allocation in the wrong department.  I've taken the opportunity to contact the speakers to find out what their opinion of his judgement is, and whether they could offer some advice: 

Protection of Aboriginal Cultural Heritage:  The Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003 and the Torres Strait Islander Cultural Heritage Act 2003 commenced on 16 April 2004 as part of a strategy to provide protection for Indigenous cultural heritage and to improve the process for addressing cultural heritage matters.  The Acts repealed the Cultural Record (Landscapes Queensland and Queensland Estate) Act 1987 which was much outdated.

The main purpose of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003 is to provide effective recognition, protection and conservation of Aboriginal cultural heritage.

Significant obligations are imposed under the Act, particularly under the:  Cultural heritage duty of care and offence provisions; and Cultural heritage management plans.

The Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003 will soon be under review.Come and listen to the following speakers who will provide their report card on how the Act has performed since its enactment.
Speakers:
1. Paul Travers, Director of the Cultural Heritage Coordination Unit, Department of Natural Resources and Water, who will provide an overview of the cultural heritage legislation – four years on.
2. Wesley Aird, member of the Gold Coast Native Title Group, who will provide an indigenous perspective on the operation of the legislation and its effect on cultural heritage and stakeholders.
3. Gavin Scott, Senior Associate at Blake Dawson, who will provide an overview on the manner in which the legislation has been adopted by project proponents and legal issues that have arisen in meeting the cultural heritage duty of care.

PPS:  Songs of Praise last Sunday covered the ceremonial pilgrimage route from London to Winchester - there are such pathways, broadly equivalent to the Songlines, to all the world’s revered places that people have walked for millennia to take part in sacred ceremony or for healing. Bulahdelah’s spectacular Mountain could, with very little effort, become a mecca for 'pilgrims' from all over Australia and the world, and Bula’s healing stream, when restored, would be an integral part of their experience, as would Frog Rock, as would the fascinating history of Mountain Park Public Reserve, as would the 86 species of orchids and the trees of significance (had they not all been callously felled). It will require all the skills of the Worimi people to manage the potential increase of tourism so that the tranquility and the rarified/sanctified atmosphere of the mountain is not compromised. That could be the bright and prosperous future for Bulahdelah ... once you've stopped blasting a 6-lane dual carriageway through it that is, and re-routed the highway to take Option A's to the west, which is the SANE and INTELLIGENT thing to do.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Please read this email to NSW Deputy Leader the Hon. Duncan Gay - the points I've made apply equally to yourself, especially the point that I have never, ever received a direct response from a minister of any Australian government.

From: maureen brannan

To: David Collett's Office - Linda Baulch ; Fed Heritage Dr David Collett ; Fed Heritage Min Tony Burke ; Fed Heritage Rochelle Johnston ; Fed Min Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin ; NSW Attorney General Greg Smith ; NSW Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner ; NSW Min for Aboriginal Affairs Victor Dominello ; NSW Min for Central Coast Chris Hartcher ; NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell ; Peter Garrett

Cc: Black/Green Solidarity List ; Al Oshlack-Indigenous Justice Advocacy Network ; EDO Northern Rivers ; Fed Leader of Opposition ; Fed Shadow Min Indigenous Affairs ; Greens Bob Brown ; Greens Sen Christine Milne ; Koori Mail ; National Indigenous Times ; NSW Aboriginal Land Council ; SBS Living Black

Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2011 4:01 PM

Subject: YOUR URGENT ATTENTION REQUIRED - Response to NSW Deputy Leader the Hon. Duncan Gay

Dear Mr Gay,

Thank you for your response (via your Chief of Staff) to my letter regarding the federal and NSW state governments' continued alleged illegal desecration and destruction of the Sacred Alum Mountain, that was passed onto you by the Prime Minister. I have responded in red in parentheses within the body of your letter. Please attend to the specific points I've made as a matter of the utmost urgency, i.e. in order to save Frog Rock (and indeed the integrity of the entire sacred mountain estate) from imminent irrevocable damage by blasting, which will be alleged is illegal. Estelle Carrall has provided the federal minister responsible for protecting this incredibly important sacred place with additional verification and evidence that Frog Rock, and the entire ‘body of Bula’ is held in the highest veneration by the traditional custodians, and has been so since the beginnings of humanity, i.e. it could not possibly be MORE significant and worthy of protection! (Included below for your information.)

Please respond in person – in my 30 years of activism to help try and save Australia’s environmental and Aboriginal cultural heritage, I have never once received a direct response from a minister. I’ve always assumed this is so that the minister can claim ‘plausible deniability’ when the excrement they have created hits the proverbial, as has happened here. Please prove me wrong.

Maureen Brannan  905 Wilsons Road CLOYNA QLD 4605  ph:  0427710523

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NSW GOVERNMENT

Office of the Hon. Duncan Gay MLC

Deputy Leader of Government in the Legislative Council

Minister for Roads and Ports

M11/2057

27 Jun 2011

Ms Maureen Brannan

905 Wilsons Road

CLOYNA QLD 4605

Dear Ms Brannan

Thank you for your letter to the Prime Minister, which was referred to the Minister for Roads and Ports about the approved route for the Bulahdelah Bypass on the Pacific Highway. The Minister has asked me to respond on his behalf.

I understand that an application for protection of alleged Aboriginal heritage objects [By ‘objects’ I presume you mean the most sacred mountain of the Worimi nation, the body of their Ancestral Creator Being Bula…] under Commonwealth law is currently being considered by an independent specialist before being determined by the federal Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. [Why is ‘Heritage’ omitted from this list of portfolios and also omitted from the minister's own official letter head and signing? Is he not responsible for this portfolio, which by the way, adds significantly to his already ridiculously over-burdened responsibilities? Is it the same for all the state governments that Aboriginal Cultural Heritage is the responsibility of their Minister for Environment??? If so, there needs to be a Royal Commission – if not, why then is it so in the federal government? Please ask the PM to explain why, given the high level of experience and background knowledge a minister (and his advisors) would need about Aboriginal cultures to assess their heritage values in order to use the Act to protect them if necessary, has this VERY busy minister, who clearly knows less than nothing about Aboriginal issues, been given this critically important portfolio? I’ve been asking the PM why for over a year now, requesting that the Aboriginal Heritage portfolio is immediately transferred to the far more appropriate Department of Indigenous Affairs, and that any further destruction of cultural heritage under current application for protection, lodged in the demonstrably wrong department, be put on hold whilst this takes place. I requested that thereafter a thorough review be made of all previous decisions made from this department that have resulted in destruction of Aboriginal cultural heritage. As the PM has done nothing to address this, I can only assume that by leaving it in this department, the federal government deliberately intends to continue to subvert justice for the nation’s First Peoples, thus continuing the cultural genocide that began over 200 years ago. I will be calling for a Senate Inquiry into this farcical bureaucratic anomaly that has caused untold damage to Aboriginal cultural heritage, as well as asking the UN to urgently intervene.]  Thank you for providing a copy of your submission to this ongoing process.

I understand the Roads and traffic Authority (RTA) has consulted extensively with the local community and other stakeholders for the past 10 years to ensure that the Bulahdelah upgrade and its complex environmental and heritage issues have been fully considered. [Your ‘understanding’ is completely wrong – the RTA did not consult with the Bulahdelah community at all: they held one public meeting to announce their presence in Bulahdelah, closed meetings with a ‘focus group’ and a second public meeting to announce the then Minister for Roads, Carl Scully’s ‘Preferred Option’ - that is not consultation at all, let alone 'extensively'.  The most important people involved have been, and still are, completely ignored; the relevant issues therefore have not been considered at all …. and there wouldn’t be any environmental or cultural heritage issues, European or Aboriginal, if the logical, safer, cheaper and far superior Option A had been adopted.]

All required NSW and federal approvals have been obtained for the project.  The approved route is considered to best address the wide range of competing needs that must be considered including environmental, heritage, social, engineering and cost factors.  [This is basically the same RTA standard sentence that has been rolled out every time anyone has asked for JUSTIFICATION of Option E – none has ever been given. It has been proven to be false, in detail, over and over again by many experts in the field, including the RTA themselves, evidenced in their own records!  However, the sentence has now been expanded to fraudulently list the attributes of the western route, Option A - environmental, heritage, social, engineering and cost factors - as being those of Option E.]

I am also advised that the approved route has the support of the local council, [Yes, that is because the Great Lakes Council had a land ownership pecuniary interest in this route; they also have conflict of/pecuniary interest by way of building approval income/rates etc. from a McDonald’s restaurant and a brewery-resort which they have approved to be built adjacent to this route, NEAR the mountain and therefore also impacting its sanctity.] a significant portion of the wider community [The RTA DID NOT INFORM the wider community that Option E, in addition to being the most dangerous route in relation to traffic flow, would have major landslide and rockfall hazards - that critical information was kept hidden until the release of the EIS which, in its ‘Landslide Risk Assessment’, did not contain any estimation whatsoever of the risks of landslides from the mountain’s upper regions.  The RTA DID NOT INFORM the wider community that road users would be travelling through an existent landslide, nor of the fact that a western route would have NONE of these hazards.]  and other key stakeholders including the Karuah Local Aboriginal Land Council.  [who, with two parcels of land within the Option E footprint, had a pecuniary interest, … and who are, in any event, NOT the traditional cultural custodians of the site! They are Worimi and Cynthia Dates and their children and grandchildren who inherit custodianship, and they have been HORRENDOUSLY ABUSED and have never been consulted in any way – why not?  I strongly suggest that you personally visit the webpage titled NSW - International Criminal Court Material at: http://bulahdelahbypass.wordpress.com/n-nsw-international-criminal-court-material/ and learn of just some of the shocking criminal assaults on Worimi.  Worimi, and thereby all of his family have also been defamed by a Len Roberts, councillor, Great Lakes Council, deputy chairperson of Karuah land council and Baptist church elder.  Defamation of character litigation against Roberts et al is imminent. I am informed Len Roberts has also been allocated a place on the Wall of Shame: http://bulahdelahbypass.wordpress.com/6-wall-of-shame-publication-pending/]   Major construction started in August 2010. [The major construction period for this geotechnically difficult route is documented in the EIS as being for three years, which is more than likely wrong as the Nerong ‘upgrade’ blasting took over twice as long as estimated. Much of the roadway is still only at pre-construction stage and could be used for the much safer, non-problematic Option A ,as could concrete and metal paraphernalia.]   

With regard to your concerns about toxic dust, I understand the RTA has previously advised you that potential health issues associated with the possible production of alum dust during construction were also examined during the formal environmental assessment stage of the project. The environmental impact statement prepared in 2004 concluded that the raw mineral that had the potential to be exposed during construction would be alunite. However, if found, alunite is non-toxic and would pose no risk to the community.  [The RTA has deliberately and demonstrably LIED.  The Alum Mountain is the largest deposit of alunite in the western hemisphere.  As is the case with other acid sulphate rock, freshly pulverised alunite (synonyms: alum stone and alum, hence the use of the term ‘alum dust’) forms sulphuric acid on coming into contact with water, including bodily fluids.  Mining era assays of Bulahdelah Mountain’s alunite provide evidence that its SO₃ content ranges between approximately 32% to 36.76%.  Conservatively, 30% of the construction-produced alunite dust (aka alum stone/alum dust) inhaled by the people in the township – including some 600 children in local schools – would be dissolvable as sulphuric acid within their bodies. The RTA also lied, by omission, in regard to other toxic dust. The following facts in relation to the massive quantities of crystalline silica dust which have been and are intended to be inflicted on the people in Bulahdelah have been published at RTA Current Activities from 21-1-2011: http://bulahdelahbypass.wordpress.com/r2-rta-current-activities-from-21-1-2011/  

The fourteenth RTA/Baulderstone blasting of the mid-slopes of the Alum Mountain, Bulahdelah, took place on Tuesday, 5th July 2011. This is blasting of ‘Cut 2′, ‘Sandstone Cutting’, where the RTA intends to later locate a rock crushing plant. Drilling, blasting and crushing of sandstone [and rhyolite] rock all produce silica dust.

Excerpt from Workers Health Centre FACT SHEET:-

What is silica dust?   Silica is the main component in sand and in rocks like sandstone and granite.  Many workplaces are not aware that common building products such as clay bricks, concrete, tiles and fibro cement products contain silica.  Silica dust is usually created when such building products, sandstone or rocks are cut, drilled or worked on in a way that creates fine particles of silica in the air. It is breathing in this crystalline form of silica that causes silicosis.

Excerpts from Silicosis and Its Effects:-

·         What is Silicosis?

Silicosis is a disease of the lungs caused by the inhalation of crystalline silica, or quartz.  This disease is not genetic, caused by an abnormal gene, but is acquired through the inhalation of minute, airborne particles of silica.  The micron-sized silica dust, which is ingested through the normal breathing process, coats the inner lining of the lungs (alveoli) and forms fibrous scar tissue that reduces the lungs’ ability to extract oxygen from the air.  [Note: a micron is about one twenty-five thousandth of an inch; a human hair averages 40 microns.]

·         Is there a cure?

The answer, quite frankly, is “NO”.  There is no cure for Silicosis.  The only solution is prevention.

·         What are the Effects?

Depending on age, physical condition, physical activity or work requirements, the development of the disease may produce a variety of effects in different people. Only one thing is certain—continued exposure to silica dust eventually kills even the strongest. Silica exposure can cause autoimmune diseases such as lupus, scleroderma, and vasculitis.  It can also cause silicosis, kidney disease, lung cancer, tuberculosis, and other airways diseases.  Environmental exposure to silica can occur in workers and bystanders in many industries, including agriculture, construction, and potters. ISN’. ^{[Ref: Sclero.org – International Scleroderma Network (ISL) Diseases Caused by Silica Exposure.]}  

And so, your statement that ‘if found alunite is non-toxic and would pose no risk to the community’ is misleading to say the very least, and the dangers of breathing in silica dust not mentioned at all!]

I hope this has been of assistance. For more information please contact Mr Bob Handley, Major Projects Implementation Manager, at the RTA on (02) 4924 0289.  [Why would I bother? Your governments have demonstrated beyond all doubt that you intend to continue with the rape of this mountain and the ruination of the town no matter what anyone says or does –  Dr. Vickie Grieves, a renowned Worimi elder and foremost academic, rang the Federal Environment Minister to personally ask him to stop this destruction, and he completely ignored her! This matter needs to be dealt with by the federal government and/or the UN and the custodians and lovers of Sacred Alum Mountain will NEVER give up the struggle to save this unique environment from your unthinkable and totally unacceptable destruction.]

Yours sincerely

Jaymes Boland-Rudder

Chief of Staff

Level 35, Governor Macquarie Tower, 1 Farrer Place, Sydney NSW 2000

Ph: (61 2) 9228 5271  Fax: (61 2) 9228 5499  Email: office@gay.minister.nsw.gov.au

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Graham, Peter

To: maureen brannan

Sent: Friday, July 01, 2011 3:39 PM

Subject: RE: Bulahdelah - call for Inquiry into a fraudulent claim by Peter Garrett [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Dear Ms Brannan

I tried calling you a couple of times today but was unable to reach you. Please call me if you would like to discuss this matter.  (I require your responses to be in writing please.)

Yours sincerely

Peter Graham

A/g Director, Indigenous Heritage Law Reform
Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities
GPO Box 787  Canberra  ACT  2601www.environment.gov.au
02 6274 1788 / 0419 422 017

----------------------------

RECEIPIENTS:   

Peter Garrett  (The minister who originally allowed this desecration to take place by fraudulently denying the mountain was sacred)

NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell

NSW Minister for Roads Duncan Gay

NSW Minister for Environment & Heritage Robyn Parker

NSW Minister for Central Coast Chris Hartcher

NSW Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Victor Dominello

NSW Attorney General Greg Smith

Malcolm Turnbull

Federal Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs

Federal Shadow Minister for Indigenous Heritage (why isn't this portfolio the responsibility of the Shadow Indigenous Affairs Minister???)

Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin

Federal Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott

Federal Heritage Dept bureaucrat Rochelle Johnston

Federal Heritage Dept bureaucrat David Collett

Federal Environment Department bureaucrat Alistair Cockburn

Federal Environment Department bureaucrat Peter Graham

Federal Environment Department office worker Linda Baulch