The boom is still on - riches, riches, riches for a few but nothing to enhance Aboriginal Peoples' living conditions. The boom is only resulting in more and more degradation of our Sacred Sites and Sites of Significance.

You, the Premier, have mentioned time and again on television, the newspapers, radio, that the big boom in WA is on. You have said time and again that skilled workers have got to be brought into the State and the big boom is on while the Aboriginal People have been ignored completely by you and your Government. You have never attempted to upgrade our living conditions. You have never assisted us to go back and stay with our Land and Culture. You and your Government by-laws and your Police Department and your welfare organizations have declared civil war upon Aboriginal People in ways of neglect as stated by Lt General Sanderson.[3] The Casey Report has criticised your Government's treatment of Aboriginal People and said the Department of Indigenous Affairs (DIA) was not a representative of us, our Land, our Culture and our Spirit and that it failed to protect Heritage.[4] It said “there must be a fundamental change in focus away from just policies, structures and processes, towards ensuring the accountability of all government agencies for their performance in the delivery of programs and services to Indigenous people”. The Alastair Hope Report released yesterday said “there is an almost complete lack of leadership in the response by government to the disaster of Aboriginal living conditions”.[5] On ABC radio today Carol Martin said that we are still running on institutional racism and until we address that and become culturally sensitive nothing is going to change.

We remind you of your inaugural speech that says “as a society we should understand that the cost of failure in Aboriginal affairs would be massive”.[6]

- When approached on these very serious matters, the Federal Government has done nothing to help us or even properly address the issues.

- You have passed a move-on policy/law that has targeted Aboriginal People. It has resulted in pushing Aboriginal People from one area to another. We are no longer allowed to be in our own Country. If we cannot move or do not move fast enough we are jailed. We are Strangers in our own Country.

- Without any understanding or consultation Aboriginal Communities have been shut down and more are currently on the books to be closed, resulting in more women, children and families being made homeless.[7]

- The proof that Western Australia has the worst record for the treatment of its First Peoples is coming out about Fitzroy Crossing, Halls Creek and all over the Kimberleys . The State and Federal Governments have not only done nothing about the maltreatment of these People but it has not even addressed the same problems that are happening here in Perth and throughout the South West of Western Australia. The Courts have accepted that we are Traditional Owners with ongoing Links, Ties and Connections to this Area, including the Perth Metropolitan Area, and yet we are not even on the radar as the Cultural People. Instead, we are moved on, our Communities are closed down and we are treated with contempt by the Governments and their Agencies. Our Sacred Sites are continuously desecrated and the Governments do not even address our rights in breach of their own Acts and laws.


- The Swan River is Sacred to us. The Waterways and the entire Swan River that flows through the Swan Coastal Plains down through the capital city of Perth down to the mouth at Fremantle is Sacred to us, the Traditional Owners.

- We are calling on you Mr Carpenter, as the Premier, to hold your plans to remodel the Perth Foreshores at the Perth Barrack Street Jetty and along the Swan River Foreshores. These plans will result in digging into the Sacred Bank and Sacred Bed of the Swan River, our Spiritual Dreaming. You have never consulted with us, the Traditional Owners, about your plans. You cannot continue with your development because simply the final decision on your appeals through the Federal Court has not been given as yet.

- Heirrison Island was given permission by the Aboriginal Cultural Materials Committee to hold concerts on that Island which is Sacred to us. The Sacred River runs on each side of it and yet it was deemed not as a Sacred Site by the Cultural Committee. They claimed it would not disturb that Sacred Site but they ignored our concerns, the Traditional Owners and Custodians.

- Premier, you and your Government have ignored the laying to rest of our Warrior, Yagan's, Head. It was brought back from Liverpool in the year l997 and has been laying in Charles Gairdner Hospital for over ten years now.

- Because of Government delaying tactics, the final decision on the laying to rest of Yagan has not been worked out as yet by the Aboriginal People as a whole. The Aboriginal Nation of People in the Swan Coastal Plains are calling on you to stop immediately the secret Plans of a hand full of people who want to lay Yagan's Head to rest in their own decision making. Your Government has never given the Burial Committee the resources to consult with all Nyungah People about the proper Burial of our Warrior Yagan as was originally agreed to by the Government of the day.

- We understand that a submission has gone to Parliament for money to be administered through DIA for the Burial of our Warrior when no Culturally or Spiritually appropriate process has been followed. This is a desecration of our Ancestor and our Beliefs and all the Nyungah People. We are the Spiritual Dreaming People and we say unto you as Premier that Yagan's Head should not be done the way the white man wants it done because his Spirit will never rest. We don't want his head put like a lizard under the rock. This is stopping his Spirit finding his other body as Spiritual Dreaming. Yagan is not some sort of grub that crawls under the stone. His Spirit must not be locked.

We have plans on how it should be done. We have had it for ten years. Why are you suddenly now doing something about it? Please don't use this for your election. This is not what the entire People want because no one has been spoken to about it.

We ask you as Premier of WA to halt this plan immediately and put it on hold because the Native Title issue over the Swan River & Swan Coastal Plains stands and the Appeal has not been solved as yet. The whole of the Nyungah People don't know what's happening to their Ancestor Yagan, tampering around for ten years.

- We call on you as Premier to remove Yagan's Statue from Heirrison Island because it makes a mockery of our Beliefs. It could be replaced by a culturally appropriate Memorial at Kings Park, approved by all Nyungah where the public can see it and where he is not hidden from memory. King's Park is where Yagan and all the Ancestral Elders looked up and down the Swan River from the ocean to the Ranges and saw the Fires and knew where all their People were.

We are mentioning all of these to you as the Premier and your Government reminding you that you have neglected us, the Aboriginal People and that all Governments have been consistently ripping out our Hearts and our Spirit.


Western Australia has the worst record for the treatment of Aboriginal People in Australia by all measures. Since you have been in power, both as Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Premier, you have done nothing but continue your persecution of us, the Native Title Holders. We ask when you are going to start implementing positive policies for our People and stop abusing us.

We call on the Opposition and the Federal Government to intervene in this immediately. This can only be done with full and proper consultation with representative members from within each and every Nyungah Community and Family Clan.




Robert Bropho
For: Nyungah Circle of Elders


References:

1 Bennell v Western Australia [2006] FCA 1243 (19 September 2006)

2 Inaugural Speech to the Legislative Assembly, Wednesday 12 March 1997

3 Interview with Lt Gen John Sanderson about third world living conditions in Western Australia

4 Report of the Review of the Department of Indigenous Affairs, Dr Dawn Casey PSM, FAHA, April 2007 (Tabled Paper No. 3459 Tabled on 20-Nov-2007). See also this statement by Carpenter, delivered to the Legislative Assembly on 20 November 2007: http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/hansard

5 'Future bleak for Kimberley kids', The Australian, 26 February 2008

6 Inaugural Speech to the Legislative Assembly, Wednesday 12 March 1997

7 In 2003 the Gallop Government (with Carpenter as Minister for Indigenous Affairs) rushed an Act through Parliament which resulted in the closure of the Swan Valley Nyungah Community. The subsequent eviction of innocent women and children, leading to homelessness, poverty, abuse, imprisonment and death, was based on false and misleading claims and happened as a result of the serious misconduct and ineptitude of public servants and their advisers. See the findings of the Select Committee on the Reserves (Reserve 43131) Bill 2003. Despite what is now known the Community is still homeless and the Government has made no attempt to apologise or compensate members for the loss of property, land, homes and loved ones.

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