Dear Friends,
Last year, the Queensland Government allowed Adani to bulldoze and detonate an ancient Wangan and Jagalingou tool making area – the most significant cultural heritage site found on Adani’s mining lease to date.
Now, the Government is refusing to investigate Adani’s destruction as a breach of the Cultural Heritage Act, claiming that there is no evidence of harm to any cultural heritage and that Adani acted in accordance with their Cultural Heritage Plan.
The fact is, Adani has actively prevented our people from collecting evidence by denying us access to the site. One Wangan and Jagalingou man was even charged with trespass earlier this year. It is unfair for the Government to require us to provide evidence as a precondition for launching an investigation when Adani is actively stopping us from obtaining that evidence.
What’s more, we know that Adani’s Cultural Heritage Committee failed in its duty to inform Wangan and Jagalingou representatives and people of Adani’s plan to demolish the site. Despite this, the Government has not consulted the Cultural Heritage Committee to verify Adani’s self-reported record of compliance with the Cultural Heritage Plan.
Under Queensland law, Wangan and Jagalingou people have the human right to participate in the preservation and protection of our cultural heritage. But the Queensland Government has systematically failed to uphold our rights and prosecute Adani/Bravus for breaches of the Cultural Heritage Act. Instead, they have allowed Adani to destroy our sacred sites, and exclude our people from knowledge about, and access to, our cultural heritage. We have no choice but to take matters into our own hands.
We plan to take legal action to hold the Queensland Government to account for failing in its duty of care to protect our human rights. Will you chip in to our legal fund?
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Artefacts recovered from our demolished cultural heritage site.
For too long, Queensland’s cultural heritage laws have served the interests of mining companies, dispossessing and disempowering Aboriginal people. By testing the power of the Human Rights Act, we plan to hold the government accountable for injuries against us.
As a first step, we are seeking expert legal advice on whether the Queensland Government can use compliance with the Cultural Heritage Act to justify their failure to uphold our cultural rights under the Human Rights Act.
But legal advice doesn’t come cheap. We need to raise upwards of $5,000 to secure initial advice, plus tens of thousands more to pursue legal action against the Queensland Government. All donations, big and small, are welcome and needed.
It’s clear that Queensland’s broken cultural heritage laws are rigged against our people in favour of mining companies. The truth is, Adani’s Cultural Heritage plan does nothing to uphold our people’s human rights and protect our sacred sites.
Under this plan, Wangan and Jagalingou people cannot veto any destruction no matter how culturally significant a site may be. Even if they wanted to, Cultural Heritage Committee members had no power to prevent the bulldozing and detonation of this site.
What’s more, Adani gave the Cultural Heritage Committee just a few weeks’ notice of planned clearance works, and gave a select group just 9 days to sort through thousands of artefacts – despite knowing about the significance of the cultural heritage site since 2018.
Adani also ignored expert advice from archaeologists that the site should be carefully excavated to a depth of 1.5m. Instead, Adani bulldozed 60cm of topsoil and dumped our precious artefacts in heaps of rubble at another location, a site that our people have been denied access to.
We cannot allow this to happen again. Chip in to our legal fund and help us hold the Government to account for allowing Adani to violate our human rights.
I know many of you have donated to our efforts in the past – some of you more than once. Over the past 6 months, your donations have helped us maintain our ongoing Waddananggu ceremony on our land, next to Adani’s coal mine. Thank you.
For 10 years we have thrown everything we’ve got at this mine, and we won’t stop taking action to protect our Country and culture. If you would like to support our efforts into the future, please consider making your donation monthly.
For Country,
Adrian Burragubba,
Elder and spokesperson
Wangan and Jagalingou Nagana Yarrbayn Cultural Custodians
P.S. Yesterday marked 180 days of the continuous Waddananggu ceremony, located 1.5km from Adani’s mining pit. We are here to stay. If you’d like to support our ongoing presence on Country to protect our land, water, and culture please donate here.
Aboriginal Social Media & Communications Network 2021
