Most Australians will view with horror Federal minister Tanya Plibersek’s facilitation of a fertiliser factory displacing and polluting more of the world’s greatest rock art site on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia, former Greens leaders Christine Milne and Bob Brown said today.
Both have visited and campaigned for the million Murujuga petroglyphs which go back some 40,000 years and involved thousands of Aboriginal artisans.
“This multinational corporation’s urea factory should be on the Maitland Estate allocated for just such industry but inland and well away from the Murujuga rock art which is amongst the world’s most astonishing human achievements. For Tanya Plibersek to agree to more of the marvellous artworks, in this the largest and oldest rock art gallery in the world, to be put on a truck and dumped at a nearby art cemetery is beyond belief,” Brown said.
‘It is disingenuous for Minister Plibersek to say that the Aboriginal people agree with this desecration of their cultural heritage. She knows that under the Burrup and Maitland Industrial Estates Agreement (BMIEA) signed in 2003 there is a ’No Objections’ clause stating that contracting parties can not ‘lodge or cause to be lodged any objection to development proposals intended to occur on land’ within the area,’ Milne said.
‘If Minister Plibersek is serious about an Indigenous Voice to Parliament and genuine respect for Aboriginal people, she will immediately remove the ‘gag’ clause so Aboriginal people can tell her what they really think about Woodside and Perdaman wrecking their heritage.’ Milne concluded.