Hindmarsh Island bridge controversy facts for kids
The Hindmarsh Island bridge controversy was a big disagreement in Australia during the 1990s. It was about a planned bridge to Hindmarsh Island, near Goolwa, South Australia. This bridge was meant to help a new marina development.
Many local people, environmental groups, and Aboriginal Australian leaders did not want the bridge built. In 1994, a group of Ngarrindjeri women elders said the area was sacred to them. They explained that their reasons were so important they could not be shared publicly.
This issue became very famous because it touched on bigger ideas about Indigenous rights, especially Aboriginal land rights. At the time, there were other important court cases like Mabo and Wik happening in the High Court of Australia.
The women's claims became known as "secret women's business". This led to many legal fights. Some other Ngarrindjeri women later said these claims were not true. A special investigation, called the Hindmarsh Island Royal Commission, decided that the "secret women's business" had been made up.
After this, the Howard Government passed a law called the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act (1997). This law allowed the bridge to be built. The bridge was finished in March 2001.
However, in August 2001, a new court case started in the Federal Court of Australia. The judge, John von Doussa, said he was not sure that the "secret women's business" claims were made up. He did not say they were definitely true, but he questioned the earlier findings. The Ngarrindjeri people and their supporters saw this as a victory. Many groups later said sorry for what happened. People still have different opinions about the issue today.
Contents
Why the Bridge Was Planned
In 1977, developers Tom and Wendy Chapman bought about 30 hectares (74 acres) of land on Hindmarsh Island. They planned to build a large marina with places for 560 boats, car parks, homes, and other buildings. Wendy Chapman had even been the Lord Mayor of Adelaide.
The marina was only partly built when the Chapmans asked for permission to make it bigger in 1988. The planning group said they could not expand unless a bridge was built. The old Cable ferry could not handle the extra traffic.
In October 1989, the Chapmans got approval for a bridge. They would pay for it, but first, they needed to study its impact on the environment. This study was done quickly. It said that an anthropological study (a study of human cultures) was also needed. The Chapmans paid for a study that said old records did not show any special Aboriginal sites. But it warned that they still needed to talk to Indigenous groups.
Aboriginal Heritage and the Island
The Ngarrindjeri people are one of the many Aboriginal groups who lived in South Australia long ago. They are special because they are one of the few groups whose land was close to a big city, but they still exist as a distinct people today.
In April 1990, the government gave the Chapmans permission to build the bridge and expand their marina. The bridge was very expensive, costing about $6 million. The permission came with a condition: the Chapmans had to talk to "relevant Aboriginal representative bodies." These included Ngarrindjeri Elders and other groups.
This became a problem in 1994. The Chapmans had not fully met these conditions. They had done some environmental studies and talked to one elder, Henry Rankin, but this was before the bridge permission was given. Wendy Chapman later said she did not get the page of the letter that listed these extra conditions. She also thought that because no old bones were found, no more talks were needed.
Government Help for the Project
The Hindmarsh Island marina was losing money, and the Chapmans were in financial trouble. They could not afford to build the bridge themselves. So, they asked the State Government for help.
A company called Beneficial Finance, which belonged to the State Bank, had lent money for the marina. By 1990, the State Bank was also having money problems. The State Labor government, led by Premier John Bannon, wanted to protect the bank's big investment in the Chapmans' projects. The government also wanted to show they could complete a big project before the next election.
The State government made a deal. The Chapmans' company would pay for the bridge first. Then, the government would pay them back half the cost, up to $3 million.
The Bridge Opposition Grows
Many people, including most of the island's residents, were against the government paying for a private project. They also worried about Hindmarsh Island becoming too developed and the harm it might do to the environment. In April 1994, they went to the federal government to ask for an order to stop the building.
On 12 May, just before construction began, the Ngarrindjeri people asked the Federal Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Robert Tickner, to stop the work. He made an emergency declaration to block the bridge. He then asked a lawyer, Professor Cheryl Saunders OA, to report on important Aboriginal sites.
Saunders talked to many people, including a group of Ngarrindjeri women. These women said Hindmarsh Island was sacred to them as a fertility site. They also had other reasons they could not share publicly. An expert, Dr Deane Fergie, wrote down what the women said. Some of these cultural secrets were put into two sealed envelopes marked "Confidential: to be read by women only" and sent to Minister Tickner. On 10 July 1994, Tickner put a 25-year ban on the bridge construction. This put the marina project in doubt and caused the Chapmans financial problems.
In February 1995, the Chapmans challenged the ban in court. The judge praised Saunders' report but overturned the ban because of a small legal mistake. The media had criticized Minister Tickner for making a decision based on sealed envelopes he had not read. However, Saunders' report had said that the contents of the envelopes were not needed for the decision. Tickner also said in court that his decision was not based on the envelopes' contents.
In March, Shadow Minister for the Environment Ian McLachlan had to resign. He showed some of the secret documents in Parliament, saying he got them differently than he did. He also wrongly claimed they were not marked "Confidential." The envelope had been sent to his office by mistake. Even though it clearly said "Confidential: to be read by women only," it was read and copied by his staff.
In May 1995, some Aboriginal women, called "dissident" women, told the media and politicians that the "secret women's business" must have been "made up." They said they either did not know about these secrets or did not believe them.
What Was "Secret Women's Business"?
The special investigation, the Royal Commission, found at least twelve different parts to the "secret women's business" claim. This knowledge was said to be very old and only passed down to a small number of initiated women. This explained why earlier experts did not know about it. Here are some of the main parts of the claims:
- The island was seen as a fertility site. Its shape and the surrounding wetlands looked like female reproductive organs when seen from above. The Ngarrindjeri name for the island, Kumarangk, was also similar to their word for pregnancy or woman.
- The island had to stay separate from the mainland. Building a permanent link, like a bridge, would be "as bad as connecting two body organs together."
- The mixing of fresh and saltwater in the Goolwa estuary was important for Ngarrindjeri fertility. The bridge might stop this "meeting of the waters."
- The waters of the Goolwa channel needed clear views of the sky, especially the Seven Sisters star group. This constellation is important in several Aboriginal Dreaming stories. The existing barrages, built in the 1930s, were okay because they did not block the view between water and sky.
- The lower Murray River is very important in the Ngarrindjeri creation story. Many places on the Fleurieu Peninsula are believed to be parts of the creation hero, Ngurunderi, and his wives.
- Old evidence suggests the site was probably used for special burials.
The Royal Commission Investigation
In June 1995, the Hindmarsh Island Royal Commission was set up by the South Australian government. This happened after news reports about the five Ngarrindjeri women who said the "secret women's business" did not exist. The Commission caused a lot of debate during its five-month investigation.
The women who said the "secret women's business" was real refused to give evidence to the Royal Commission. They said it was wrong to investigate their spiritual beliefs.
The "dissident women" (those who disagreed) were from different ages and cultural backgrounds. The Commissioner thought they were believable. Their stories were also supported by two experts from the South Australian Museum.
In December, the Royal Commission decided that the idea of Hindmarsh Island being important to Ngarrindjerri women started at a meeting of the Lower Murray Aboriginal Heritage Committee. Even though there was evidence that the island had been called a fertility site in 1967 (before the meeting), the Royal Commission found that the "secret women's business" was made up. They believed it was created to get protection under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 (Cth). They looked at the history, expert evidence, and the stories of the dissident women to reach this conclusion.
Later Heritage Applications
The first request for protection by the "proponent women" (those who supported the secret women's business) in 1994 was successful. Based on Professor Cheryl Saunders' report, Minister Robert Tickner declared a 25-year ban on building the bridge. But that ban was later overturned because of a legal mistake. The truthfulness of the women's story was not questioned then. They had told their story and were believed, but the Minister had handled the information incorrectly.
The Ngarrindjeri made another request under the federal heritage act in 1995–96. This time, Senator Rosemary Crowley appointed a woman judge, Jane Mathews, to be the reporter. This meant the proponent women could share their women-only knowledge without breaking their cultural rules. However, the Mathews Report could not be fully completed.
In 1996, the Howard Liberal government came to power. Minister Herron refused to appoint a woman to receive the report. Then, a court decision made it clear that the women could not rely on information that was not shared with the other people affected by the request. Rather than have their stories read by a male minister and shared with others, the women withdrew their restricted information. They chose not to break their religious law that women's knowledge was only for women. Even without this knowledge, the Mathews Report of June 1996 still said that the area of the proposed bridge was important.
The dissident Ngarrindjeri women asked the High Court to say that Judge Mathews' appointment was not allowed. On 6 September 1996, most of the court agreed that her appointment was invalid.
The Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act 1997
Because of the big fuss over the bridge, Minister Tickner lost his own seat in the 1996 election. The Labor party was heavily defeated by the Coalition led by John Howard.
Soon after coming to power, the Howard Government passed a law to allow the bridge to be built. The Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act 1997 (Cth) removed the protections that the Heritage Protection Act had given to the bridge area.
Doreen Kartinyeri and Neville Gollan, speaking for the Ngarrindjeri people, challenged this new law in the High Court. They argued that a part of the Constitution (section 51(xxvi)), which was changed by the 1967 referendum, only allowed laws that benefited Aboriginal people. Five judges said the Bridge Act was valid, with one judge disagreeing.
The judges said that the actual words of the changed section did not limit Parliament to only making laws that were good for Aboriginal people. This decision was controversial. It did not really limit the power of the government in this area and was criticized for not protecting against unfair laws.
The von Doussa Court Decision
Justice John von Doussa of the Federal Court heard from everyone involved in the case brought by the Chapmans. In his decision, von Doussa disagreed with the Royal Commission's findings from 1996. He said that the main reasons for the Royal Commission's conclusion were not proven.
He explained that the fact that the knowledge appeared late did not prove it was made up. This can happen with real sacred information. He also said that not finding the information in old books did not mean it was not real. He thought it was wrong to say that a spiritual belief was not logical. He also found that some of the earlier testimonies were not reliable.
Most importantly, he found that the different stories about the Seven Sisters were consistent. He wrote: "The evidence received by the Court on this topic is significantly different to that which was before the Royal Commission. Upon the evidence before this Court I am not satisfied that the restricted women's knowledge was fabricated or that it was not part of genuine Aboriginal tradition."
One of the two main independent expert witnesses from the South Australian Museum, Philip Clarke, was found by the Federal Court to have made a mistake in his professional fairness during the Royal Commission. This was because he had secretly helped the lawyers for the "dissident" Ngarrindjerri women. The court decided against the developers and dismissed the claims that the "secret women's business" was made up.
What Happened After
Developers Tom and Wendy Chapman and their son Andrew sued many people for defamation. These included conservation groups, experts, politicians, media companies, and individuals who had spoken against the bridge. The Chapmans won court judgments of about $850,000.
In early 2002, Peter Sutton, a former head of Anthropology at the South Australian Museum, said that new evidence found after the von Doussa judgment had changed his mind. He said, "I still allow that aspects of these beliefs may have been embellished or given greater weight than before ... but the patterns and matches with earlier materials on some strands makes the overall fabrication theory insupportable." This means he no longer believed the "secret women's business" was entirely made up.
In September 2002, during work to rebuild the Goolwa wharf, the remains of an Aboriginal woman and child were found. The proponent Ngarrindjeri women had said this site was a burial ground during the Royal Commission. However, the Alexandrina Council decided that because the wharf was South Australia's first inland port, colonial history should be more important. So, construction continued.
After some talks, the Alexandrina Council formally apologized to the Ngarrindjeri people. They signed an agreement called Kungun Ngarrindjeri Yunnan ("Listen to Ngarrindjeri Speaking"). In this agreement, the Council recognized the Ngarrindjeri's rights as the traditional owners of the land. They also acknowledged that the Ngarrindjeri are a distinct group with their own laws, customs, beliefs, and traditions. These must be considered for any new developments in the council area where the Ngarrindjeri might have rights or interests.
On 7 July 2010, at a ceremony near the bridge, the Government of South Australia officially agreed that the "secret women's business" was genuine. Ngarrindjeri elders then led a symbolic walk across the bridge. Elders now believe it is okay for Ngarrindjeri people to use the bridge to reach their land and waters. However, they still culturally and morally disagree with the bridge itself.
