Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the opportunity this morning to indicate my wholehearted support for the local community campaign in opposition to the sale of land at Hill 60 in Port Kembla and urge the government to withdraw this significant site from private sale. The Minister for Defence has determined to dispose of this land on the grounds that it has been identified as surplus to defence requirements. The particular parcel of land adjoins Hill 60, which has been granted heritage listing by the New South Wales government. Hill 60 has particular significance for our local Indigenous community, who want the land returned to its rightful owners.

At the ‘save our hill’ rally on Sunday, 6 August, Uncle Reuben Brown, an esteemed local elder, referred to their longstanding connection with this land when he said:

On this land here is where my wife’s mother and my great grandmother’s little sister lived in a tin shed. This is where they lived until about 1942 when the army moved them out, but that doesn’t change the fact that over there is where our ancestors have been buried.

They want to sell the land from under us. We’ve got to do something to make sure that it doesn’t happen.

The ball is now in the government’s court. I have pursued the case with a range of ministers, including the Minister for Defence and the ministers for the environment and Indigenous affairs, but I have as yet received no response. I am aware that Senator Fierravanti-Wells has also urged that the decision to dispose of this land be reviewed.

I am at a loss to understand the department’s view that ‘there are no significant heritage or environmental issues involved’. Surely the Indigenous connection to this land—the historical and the cultural ties—must indicate that there are strong grounds to reverse this decision. The rally on Sunday was well attended by a cross-section of Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants and many local residents of Port Kembla who are determined to preserve this important site.

The Department of Defence claims it has to recoup the purchase price of the land for the public. In response one might ask, ‘What purchase price?’ The land was taken from the Aboriginal people who lived on it and who were forced off it during World War II. The government should not proceed with the sale. I have urged the Minister for the Environment and Heritage to intervene in terms of his authority under federal legislation. I have also called on the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs to, in a genuine act of practical reconciliation, have the Defence land incorporated into the current Hill 60 heritage listing by the New South Wales government. The rally asked me to pass on the following message to the government: ‘You’re not taking our land; it’s not for sale.’