Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In November last year I had the pleasure of visiting the Burrup Peninsula— or Murujuga in the Indigenous language—in the Dampier Archipelago of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. I wish to place on the record my deep thanks to Dr Ken Mulvaney, an archaeologist and anthropologist with Rio Tinto in Dampier, who acted as guide for the day and who probably knows more about the rock art than anyone else on the planet. I have to say that his passion and care for this incredible cultural heritage was highly infectious.

The Dampier rock art precinct, located in a 45 km radius, is estimated to contain more than a million Aboriginal rock art engravings, also known as petroglyphs, but only a fraction of them have been recorded. The oldest rock art on the Burrup is estimated to be up to 35,000 years old and depicts geometric designs, as well as images of humans, birds, fish and animals, including thylacines or Tasmanian tigers, which have been extinct on the mainland for over 3,000 years. The art is extensive, appearing on most rocky outcrops on the peninsula. Located near much of the art are archaeological features, including shell middens, camp sites and quarries, the total comprising a rich record reflecting the lifestyles, beliefs and ceremonial practices of Aboriginal people in the Pilbara area over millennia.

As long-time advocate for the rock art, the Hon. Robin Chapple MLC, has noted:

This may well be the world's largest concentration of rock art and possibly the only site that provides distinct evidence of the changes to environment, culture and society over such an extended period.

The National Trust of Australia (WA) has described the rock art precinct as 'one of the world's pre-eminent sites of recorded human evolution and a prehistoric university'. In 2003, the World Monuments Fund added it to its list of most endangered places—the first time an Australian place had been included. In 2005, concerned citizens formed the Friends of Australian Rock Art, FARA, to raise awareness of the Burrup Peninsula's unique heritage and to campaign for its protection. In July 2007, the Dampier Archipelago National Heritage Place, which includes 68.4 per cent of the Burrup Peninsula, was inscribed in the National Heritage List.

These wonders are unfortunately largely unknown to the wider WA and Australian community, and have been poorly protected by past and present governments. Dr Carmen Lawrence, Chair of the Australian Heritage Council and my predecessor as the federal member for Fremantle, recently published an article on the pressing need for action by state and federal governments to protect the Burrup rock art from industrial development and pollution. She eloquently explains the situation as follows:

It should be obvious that such a site is a precious part of our heritage, of the world's heritage, deserving of careful study and preservation.

But instead of the care and reverence which we would expect to be shown to a site with the significance of Stonehenge, the painted caves of Lascaux in France or the structures of Machu Picchu, the rock art precinct on the Burrup has taken second place to industrial and resource development for more than 40 years.

Although there have been a number of partial surveys of this matchless site, many of them undertaken as part of the development approval process, it has never been the subject of a comprehensive inventory or analysis.

… … …

Since the decision by Malcolm Turnbull in 2007 to place the site on the National Heritage List (excluding the area set aside for the Pluto LNG expansion), the Western Australian Government has still not completed the management plan for which it is responsible.

In the meantime, industrial expansion proceeds: proposals for two nitrate facilities and a desalination plant are under consideration. Vandalism is occurring and the few tourist visits are haphazard and unsupervised.

This is an unacceptable situation. I note that when the Hon. Colin Barnett MLA was in state opposition, he said this in parliament:

World heritage listing [of the Archipelago] is inevitable … The status of the rock art [makes it] in my opinion without doubt the most important heritage site in WA and possibly the nation … We certainly cannot use ignorance today as an excuse. If there is one part of Western Australia where this conflict between conservation and development is most apparent it is on the Burrup Peninsula.

Disappointingly, those sentiments have not to my knowledge been repeated by Mr Barnett since becoming Premier and, indeed, an ammonium nitrate facility on the Burrup has been recommended by the WA EPA for approval. The federal environment minister has requested that the Australian Heritage Council conduct an emergency heritage assessment of the Burrup and that is now underway.

We cannot have a situation in Australia where we proudly refer to our Indigenous heritage as representing the oldest unbroken course of human civilisation, while at the same time ignoring the need to protect the enduring examples of that culture and that extraordinary record.

In the words of Dr Carmen Lawrence:

Knowledge and experience of our heritage gives meaning to our lives, inspires us and contributes to our collective sense of identity. The sites, landscapes and places which we can be galvanised to protect are, in some ways, an indication of what matters to us and what we think of ourselves.