Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I rise to acknowledge a real turning point in the campaign against the Perth Freight Link.

I seek leave to table a letter to the Prime Minister from Miss Corina Abraham, a local Aboriginal custodian of the Beeliar Wetlands.

Leave granted.

I have had the honour to stand a couple times with Miss Abraham in our fight to prevent the Roe 8 freeway extension and Perth Freight Link through the Beeliar Wetlands.

Corina writes, in a brief excerpt from the letter that I have just tabled:

I'm writing this letter asking that you please help stop the desecration of our beautiful unique Beeliar Wetlands and cultural heritage from the Roe Hwy extension.

I'm a local Noongar Woman, a custodian of the Whadjuk Noongar people and direct descendant of the Beeliar Whadjuk Noongar tribe.

I'm unsure if you have been educated with what the beauty of this land holds and the cultural significance it maintains, not only to me but my Elders and Ancestors. It weakens my heart to know that you as Prime Minister of Our Country has provided the West Australian Liberal Government the financial capability that is needed for this project to go ahead.

Beeliar Wetlands plays a significant role in the creation of our Dreaming and Mythological stories. It plays an important spiritual role in maintaining the health of these local waterways. Its historical importance as a major meeting place is attested by numerous archaeological deposits in the area sourced from 6000 years ago.

Therefore I ask you to please consider all aspects of other feasible options that have also been suggested and researched."

During the ongoing Senate inquiry into the Perth Freight Link we also heard Corina's grandfather, Reverend Sealin Garlett, who movingly described the area in the path of Roe 8 as a birthing place akin to 'the King Edward Memorial Hospital'. He said:

On that land, in the area that we are sharing today, there are food resources, there is medicine and there is healing. I, for one, and my family still practice …

We as Aboriginal people find that that area has a tremendous impact and sense of belonging.

…   …   …

… we hold that area up very highly because it is a part of our dreaming. It is a part of our connection and it is a part of our identification.

A very dark stain sits over the way Aboriginal heritage and culture has been treated during the approval of this project. Local Aboriginal consent to Roe 8 was never given for the project but has been deliberately misrepresented by Main Roads Western Australia. Worse, Premier Colin Barnett has embarked on a wholesale deregistration of significant archaeological and mythological sites not just in the Roe 8 impact area but right across WA.

Senate has been part published up to 11pm , the remainder will be available electronically by 2pm on 2 December 2015 .