Clearing has begun on land in south-eastern Queensland upon which Indigenous protesters claim the bones of their ancestors lay and an unrecognised massacre took place.
Bulldozers on the former Deebing Creek Aboriginal reserve were halted on Friday, however, when the protesters held a smoking ceremony on the site on Ipswich’s southern outskirts.
It comes after the Ipswich council asked for the public release of a police report into bones that had been found near the former Aboriginal mission earlier this year.
On Friday state Greens MP Amy MacMahon was ejected from the Queensland parliament after screaming angrily that “koala habitat is being cleared right now in Deebing Creek” while the premier, Annastascia Palaszczuk, was trying to speak.
The history of the former Deebing Creek mission is a contested one – though its cultural and historic importance is widely accepted.
The cemetery and a part of the mission site are listed on the Queensland Heritage Register, which recognises its “great significance” to traditional owners and the descendants of Aboriginal people brought here from across the state..
But the bush surrounding these protected areas is slated for development, despite claims by some First Nations people that it is culturally significant and harbours the remains of their ancestors
More than 140 hectares of the former Aboriginal reserve is in the hands of several developers, among them Stockland, which began bulldozing trees on Wednesday in order to build about 2,300 houses over the next 10 to 15 years.
A Stockland spokesperson said the company “deeply respects the history of the area” and has “valued the time taken to engage” traditional owners.
Stockland has a cultural heritage management plan signed by five of the nine native title applicants of the Aboriginal corporation, the Yuggera Ugarapul People. Several traditional owners observed, but didn’t take part in, Friday’s ceremony.
“Through our relationship agreement and cultural heritage management plan with the YUP, we look forward to continuing our working relationship and realising the positive benefits of this partnership,” the Stockland spokesperson said.
A Gamilaraay man, Deekay, told dozens of people at the ceremony that native title and Indigenous land use agreements didn’t “encompass all the many tribes associated” with the site.
“We feel that our Indigenous rights have been breached, and our human rights, due to foreign frameworks, namely the native title act,” he said.
“[But] you can’t fence our culture out, evidently.”
Deekay has been part of a camp which has been fighting to protect the site for more than two years. Their camp is further down Grampian Drive on land AV Jennings plans to develop.
Brisbane councillor Jonathan Sriranganathan, who was at the ceremony, disputed claims that Aboriginal owners had consented to the development.
“The current native title framework does not give Aboriginal people the power to say ‘no’ and veto developments like this,” he said.
“They may have to sign a cultural heritage management plan in order to extract some concessions through negotiations, but whether those groups might have signed a CHMP or not doesn’t mean that they are consenting to and supportive of a development.”
Sriranganathan said the land clearing was “a disgusting attack” on both the ecosystem of Deebing Creek and First Nations land rights.
Two weeks ago Ipswich council voted to ask the state’s police minister, Mark Ryan, to release a police report into the bones found on the site, after it also voted to reject AV Jennings’ application to build a childcare centre on the former reserve.
The former mission site sits within the Ripley Valley priority development area, proclaimed by the Queensland government as “one of the largest urban growth areas in Australia”.
When its development scheme was published in 2011, the 4,680 hectare Ripley Valley was home to 400 people living on rural landholdings. The scheme aims to develop up to 50,000 homes for 120,000 people.
