IN 1904, Paddy, Jacky and Chloe, were found guilty by Roma magistrates of being neglected children and sentenced to seven years detention in the Deebing Creek Industrial School.
That’s right: jailed for being neglected! They were, of course, Indigenous children.
There is no record of their ages, but the Act under which they were convicted required them to be under 15 years and Aboriginal or half-caste.
Three years later, the Chief Protector remitted the unexpired portions of those sentences.
That is just one sliver of the history underlying Ipswich City’s heritage- listed Deebing Creek Mission - a history reflecting the injustices faced by Australia’s first people since the beginning of British settlement in 1788.
Little wonder that it has been the focus of Indigenous protests for the past five years. But not because of its existence - rather because of plans for two sets of housing developments at Deebing Creek, which Indigenous protesters fear will desecrate burial sites and otherwise impact on other sites or materials relevant to their history at the mission.
And, bubbling away in the background, there could be another potential pot of discontent for Ipswich’s Indigenous people.
A recent meeting of the Calvert to Kagaru Community Consultative Committee meeting at the Railway Workshops Museum in Ipswich was told the route of the proposed Inland Rail had already been examined for possible heritage impacts on both Aboriginal and European settlement.
It had been found the project would disturb ‘scattered Aboriginal tools’, some ‘scarred trees’, and about a dozen examples of early settlement, such as farm buildings.
However, assurances were given at the Inland Rail meeting that, ‘where possible’, heritage items would be relocated to a nearby site. And ‘some scar trees’ would be ‘cut down and relocated to land owned by Aboriginal groups where they can be preserved’.
Scar trees, of course, are the living legacy of centuries of Indigenous occupation of Australia, linking today’s First Nation descendants to the culture and spirit of their ancient past. They are the result of mostly stone axes chiselling through the bark to the sapwood, allowing them to cut out canoes, shields, containers, weapons, and other necessities, and also to mark places of significance such as burial sites.
And cutting down a sacred ‘directions tree’ just over a week ago to make way for an upgrade to Victoria’s Western Freeway has triggered a major row - even though the Government had the approval of the Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation (EMAC), the registered Indigenous group for the area.
Its board is made up of all 12 of the area’s ancestral families, including the Djab Wurrung people. After investigating and ‘walking’ the area it was able to save 15 ‘birthing’ trees, but could find no cultural significance to warrant saving the giant yellow box or fiddleback tree - ‘despite its age and majesty’.
But protesters say Djab Wurrung members associated with the EMAC board do not speak for all Djab Wurrung people - especially as the country involved, with its ‘birthing trees’ is regarded as ‘women’s country’. They have camped along a 12-kilometre stretch of land for two years to protect all the trees including the fiddleback - one to which a woman would go for spiritual guidance.
And the morning after learning of the tree’s destruction the camp erupted into heated protests leading to what were described as ‘some violent arrests’.
Victorian Greens Senator, Djab Wurrung woman, Lidia Thorpe, said she was ‘absolutely gutted’ by the destruction of ‘a place of worship’, and tweeted a comparison to the betrayal and destruction of forest in the Avatar movie, explaining: “Sacred ancestor trees are torn down by the very Government who want to Treaty with us.”
A late court injunction has stopped work on the site until November 19.
But, coming almost seven months after mining giant Rio Tinto blew up two ancient sacred caves in Juukan Gorge, Western Australia, it has prompted concerns over the apparent fragility of Australia's Indigenous heritage protection laws.
It has also sparked a growing realisation that Indigenous history is a significant part - the foundation stone in fact - of our Australian history. Good or bad, all of our heritage matters to all of us. Or it should.
But that requires a better understanding of not only our full history and heritage values, but also of the importance of change. Not ruthless business change designed to maximise profit at the expense of heritage; but the type of change required for the safety, progress and enhancement of all levels of society; necessary change that, even so, is not above cutting red tape or achieving compromise wherever possible.
Meanwhile, Our Deebing Creek heritage protectionists have protest camps at the sites of the two housing development projects along Grampian Drive, accessed from the Centenary Highway.
One is at the southern end of Grampian Drive and will soon be converted to a tent embassy to protect Indigenous burial sites from the desecration of development.
But both the developer and council have denied that the 267 housing project, approved in August 2018, will be developed on the heritage-listed site of the Deebing Creek Mission.
The masterplan for the estate is for a total of 950 new homes, with provision for increased space around the mission cemetery and Deebing Creek.
After 25 years at Deebing Creek the mission and its school were relocated to Purga, where the mission retained its original name. Yet the Deebing Creek Mission land remained an Aboriginal Reserve and was used for grazing purposes. Purga Mission was closed in June 1948 and all the associated Aboriginal reserves were rescinded in December 1948.
In 2010 the State Government declared the Ripley Valley Urban Development Area, taking over regulatory control of the land but later delegating development assessment to the Ipswich City Council.
The council says this means it has no ability to make or amend the development scheme in the declared areas of the Ripley Valley and Deebing Creek.
And the State Government has the primary responsibility for Native Title or Indigenous Cultural Heritage, including responsibility for regulating native title issues, and for ensuring that development complies with the cultural heritage act and associated legislation.
But council is still able to determine conditional approvals aimed at safeguarding the heritage of an area such as Deebing Creek, while also advising developers of the need to comply with development obligations pursuant to the provisions of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003, the Planning Act 2016 and the Planning Regulation 2017.
But that looks like an awful lot of red tape tied up with the possibility of Government intervention.
For the descendants of the Indigenous occupants of the Deebing Creek Mission it’s still very much a case of ‘unfinished business’.
