By MICHAEL SLOVANOS
THE Aboriginal land claims racket did not end when 60% of Australians voted against the so-called Voice this year. Marxist Indigenous types don’t give up easily and what they are doing around the Western Victorian town of Natimuk is a case in point.
A short distance from Natimuk is a rocky outcrop called Mt Arapiles, which also happens to be a world-famous rock climbing location. In recent years it has also emerged as a place of “spiritual significance” to local Aboriginal tribes aka “nations”.
But Europeans apparently don’t understand what it is to be “spiritually connected” to a rocky outcrop, so these local Indigenous activists, backed by their comrades of the Victorian state Labor government and Parks Victoria, have been telling the rock climbers to go away. That not only hurts the climbers but the entire town which basically survives on these visitors.
Most of the rock climbing areas have now been closed because now, in the “enlightened” politics of Victoria, the Mount Arapiles-Tooan State Park is now also known as the “Dyurrite Cultural Landscape”. A more appropriate name would be the Dyurrite Cultural Marxist Landscape.
“Wotjobaluk man” Stuart Harradine, speaking for the Barengi Gadjin Land Council Aboriginal Corporation, the body representing traditional owners of the area, told the ABC the “cultural protections” were more than 30 years in the making, and scar trees, rock art and a stone tool “manufacturing area” in the park were of “international significance”.
We would question that claim, given that there are endless sites in Australia where Aborigines gathered to chip rocks to make adzes and spear heads and leave their mark on rocks with ochre powder.
A local journalist Lauren Henry reported early in November: “Natimuk residents have vowed to continue fighting Parks Victoria’s plan to ban a majority of rock climbing at Mount Arapiles. The small community turned out in force on Wednesday evening to oppose the changes to the Dyurrite Cultural Landscape draft management plan.”
So no longer do we have a rocky outcrop and park that attracts climbers and other tourists, we have a “cultural landscape”, and while landscapes do speak of culture, in this case it’s limited to the indigenous culture.
The countryside of Western Victoria has an obvious cultural landscape going back to colonial settlement in the late 1830s when the Anglo-Saxon settlers put their various skills to work on the landscape – primarily timber milling and farming.
The local Aborigines valued the area for its rich resource of eels and built channels for them – an early form of fish farming. That was probably a major reason that settlers met guerilla-style resistance from the Gunditjmara people, leading to the Eumeralla Wars, which went on until the 1860s.
However, many Aboriginal people were killed, and many displaced and the Victorian Government created Aboriginal reserves to house them such as the Lake Condah Mission, established in 1867 by the Church of England. The Aboriginal Protectorate was established in 1838, with George Augustus Robinson as Chief Protector.
Four assistant protectors were appointed to oversee and assist the Aboriginal population in the Western (Mount Rouse), North-Western (Loddon), North-Eastern (Goulbourn) and Westernport (Narre Warren) regions of the Port Phillip District.
Popular modern propaganda paints the English settlers as rabid, racist invaders who couldn’t give a toss for the indigenous locals. There is doubt that the colonial government wasn’t going to cede power to the local “savages” and the settlers were in effect their front line forces. But the English at least had the decency to offer some protection and recognition while Robinson actively advocated for them.
A study by A. C. Stone of the Royal Society of Victoria titled The Aborigines of Lake Boga, shows a quite sympathetic approach by colonial Victorians to the language and culture of the tribes in northern Victoria along the Murray River.
Eventually the Aborigines either adapted into European-style life on the land, working on farms and other jobs. Photos from the 1950s and earlier show the reality of an underclass wearing tatty European clothes, and still very much a separate community.
Others in the north made names for themselves as stockmen and others joined the military and many across Australia converted from tribal animistic religion to Christianity.
Come the 1970s and the background Australian Communist Party agitation on behalf of the “indigenous against the colonialists” that began in Melbourne and Sydney in the 1930s came to fruition with various events such as the Gurindji strike and walk-off at Wave Hill station led by Vincent Lingiari, that justifiably or not, became a landmark event in Australia’s political history.
Into the 80s the Aboriginal land rights movement became even more strident in its demands. Those who resisted were simply labeled “racists” and “right wing extremists”. This was just another stage of what is generally referred to as the Marxist “march through the institutions”.
The main players among these activists had solid schooling in Marxist theory and practice, some from academic institutions and others from the CPA National Training Centre at Minto NSW, that operated secretly for some time.
As noted by outspoken US anti-communist James Lindsay: “Above all else it’s very important to understand that Marxism is a scam. This includes woke Marxism. A lot of woke or woke-sympathetic people today do not realize that Marxism is a deliberate scam that uses the apparent plight of the less fortunate, to gain power for itself.”
We see this today in the multi-billion-dollar Aboriginal welfare industry. Successive Australian governments have had the guilt trip played upon them by the activists who have become adept at taking hand-outs and creating all sorts of mini-bureaucracies for themselves. Land councils are a major part of them.
Meanwhile the Victorian State Government, just prior to the Melbourne Cup public holiday, put out a a media release announcing a ‘$1.7-million investment’ for planned upgrades to facilities, tracks and signs at Mount Arapiles-Tooan State Park.
The management plan supposedly “seeks to protect areas of cultural significance to the Wotjobaluk, Jaadwa, Jadawadjali, Wergaia and Jupagulk Indigenous groups, represented by Barengi Gadjin Land Council”. It all sounds very indigenous, but the reality is that these early 21st century Aborigines are a mixed race, commonly with Irish-English-Scottish blood.
This makes the claim that these people still have a “spiritual connection” with certain places, highly questionable. We might call it a sentimental familial connection to the past or simply respect for culture, which most reasonable people understand, but this mixed-race group of Australians suddenly claiming and locking up significant parts of landscape at this time in history is disingenuous.
What it does do is give these land councils political power and control of land. Already there is talk of fees for rock climbing in particular areas.
The land council say the area is home to “one of Australia’s largest stone quarry complexes with rock art and scar trees dating back 3000 years.” That might well be true, but to say these areas must not be touched is stretching credibility.
The local newspaper quoted Natimuk resident and long-time climber Pat Ford who said he returned to live in the town because he loved the community and what climbing at Arapiles brought to the town. He called for a more transparent process in consulting Natimuk residents and the climbing community.
“I guess for me, it’s just sad there’s been a lack of consultation, with the climbers and with the local townspeople, as to what it’s actually going to mean to Natimuk,” he said. “We need to protect the cultural heritage, there’s no doubt about that, but taking a broad brush approach to it, when we could be a little bit more granular and work together, so we can protect it and make sure that our town stays viable.”
Mr Ford told the newspaper he accepted the initial closures in 2020, when the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs placed an interim protection declaration on rock art sites, and he respected the decisions to protect cultural heritage sites.
“For me, I was saying to people ‘look they’ve done what they need to do, so we need to let the process play out. So having this now – all these extra areas banned – everyone’s a little shocked,” he said.
Locals estimate that about 25 to 30 per cent of Natimuk’s population are rock climbers, and 14 PhD with doctorates – four of which were medical – who work in the nearby regional centre of Horsham, including a neurologist, an obstetrician and MDs.
The loss of the climbing could spur those people to move on which would be a major loss for the town and region.
The town’s only hotel, The Nati Pub, employs about 20 people and about half of their business comes from people climbing and visiting at the mount. The loss of access will hugely impact the business, meaning fewer local jobs.
Ford said even the local footy team is affected as climbers are directly involved with the team and then there would be effects on enrolment numbers at Natimuk Primary School, which currently has 20 children..
The local council, Horsham Rural City Council, put out a statement saying it did not have a decision-making role in the management plan, but would consider lodging a submission to Parks Victoria if approved by the recently elected council.
Local MP Emma Kealy said the State Government failed to consult the community or climbers, and said the four-year process to investigate cultural heritage at Arapiles was secretive. She said up to half of all climbing routes would be closed, putting in doubt the future of an iconic climbing destination that attracts tens of thousands of climbers every year and underpins tourism and the economy in Natimuk and the wider area.
“It is to climbers what Bells Beach is to surfers. Imagine the government closing Bells Beach with no notice, no right of appeal, no transparency, and no accountability.”
Such is the unaccountability of the new class of indigenous bureaucrats who are paid hundreds of millions of dollars by state and federal governments under various Acts of Parliament. Five years the same Victorian Labor government cut access in the nearby Grampians National Park without any consultation.
A petition to Parliament against the plan, which has so far attracted more than 1300 signatures, can be found at www.parliament.vic.gov.au/get-involved/petitions/rock-climbing-in-mt-arapiles. Another petition at change.org has more than 5000 signatures.