Aboriginal community fears for sacred site over unpaid rates stoush

The Tasmanian Aboriginal community is battling bureaucracy over the future of a sacred site and an unpaid rates bill. Read about their concerns.

Saltwater River area significant to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community. Picture: supplied

The Aboriginal community fears it will lose culturally significant Tasmanian land it owns — including a sacred art site — because it cannot pay rates due to what it says is bureaucratic red tape.

Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania manager Rebecca Digney said it was being forced to pay about $20,000 in council rates on sacred land at Saltwater River on the Tasman Peninsula and a house at Sorell which had been given to the Aboriginal community 20 years ago.

The Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations has confirmed that the Saltwater River and Sorell properties were vested with the Registrar of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporations following the deregistration of the former Tasmanian Aboriginal Land and Sea Council Aboriginal Corporation.

Rock shelter at Saltwater River. Picture: supplied

Registrar Tricia Stroud said she ORIC wanted a process that would “see the properties retained in Indigenous ownership for the benefit of the Indigenous community”.

“Ordinarily any liabilities that attach to the property would be set off against the purchase price,” she said.

“As such any transfer of ownership must also satisfy all liabilities that are attached to the property. ORIC understands is to be no more than $20,000.”

Ms Digney said the Land Council could not afford to pay the rates and the process to have the title for the land transferred to the local community had been ongoing for years.

“This site is incredibly culturally significant, there’s hand stencils in a living rock shelter there,” she said.

“It’s an art site that sits within a broader landscape and the whole area is riddled with cave systems which show it was a living place used quite heavily by our old people.

“It has been an unnecessarily complicated process and the goalposts keep changing.

“We are grossly under-funded and just want this gifted back to us. The commonwealth has owned these properties and should have paid the rates which is the only sticking point.”

Ms Digney said it was “astounding” that the commonwealth would hold “a sacred site to ransom for the price of some unpaid rates” and the vacant house at Sorell had been vandalised.

Caleb Pedder Aboriginal heritage officer within the palawa community. The Tasmanian Aboriginal community are hoping to regain a significant cultural place at Saltwater River. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Aboriginal heritage officer Caleb Pedder said the Saltwater River property contained the only known Aboriginal art site or hand stencil on tukana (Tasman Peninsula).

“There are less than 10 of these places found within the whole of lutruwita. This makes it very special,” he said.

“There have been many community gatherings and working bees within the property over the last 30 years.

“The whole property requires a coordinated management regime for the effective protection of both the art site and the land around it.”

Mr Pedder said the art site had been monitored for decades and was “slowly disappearing”.

“We have to have control back as soon as possible or the art site will disappear for ever,” he said.

Land council chair Michael Mansell described the situation as “absurd” and said the commonwealth should pay the outstanding rates.

“This is an abuse of power this is. The massive federal government is taking advantage of a powerless Aboriginal people,” he said.

ORIC says it will soon invite applications from Indigenous parties to take ownership of the properties.

Originally published as Aboriginal community fears for sacred site over unpaid rates stoush