Forrest weir challenge: Anthropologist’s sacred site evidence questioned in tribunal
Expert witness faces intense questioning over claims about Indigenous sacred sites as billionaire Andrew Forrest fights to build controversial Pilbara weirs.
An anthropologist commissioned to help an Indigenous group oppose Andrew Forrest’s plan to build a series of weirs on his family’s ancestral Pilbara cattle station cited rituals and songs that had not been performed for more than a century when trying to establish the current significance of sacred sites in the area.
Dr Forrest and his now-separated wife, Nicola, are challenging a Western Australian government decision in the State Administrative Tribunal, seeking to overturn the rejection of their proposal for a series of weirs along the Ashburton River that flows through their Minderoo Station.
The weirs have been opposed by the Buurabalayji Thalanyji Aboriginal Corporation and the Thalanyji people, who argue that they would harm the spiritual significance of the river.
Both BTAC and the Forrests commissioned anthropologists to prepare expert reports examining that cultural significance. On Tuesday, Kenneth Pettit SC – representing the Forrests – cross-examined BTAC-commissioned anthropologist Edward McDonald over reports he had prepared on the matter.
The most recent report prepared by Dr McDonald stated that while rituals had not been “routinely” performed for “several” years at Peepingee Pool, a water source in the area, that did not diminish the significance of the site.
Mr Pettit challenged that characterisation, noting there was in fact no record of any such ritual being performed for more than 100 years.
Under questioning, Dr McDonald said he accepted that the word “routinely” should not have been included.
“Wouldn’t it have been more intellectually open and academically precise to explain that as at 2025, no one is performing the ritual, no one is proposing a new ritual, and for all intents and purposes it is lost?” Mr Pettit asked.
Dr McDonald replied that even if the ritual was not performed, “Peepingee continues to be of deep significance to Thalanyji people”.
Mr Pettit also questioned Dr McDonald over his inclusion in the 2025 report of a song purported to have been sung by Thalanyji women.
Dr McDonald acknowledged that the reference stemmed from a report written by another anthropologist more than 115 years ago.
He was also quizzed over why his report included references to Thalanyji concerns that the weirs would dry out the river, despite agreement among the parties that the weirs would have no such impact.
Mr Pettit noted that Dr McDonald had not included any statement in his report that the weirs would not dry out the river.
“You are determined to include anything negative and exclude anything positive about the weirs?” Mr Pettit asked.
Dr McDonald said he did not accept that, but acknowledged that not including that the weirs would not dry out the river was “perhaps an oversight on my behalf”.
Mr Pettit also argued that Dr McDonald had placed a disproportionate focus in his report on how the weirs would disrupt the natural flow of the river, despite the proposed project being estimated to divert around 1 per cent of the water flowing through the river into groundwater.
That, Mr Pettit said, was the equivalent of reducing a five-minute shower by three seconds.
Dr McDonald told the tribunal that even interfering with the natural flow of the river by 1 or 2 per cent would represent a “substantial” altering of the water system.
“In the Thalanyji’s case, the natural flow is an essence of the sacred structure of the river,” he said.
Earlier, Thalanyji elder and former BTAC board member Trudy Hayes testified that constructing the weirs would be tantamount to demolishing a church.
“All I know is that river is sacred to us. You wouldn’t put a bulldozer through the Vatican,” she said.
The river, she said, was where the Thalanyji people “get our healing from”.
Ms Hayes described how, after the death of her son, it was only when she went back to the river that she began to recover.
“I worked for the health department for 25 years, I had all the health professionals. The counselling didn’t heal me, I had to go back to the river with my family, wash in the river, that’s what gave me some healing. Not non-Aboriginal people’s counselling and whatever,” she said.
It was customary for the Thalanyji people to put water from the river in their mouth and spit it out when they arrive at the river, comparing it to the practice of making a sign of the cross upon entering a church.
Ms Hayes said she was concerned that the nine new weirs would damage Thalanyji sources of food and medicine along the river bed.
While the Forrests have argued that numerous other pieces of infrastructure have already been built across the Ashburton River without ruining the spiritual significance of the system, Ms Hayes said the Thalanyji had been powerless to stop those other developments and said those other structures, including a number of bridges, did not stretch across the entirety of the river bed.
“We’ve got enough obstacles in the river as it is now,” she said.
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