Construction company Boral faces charges over Aboriginal relics

A construction company has been charged with allegedly interfering with Aboriginal stone tool artefacts during a suburban excavation.

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CONSTRUCTION company Boral has pleaded not guilty to 23 criminal charges after it allegedly interfered with Aboriginal relics while conducting an excavation at Bridgewater.

According to court documents lodged earlier this year, the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment alleges the company interfered with a “scatter of stone tool artefacts” in April 2017 and March 2018 at Parkholme Drive without holding a permit to do so.

A Tasmanian Aboriginal silcrete flint scraper stone (not from the excavation site).

Tools allegedly interfered with included a mudstone notched scraper, a banded hornfels scraper, a quartzite cobble flake, a mudstone blade and a silcrete core scraper tool.

Boral Construction Materials Group Limited faced the Hobart Magistrates Court on Wednesday afternoon before Magistrate Chris Webster.

Defence lawyer Jessica Sawyer entered not guilty pleas to all counts on behalf of her client.

The case was adjourned until August 28 for legal argument ahead of a full hearing.