MORE HISTORY SMOOTHING

From: Ray Norman Date: Tuesday, 10 November 2020 at 12:58 pm To: Mayor , Councillor Danny Gibson , Premier Gutwein Cc: Minister Jaensch for Planning , Minister for Local Govt , Contact Us , Peter Sims Subject: The priminghana petroglyphs and NAIDOC Dear Albert and Councillors, Firstly, I acknowledge and appreciate your apology today on behalf of Council, it must be said that it is a significant step forward albeit a long time coming. We are all diminished by events of the colonial aftermath and the consequent ‘placemaking’ and ‘cultural landscaping’ that brings us to the point where the past can no longer go unacknowledged. Thank you for your public apology today! Where to now? I respectfully suggest, given all that is now known, that at Council’s very next meeting you invite Michael Mansell and a group of First Tasmanian Elders along and formally hand the priminghana petroglyphs back to the Aboriginal community in order that they can return these ‘cultural treasures’, their treasures, to their rightful places – no ifs, no buts, no bureaucratic humbug. It is time to acknowledge that these cultural treasures were removed from where they belong on the erroneous and self-serving assumption that the First Tasmanians were not there, underscored as that assumption was by the assertion of and presumption of, Terra Nullius. It is also time to acknowledge that the QVMAG has never ‘accessioned’ this cultural material in order that it, as an institution, might ‘deaccession’ it. This is evidenced by the institution’s and the GM/AKA CEO’s inability and unwillingness to supply any original unedited documentation to establish ‘accessioned ownership’. Clearly it does not exist and this is more than troubling! It is also time to acknowledge Peter Sims’ decades of tireless and dedicated scholarship now published in his very recently published monograph dedicated to this topic. Peter Sims needs to be acknowledged as the premier authority par excellence in regard to the histories attached to this internationally important cultural material. Handing it, and entrusting it, to today’s First Tasmanians is an obvious way of doing so and I submit now is the time to do so. To reiterate, the petroglyphs, on the evidence, were never ever in any way whatsoever ‘owned’ by the QVMAG. Therefore, it is nothing short of insensitive, history smoothing, bureaucrat humbug to insist that the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs needs to approve their hand back. To insist upon it diminishes us all and the opportunity is in your hands to right a monumental wrong albeit one perpetrated in ignorance. You lead the default ‘trustees’, and in law, as you would know, the ignorance of a law is not a defence! Yours sincerely, Ray Ray Norman The lifestyle design enterprise and research network  eMAIL 1. 7250 WEBsites: http://www.raynorman7250.blogspot.com “A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.” Thomas Paine “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept” David Morrison https://raynormanadvocate.blogspot.com/