Monday, 9 November 2020

NAIDOC WEEK 2020, The Preminghana petroglyphs and The Examiner

NOVEMBER 9 2020 - 5:30PM

NAIDOC Week 2020: Preminghana

petroglyph return stalls, despite

agreements reached in August

Adam Holm

The Preminghana petroglyphs - ancient Aboriginal rock carvings - during their removal from the West Coast in the 1960s. Picture: supplied

The Launceston council submitted a permit application with the government in late-August, which required the approval of Aboriginal Affairs Minister Roger Jaensch.

The Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania believed this decision should have been easy for the government, but concerns were growing over further delays.

ALCT chair Michael Mansell said approval from the minister would allow the issue to progress to determining the physical way in which the ancient rock carvings could be returned.

The Preminghana petroglyphs remain in storage at the QVMAG in Launceston and at TMAG in Hobart.

"We can't do that without the tick off from minister, Roger Jaensch," he said.

"Once we get the technical approval, the land council would meet with the premier, the minister and representatives of the museums, with advice from a person in Queensland who is regarded as a national expert in the repatriation of rock art.

NAIDOC Week 2020: Tasmanian Aboriginal community questions stalled land returns process

Adam Holmes

The West Coast Aboriginal landscape - stretching from the coast near Marrawah south to the area near Pieman River - is among the areas the ALCT hopes to have returned to the Aboriginal community. Picture: Adam Holmes

When the Aboriginal Land Act was introduced in Tasmania in 1995 - resulting in the Aboriginal Land Council - more than 55,000 hectares of land covering 15 areas was returned.

Ten were returned in 1995, and Parliament approved two more in 1999 and 2005, but none since, apart from private landowners transferring portions of their land to Aboriginal stewardship.

With the 2020 NAIDOC week theme "Always Was, Always Will Be", the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre has sought to put renewed pressure on the government for answers.

Areas near the Bay of Fires and Mount William National Park are among those the Tasmanian Aboriginal community hopes to have returned. Picture: Adam Holmes

In his address at the flag raising ceremony, the TAC's Adam Thompson said that without "concrete acts" to repair damage, the week would pass again with "shallowness".

"The return of those lands was the very first meaningful step on the long road to restitution. But after 2005, the conversation abruptly stopped," he said.

"In the last 15 years, the only meaningful acknowledgement that this land is as it has always has been Aboriginal land has been through the generosity of private citizens.

"It is both a triumph and a tragedy that restitution for the wrongs of the past is being carried out by individuals rather than the collective acts of government.

NAIDOC Week 2020: Mayor apologises

for the times 'we have got it wrong' on

Aboriginal affairs

Adam Holmes

Mayor Albert van Zetten spoke at the launch of NAIDOC Week in Launceston on Monday, while Nathan Pitchford delivered a traditional dance as a welcome. Picture: Neil Richardson

Cr van Zetten spoke at the flag raising ceremony at the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre on Charles Street on Monday morning to launch NAIDOC Week 2020, delayed from July due to COVID.

He said the council was committed to ensuring the Aboriginal community was brought along in its decision-making.

"I do want to apologise for the times we have got it wrong," he said.

"We are continuing to learn and understand. I think what we need to continue to do is to continue to listen, and continue to try to understand where you're coming from, and we want to do that.

"Please be patient with us as we try to go on that journey together.

Friday, 11 September 2020

LAUNCESTON PETROGLYPHS MORALITY AND ETHICS

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS

John Coulson’s September 8 letter in the Examiner where he somewhat laments the return of the petroglyphs to the Aboriginal community is interesting. It is apparent that he is clinging to a 20^th Century paradigm and asserting the pre-eminence of Anglocentic Western culture and its values in 2020.

Hopefully, Tasmanians are able to imagine a world view well beyond the such narratives. This Western slant on ‘history’ is all too often found in the narratives of the colonial aftermath that is Tasmania’s unhappy inheritance.

It is now patently clear that the QVMAG never actually ‘accessioned’ the petroglyph held in its collections. There was no need to do so given that it was assumed that the Trugannini myth was 'a truth'. Myth had it that she was the last of the First Tasmanians when these cultural artefacts were ‘taken into the museum’ from Van Diemen’s Company land.

This being so, it turns out that the City of Launceston’s recent ‘deaccessioning’ of these Aboriginal cultural treasures is a total fiction and something that cynically compounds Council’s unwillingness to provide access to the “unedited accessioning documentation” – if it in fact exists or ever existed. Why might Council as the QVMAG’s default Trustees wish to smooth over the city’s histories via such Machiavellian bureaucratic manoeuvring?

Of course, these cultural treasures are the property of the descendants of the First Tasmanians. It is not drawing too long a bow to assert that the petroglyphs are ‘stolen’ and thus ‘plunder’ of a kind – a trophy even. The city’s mayor’s declarations about reconciliation and ‘doing the right thing’ are little more than empty rhetoric.

The Aboriginal community has every right to reclaim their cultural property and do with them as they see fit. More to the point, these petroglyphs should be returned forthwith and without the legal myth making or the charade of government approval. There is no legal principle to be upheld but there are moral and ethical judgements to be made.

Protestations such as John Coulson’s are hollow and are no longer relevant except in the writings of historians perhaps while recounting the excesses Western colonial expansion in Tasmania and in the world more widely.

Reconciliation in Tasmania might well begin with the return of what was disrespectfully, ignorantly and somewhat arrogantly removed from the place where these petroglyphs are deeply embedded in the cultural realities of Tasmania’s First People and as they have been for millennia.

One wonders what John Coulson and his ilk imagine they might do with the petroglyphs and what they imagine they might contribute to any kind of inclusive cultural discourse that cannot be achieved by the scholarship they have demonstrated neither the will nor the capacity to engage with at any level – political posturing yes, scholarship no.

LINK TO SUBMISSION

Date: Wednesday, 2 September 2020 at 4:26 pm
To: MAYOR <mayor@launceston.tas.gov.au>
Subject: The QVMAG Petroglyphs

Dear Albert,

Sadly, yet again you need to be called out for your appalling performance on ABC News last night all of it of course reviewable on ABC iVIEW. Your determination that the QVMAG ever ‘owned’ the petroglyphs is entirely untrue, a fiction, and that is putting the kindest possible inflection upon it.

If the QVMAG had ever asserted ‘ownership’ of the petroglyphs the institution would have needed to ‘accession them’ into the collection. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever on the public record for that ever happening albeit that it might have. That is except perhaps at some mysterious point just before they were “deaccessioned” and at that now infamous council meeting. The ink on the documentation at that time was quite likely running wet in a futile attempt to smooth over history – it might well have been wet with blood. It does you no credit to sanction and promote this nonsense.

The Aboriginal community has called you out and if you had the wherewithal you would ensure that this ‘stolen cultural material’ is packed up in the suitable crates and handed back to the Aboriginal community just as soon as that can be done – like next Monday! Whatever the circumstances, stolen property is stolen property.

Any notion that ‘government approval’ is required is just not the case and if the State Government has an issue with ‘the council’ handing Aboriginal cultural property back, let them deal with that in the courts if they dare or are so inclined.

Your position in regard to this matter diminishes all those who dare to care about these matters and are disinclined to smooth over Tasmania’s colonial histories littered as it is with ethnocide, cultural genocide, massacres, systematic genocide and all manner of diabolical behaviours Christian colonialism sanctioned. The consequences of which is the inheritance of those wanting to understand themselves as Tasmanians in 2020.

In this you do not represent people who seek justice and you seem hell bent on denying the facts in some futile attempt to rescue your reputation. That is sullied beyond redemption. For all our sakes do what needs to be done and do it now.

Sincerely,

Ray

Thursday, 10 September 2020

Letter to the editor Sept 11 2020 Returning the Petroglyph

LINK TO LUCKMAN PAPER

I FOR one can't wait for the petroglyphs to be returned to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, it is well overdue and a positive step by all involved in the reconciliation process; acknowledging past wrongs and now rectifying these with reflection and compassion.

My community will treasure the return of these sacred stones and we will make our own decisions about what will happen to them at our own time.

After all, we should have the say in what happens to them now as we had no say when they were cut from our cultural fabric all those years ago.

Be assured, without a doubt we will care for them as they should be cared for and make all relevant decisions about the petroglyphs with as much love and with all the respect they have always deserved.

Tessa Atto, Ravenswood.

The Examiner Letters to the editor | September 8, 2020 Local News

Tasmanian relics shouldn't be owned by any one person' Returning the Petroglyphs HAVING these items locked up out of sight in the museum was of no benefit to anyone but one must query what Michael Mansell and the Aboriginal Heritage Council intend to do with them once returned.

One respects the significance heritage items like these have to the descendants of the first Tasmanians, but the fact is that they are Tasmanian relics and should not be the property of any one person or group.

Such heritage items must be protected but it does not follow that they therefore need to be locked away out of sight of the general community.

The petroglyphs and similar heritage items give the opportunity for interaction and conversation between all of us and the Tasmanian Aboriginals, something which would be a significant step towards reconciliation.

Sadly however, there seem to be many in the Tasmanian Aboriginal community intent on claiming exclusive ownership of these Tasmania heritage items so the general community is prevented from access.

The politicisation of Tasmania's early history and associated heritage items is preventing interaction with the rest of us and is further accentuating divisions between those of us who have some Aboriginal heritage and those who do not.

This is against any concepts of genuine reconciliation. There are stories to be told of our ancient history and they belong to all Tasmanians, not just those with a claim to a particular descendance from the first Tasmanians.

Are the TAC and Reconciliation Tasmania prepared to respond positively to this challenge?

John Coulson, Dilston.

FOR CONTEXT SEE:

https://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/ctee/Council/Submissions/John%20Coulson%20submission%2029%20March%202013.pdf

Letters to the editor, July 3, 2018: Letters to the editor John Coulson, of Dilston, shares his views on the sale of Anglican churches around Tasmania. John Coulson, of Dilston, shares his views on the sale of Anglican churches around Tasmania. I AGREE with the sentiments of Dick James (Letters, The Examiner, June 10) about the dubious morality of church sales needed to cover compensation for victims of abuse. .................. The sale of the Windermere Church is questionable both morally and legally. e. .................. What gives the church the moral right to sell a building, up kept by the community, with a gravesite of our ancestors? e. .................. My great-grandfather, along with other early residents of the area worked with Dr Matthias Gaunt to establish the facility and he, and my other relatives, are buried there. And one questions the legal position of the Windermere Church by the Anglican Church, which gives them as right to sell this community asset. Furthermore, not all funding from sales is to go to victims of abuse. e. .................. The church has the right to withdraw clergy from services to a church because of poor congregation attendance but extrapolating that to the right to sell property given to communities by early settlers is a step too far. e. .................. Yes, there is an obligation to assist those abused by the clergy, but not at the expense of communities who bear no responsibility for the criminal actions of a few. e. .................. John Coulson, Dilston.

Friday, 14 August 2020

Letter to The Minister

Date: Wednesday, 17 June 2020 at 8:22 pm
To: Minister Elise Archer MP <elise.archer@parliament.tas.gov.au>
Cc: Premier Gutwein <peter.gutwein@parliament.tas.gov.au>
Subject: The ‘preminghana petroglyphs’ currently held by the QVMAG

Dear Minister,

Thank you for your response to my submission to you regarding access to “Information on the public record“ and I do absolutely understand the position that you have taken and your rationale for doing so. I have been attempting to find a way forward in regard to gaining access to the information I am seeking and the GM/CEO has invited me to go to the Ombudsman and that is something that I/we may need to do. That said, I’m more inclined to be seeking improved understandings of the cultural imperatives in play in regard to this matter rather than engage in some exercise in Machiavellian game playing.

Nonetheless, your advice, given SECTION 333 of the Act, does bring into focus a number of issues, being:

Firstly, there is SECTION 62/2 of the Local Govt. Act which, in my experience, essentially negates all other provisions/protections in the Act given that a general manger, apparently, has unfettered discretion do what she/he finds “necessary or convenient to perform his or her functions under this or any other Act” albeit that somewhat concerningly this is not an ‘emergency provision’; and

Given this SECTION 62/2 provision’s application, typically when the Ombudsman instructs that information be provided it comes redacted to the point where the exercise does not illuminate very much at all; and also

The provision renders the election of ‘Councillors’ somewhat pointless given that a general manager can override the determinations of ‘the elected 12’ – and in Launceston it has happened.

I only mention this to contextualise the dilemma one faces, for inexplicable reasons, when seeking information for all manner of reasons. However, I’m quite certain that you know most of this already. I am also mindful of your government’s Good Governance Guide –http://www.dpac.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/380427/Good_Governance_Guide_June_2018.pdf

What information am I seeking and why? I am working with various people – academics, cultural thinkers, anthropologists, et al – in the community towards gaining better understandings of the cultural realities in operation in Tasmania. Acordinngly we are engaged in a ‘literature search’. Quite simply, it is not possible to interrogate Tasmanian cultural imperatives without being faced with issues to do with colonialism, its aftermath and of course Aboriginal cultural and social understandings of ‘place’, the layered plus the layering of ‘ownerships’, Aboriginal cultural landscaping and the pakana and palawa people’s cultural realities and sensibilities.

That said, and your declared disinclination to interfere in ‘local governance’ I submit that the circumstance at hand goes well beyond what might be regarded as interference – and indeed local governance. Therefore, I ask that you consider the situation in hand – my personal discrimination issues aside – from the interfacing Ministerial perspectives that you hold, you might be able to bring to bear – the Arts, the Law, Heritage and your past tenure as the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.

I regard to the ‘preminghana petroglyphs’ currently held by the QVMAG, the information that has been coming to me– culturally contextualise information for the most part – in recent times suggests the following:

The petroglyphs were ‘removed’ from ‘preminghana’ – Mt Cameron and apparently on VDL land at the time– for the purpose of “protecting” them from the elements and some perceived rigours of ‘the environment’ given their apparent fragility and vulnerability and in recognition of their ‘deemed importance’;

The petroglyphs were (are?) held at the QVMAG on loan, in trust, whatever, depending upon understandings of the time, that charactorised Tasmanian Aboriginal people as being “extinct” with ‘ownership of the land and everything on it in law’ resting with the VDL Company presumably given that these ‘cultural artefacts’ were taken, with permission, from company land; and

The petroglyphs, apparently, were not “accessioned” meaning that they were not, and may never have been, formally registered as ‘the property of the QVMAG’, nor apparently have they ever been ‘owned in law’ by the institution, and have essentially remained ‘on loan’ to the institution, ‘in trust’, until the present. Therefore, the proposition that they can be ‘deaccessioned’ is problematic at best – and arguably it is an outrageous assertion that lacks all credibility.

Thus, unless by means of ‘adverse possession’ via their ‘abandonment’ by the VDL Company presumably, whatever, the petroglyphs have never been ‘a possession of’’ the QVMAG and/or ‘owned in law’ by the institution albeit ‘held in trust’ by the institution over a rather long period of time.

Indeed, these cultural artefacts have always been ‘possessed in lore’ by the pakana and palawa peoplewho have ‘collective cultural property’ invested in these cultural artefacts/petroglyphs and by extension, they belong with and to Tasmania’s pakana/ palawa people. Moreover, they belong to, and on, pakana land at preminghana and in the custody of the people who likewise belong to and on pakana land and especially so given that they are members of the oldest known continuing cultural reality on the planet.

Therefore, I submit that the somewhat patronising ‘legal machinations’ currently being asserted is culturally inappropriate, blighted by Machiavellian bureaucratic imperatives and outmoded ‘colonially inspired’ processes, seeking as is in evidence, some imperative to ‘win’ whatever cultural credibility that is salvageable in this ‘whole messy business’ that is in the main driven by culturally inappropriate imperatives in evidence. Indeed, the acronym ‘WHMM’ – Western [aka White] Histories Matter Most – resonates rather loudly, and somewhat uncomfortably, here.

Moreover, the refusal of the QVMAG and indeed the City of Launceston’s GM/CEO to provide access to the “accession documentation of the preminghana petroglyphs [he] can advise as follows: We do not offer access to our unedited registration material because they are legal documents and can contain confidential information. They generally contain little if any cultural information and as such are not considered research documents” seems to suggest that (A) that in fact there is no record of ‘accession/acquisition’documentation asserting ‘ownership’ and that would not be surprising given collection imperatives of the time or (B) there is ‘registration’ documentation suggesting/acknowledging the ‘on loan status’ of this culturally sensitive and culturally significant material. If both or either scenario applies and it is deemed ‘culturally embarrassing’ editing the records is inappropriate to say the very least. Here we need to be dealing with ‘the facts’ rather than be seen to seen to be, or even imagined as, ‘doctoring the books’ and this level of unprofessional behaviour must not be tolerated in any way.

Even the somewhat embattled British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is quoted as saying that we should not be editing our past and there is poignancy in this given the world wide BLACK LIVES MATTER movement with its postcolonial undercurrents. Also, George Monbiot known for his environmental and political activism and writing in the Guardian saying “lying about history, censoring and editing is what the political establishment does. The histories promoted by successive governments, especially those involving the UK’s relationship with other nations, are one long chain of lies. Because we are lied to, we cannot move on. Maturity, either in a person or in a nation, could be defined as being honest about ourselves. We urgently need to grow up” ... well, albeit from afar there are resonances in his ‘critique’ that in turn resonate in Tasmania – even in Launceston’s Town Hall. Sadly, there has been a lack of inclination apparent to wrestle with cultural complexities and in the end, it becomes diminishing is so many ways.

Against, this backgrounding I submit that you are in an almost unique position to lead in a more inclusive reconciliatory way forward given your collective ‘ministerial roles’ – present and past. Also, Premier Gutwein’s declared hand in regard to this matter and his current approval ratings, and his willingness to talk with Michael Mansell et al, this should place ‘the government’ in a position whereby a positive way forward can be brokered and via which more inclusive understandings can be aspired to.

For myself, I will continue to stand on the sidelines observing, commenting and pondering ways via which more inclusive 21^st C understandings might be arrived at and aspired towards. I/we will also continue to do the literature search and collate the material online in as transparent and open a process that we can realistically achieved.

I look forward to your considered response with interest.

Yours sincerely,

Ray Norman

CLICK ON THE MAGE TO ENLARGE

CONTEXT

This investigation is a work-in-progress and it is being carried out in the context of the research being carried out in an 'open access ongoing peer review process'. In addition, the protocols to do with ‘Deep History’ are being observed which means that rumour, gossip, folk lore and community ‘story telling’ is included and appropriately acknowledged.

The research interest in Tasmania's petroglyphs is the manner in which they are understood and misunderstood historically, scientifically, socially and indeed culturally from Eurocentric vantage points.

There is no intention to trespass upon Aboriginal ground or to speculate about what the Aboriginal community should or could do. There is more than enough ‘colonial aftermath territory’ to be paid attention to.

Please direct all correspondence to the COORDINATOR institute43-1@bigpond.com

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