THAT THE AUSTRALIAN SYSTEMS for heritage and environmental protection are racist is just a statement of the obvious; the Pope is Catholic for the same reasons, and with the same irrevocable finality. They are designed not to protect, but to establish a framework of forms to permit, and there’s really nothing that can’t legally be done if someone is willing to put enough time into drawing up a fancy enough report.
Anything can be demolished, anything at all, especially if someone is willing to go to the full extent of Process, and do things like interpret the former place with its cultural landscape, or contribute to an oral history, or re-use debris in some kind of artwork. It can be a good, and worthwhile exercise, because not everything is as significant as people say. It’s when proponents slackly go through the motions about a place that really is significant, that you see the system for what it is, and you get the hilarious non-lies, the lies that aren’t actually false statements (because they describe factually and accurately what’s happened), but describe things that aren’t even meant to be believed.
A WaterNSW spokesman said the government-owned organisation stood by all aspects of the cultural heritage assessment process for the proposal to raise Warragamba Dam. “WaterNSW is undertaking Aboriginal cultural heritage consultation and assessment for the proposal in line with all relevant policies, guidelines and requirements,” the spokesman said.
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