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The Hindmarsh Island Royal Commission was a Royal Commission into the nature of female Aboriginal religious beliefs relating to Goolwa and Hindmarsh Island in South Australia that was triggered by the Hindmarsh Island bridge controversy.
In May 1995, the South Australian media carried reports that the 'secret women's business' had been fabricated. Five Ngarrindjeri women reportedly said that they did not believe in or had never heard of the 'secret women's business' until it had been raised by Doreen Kartinyeri. In June 1995 there were further allegations that two prominent members of the Ngarrindjeri community – Doug and Sarah Milera – had confirmed the allegations of fabrication. [1]
In response, the South Australian Government established a Royal Commission on 16 June 1995. A former South Australian District Court judge, Mrs Iris Stevens, was appointed as Royal Commissioner. In brief, the Royal Commissioner was appointed to inquire into and report on whether any aspect of the 'women's business' was a fabrication and, if so, how the fabrication occurred, its extent and purpose.
Controversy plagued the work of the Royal Commission. The 'proponent women' refused to give evidence to the Commission; 'dissident' Ngarrindjeri women claimed threats and intimidation; Ngarrindjeri elder, Doug Milera reportedly withdrew his allegations that the 'secret women's business' had been fabricated; amateur historian, Betty Fisher, told the Commission she had first been told of the 'secret women's business' in 1960; and anthropologists from the South Australian Museum disputed the existence of the 'secret women's business'.
None of the dissident women were able to take their claims of fabrication further than their own lack of knowledge of the beliefs. Several admitted that they had no knowledge of any Ngarrindjerri culture or traditions at all. Some admitted that it was not unreasonable for only a limited number of women to be privy to traditional secrets. One took the position that they saw no point in living in the past even if the claims were true. The women all identified themselves as Christians and it has been suggested some saw The Dreamtime as incompatible with their own beliefs, was a Pagan belief and as such, wrong. [2]
It had been shown before the Commission that no anthropological work regarding the Ngarrindjeri, specifically Ronald Berndt's authoritative book A World That Was, mentioned the existence of a secret life for Ngarrindjeri women. Cultural geographer Dr Jane Jacobs argued that these publications needed to be seen as a product of their times. In the case of Berndt, we are assuming a male anthropologist walking into an Aboriginal community in the 1940s got the truth. His enquiries were likely not directed towards secrets held by female members of the tribe. Connie Roberts, who was born in 1919 and was one of the elders who had passed the "women’s business" on to Doreen Kartinyeri, was asked about talking about such things with an anthropologist: You can't. You're not supposed to talk about things like that. My parents told me, only the old people used to tell certain people. [3]
The Royal Commission's report was published in December 1995. Its major findings were:
The Howard Government passed the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act (1997), [4] which allowed construction to go ahead; and in August 2001, in a civil case in the Federal Court of Australia, Justice John von Doussa rejected claims for damages by the developers, stating that he was not satisfied that the claims of "secret women's business" had been fabricated. [5]
The Kaurna people are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kaurna culture and language were almost completely destroyed within a few decades of the British colonisation of South Australia in 1836. However, extensive documentation by early missionaries and other researchers has enabled a modern revival of both language and culture. The phrase Kaurna meyunna means "Kaurna people".
Keith Windschuttle is an Australian historian. He was appointed to the board of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2006. He was editor of Quadrant from 2007 to 2015 when he became chair of the board and editor-in-chief. He was the publisher of Macleay Press, which operated from 1994 to 2010.
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The Ngarrindjeri people are the traditional Aboriginal Australian people of the lower Murray River, eastern Fleurieu Peninsula, and the Coorong of the southern-central area of the state of South Australia. The term Ngarrindjeri means "belonging to men", and refers to a "tribal constellation". The Ngarrindjeri actually comprised several distinct if closely related tribal groups, including the Jarildekald, Tanganekald, Meintangk and Ramindjeri, who began to form a unified cultural bloc after remnants of each separate community congregated at Raukkan, South Australia.
Hindmarsh Island is an inland river island located in the lower Murray River near the town of Goolwa, South Australia.
Goolwa is a historic river port on the Murray River near the Murray Mouth in South Australia, and joined by a bridge to Hindmarsh Island. The name "Goolwa" means "elbow" in Ngarrindjeri, the local Aboriginal language, and the area was known as "The Elbow" to the early settlers.
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The Hindmarsh Island bridge controversy was a 1990s Australian legal and political controversy that involved the clash of local Aboriginal Australian sacred culture and property rights. A proposed bridge to Hindmarsh Island, near Goolwa, South Australia attracted opposition from many local residents, environmental groups and indigenous leaders. In 1994, a group of Ngarrindjeri women elders claimed the site was sacred to them for reasons that could not be revealed. The case attracted much controversy because the issue intersected with broader concerns about Indigenous rights, specifically Aboriginal land rights, in the Australian community at the time, and coincided with the Mabo and Wik High Court cases regarding Native title in Australia.
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Diane Robin (Di) Bell is an Australian feminist anthropologist, author and activist. She is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C, USA and Distinguished Honorary Professor of Anthropology at the Australian National University, Canberra. Her work focuses on the Aboriginal people of Australia, Indigenous land rights, human rights, Indigenous religions, violence against women, and on environmental issues.
William Ramsay Smith, frequently referred to as Ramsay Smith, was a Scottish physician, educator, naturalist, anthropologist and civil servant, who worked in South Australia after moving there at the age of about 37 in 1896. He was initially appointed as a pathologist at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and was later appointed to other roles, including that of city coroner in Adelaide, but his legacy has been marred by allegations of misuse of human remains. He made a study of Aboriginal Australians, and sent body parts to Edinburgh University's anthropological collection. He published a number of books and articles in scientific journals, and in 1930 published a work under his own name which was later found to be the work of Ngarrindjeri Elder David Unaipon.
Clayton Bay is a town in South Australia located on Lake Alexandrina and Lower Murray River, part of the lower lakes and Coorong region at the end of the Murray River System. The town is located north of the north-east tip of Hindmarsh Island about 87 kilometres (54 mi) from Adelaide and 30.7 kilometres (19 mi) by road from Goolwa.
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Doreen Maude Kartinyeri was an Ngarrindjeri elder and historian, born in the Australian state of South Australia. She played a key role in the Hindmarsh Bridge controversy and made many contributions to Indigenous activism.
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