Elder’s grief as Olympics stadium replaces healing site
Robyn Wuth |
For generations, Aboriginal Elders say the waters at Brisbane’s Victoria Park have been a place of healing.
The heritage-listed site’s “healing waters” were surrounded by fencing, earth‑moving machinery and police on Monday as work began on the $3.8 billion 2032 Olympic main stadium.
Before dawn, officers moved in to clear the last protesters from the park near the city’s CBD, allowing the Games authority to formally take control of the site almost five years after Brisbane won its Olympics bid.
By mid‑morning, the park’s long‑time users stood behind barricades as a cheerful Premier David Crisafulli turned the first sod, declaring “it’s game on”.
“Victoria Park will be the beating sport, cultural and green heart of Brisbane, and a place all Queenslanders can be proud of,” he said.
The Games authority is racing the clock to complete the 63,000-seat stadium that will be the 2032 centrepiece, hosting the opening and closing ceremonies and athletics.
Mr Crisafulli said Queenslanders had been urging the government to “get on with it” after years of delays under the previous Labor administration.
Yagara Elder Gaja (Aunty) Kerry Charlton said Victoria Park – known as Barrambin by the local First Nations people – was far more than a patch of grass earmarked for redevelopment.
“For our people, springs were sacred, and they were often really revered, places for healing – healing waters,” she told AAP.
“This was our water reserve, our special site. Our people gathered here – it was like a village, with burial sites, birthing sites, ceremonial sites.”
The premier on Monday promised more than two‑thirds of the area would remain public green space.
But Gaja Kerry said the park’s towering, centuries‑old trees and its last remaining uncapped spring formed part of a living cultural and ecological system that “connects us all through story and ceremony”.
“They talk about green space, but they don’t understand what they’re taking,” she said.
“Once these springs and these old trees are gone, they’re gone forever.”
The mood on Monday was quieter than on Friday, when five people were arrested as protesters camping in the park were moved on.
With fencing ringing the construction zone, about 20 police officers guarded the park’s main entrance as machines moved in on Monday.
A handful of protesters arrived at the main entrance.
“We’re not an anti‑Olympics group, but we don’t support the Olympics in its current form, which is going to take away precious green space – and cultural space – from future generations,” Save Victoria Park organiser Andrea Lunt said.
Indigenous Elders have declared Victoria Park a place of importance for many First Nations peoples and are pushing for their concerns to be heard as national Aboriginal heritage laws are tested.
Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt confirmed he had received 10 applications seeking to protect a significant Aboriginal area at the park “under threat of injury or desecration”.
Two have been declined, with the remainder still under consideration.
Senator Watt stressed any cultural heritage declaration would not be a veto on the stadium.
“People seem to think that these are stop work orders, and they’re not,” he told ABC Radio Brisbane.
Gaja Kerry lamented Victoria Park’s plight after a heritage-listed state school was spared when a 2032 Gabba redevelopment plan was scrapped after protests.
“We saved a 100‑year‑old school,” she said.
“Now they’re willing to destroy a place that has held our stories and our springs for thousands of years.”
AAP