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The Hon. SANDRA KANCK: I seek leave to make an explanation before asking the Minister for Transport, representing the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Aboriginal Affairs, a question about Poondana Rock.
Leave granted. The Hon. SANDRA KANCK: Poondana, also known as Brazil Rock to local white people and Minymar to the Banggarla people, is known geologically as a bornhardt inselberg, although most people see it as an attractive granite outcrop between Minnipa and Wudinna on the Eyre Peninsula. Last Friday's Advertiser reported that the Environment Minister had authorised the `disturbance and interference' of Poondana under the Aboriginal Heritage Act. Last week I had the opportunity to visit Poondana in the company of eminent University of Adelaide geologist, Professor Rowley Twidale, and his colleague, Dr Jenny Bourne. I can inform the Council that Poondana is an impressive monument, sitting on the crown of a hill and offering magnificent views of the surrounding countryside. Whilst the rock is solid granite, a proliferation of slate and quartz tools at the base of the rock is evidence of regular Aboriginal visits over thousands of years. Local white people also visit the rock for picnics. It was a local landowner, Heather Scholz, who, last year, first alerted me to plans to mine Poondana. Heather has fought tenaciously to preserve what is an important recreational site for the district. I should also record that in the process she has suffered vitriolic personal abuse. Professor Twidale is of the opinion that Poondana should be preserved. His assessment is that, whilst Poondana is not unique, due to its flared slopes and stepped morphology it is a significant geological structure. I doubt that the Minister is aware of these facts and indeed they are extraneous to the determination the Minister made under the Aboriginal Heritage Act. The Act requires the Minister to take such measures as are practicable for the protection and preservation of Aboriginal sites, objects and remains. A recent anthropological survey of the site discovered that Poondana is part of the Seven Sisters Dreaming and a significant cultural site for Aboriginal women. Aboriginal women from Whyalla, Port Lincoln, Coober Pedy and Adelaide contributed to this determination. The cultural significance of the site follows the Seven Sisters Dreaming trail from Western Australia through the Eyre Peninsula and into the Northern Territory. Yet, despite this detailed anthropological report, the Minister has relied on an earlier report based on the knowledge of a single, local Aboriginal man. My questions to the Minister are: 1. Will the Minister detail the reasoning that informed her decision to permit mining at Poondana, including her preference for a report written by a man about a woman's site? 2. What recommendations did Primary Industries and Resources SA make, and on what statutory basis were those recommendations made? 3. Has the Minister visited the site? If not, is she willing to visit the site in the company of appropriate geological and anthropological experts?The Hon. DIANA LAIDLAW: I will refer the honourable member's questions to the Minister and bring back a reply.