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Background
Aboriginal
sites at Sandon Point near Wollongong are at risk of destruction
by a proposed large medium-density housing development. Sandon Point
is the last sizeable piece of undeveloped land in the northern Illawarra.
Sites at risk include part of a Dreaming track, a large burial ground,
as well as middens and artifacts. In the past 20 years Aboriginal
skeletons have been uncovered by erosion and works and removed.
The most recent was that of an Aboriginal man up to 6000 years old.
Work has
now begun on that site after years of community protest. The Sandon
Point Aboriginal Tent Embassy has been set up at the site for some
time.
You can find
out further information at the Sandon
Point website.
28
October 2003:
URGENT CALL FOR ASSISTANCE - SANDON POINT PICKET LINE
- please distribute
broadly -
Dear All,
Residents have
been maintaining a 24 hour picket line of the Sandon Point for almost
3 years as part of the community campaign to stop the development,
by Stocklands Corp, of some 1000 houses. Sandon Point is world class
surfing spot located between Thirroul and Wollongong in the Northern
Illawarra, as well as the site of a 6000 year old Aboriginal burial
ground, the last remaining green corridor between the Illawarra
escarpment and the sea, an estuary and wetland, and home to endangered
ecological communities and species, as well as European cultural
heritage.
After 3 years
of maintaining the community picket line as a meeting place for
activists, as an information centre, and as a venue for opposition
to the development, residents are considering dismantling it due
to their inability to maintain it 24 hours a day - 7 days a week.
While the picket is an important component of ongoing dissent, picketers
are now considering the enormous time and effort required to keep
it going and may be forced to abandon it. Picketers are largely
employed family people with a range of responsibilities. These people
are appealing to the Sydney activist community (as well as anyone
else!) to help them out by volunteering to do shifts on a weekly
or semi permanent basis. Without considerable additional support
picketers will close the site within two - three weeks.
Please contact
Andrew Stanton on 0405 634 532 or astanton@nccnsw.org.au to register
your interest and support.
Please see
below or http://www.sandon-point.org.au/splash.htm for more background.
Solidarity,
Andrew Stanton
(one time Sandon Point picketer)
Further
information:
Sandon
Point website -
Media
release by Sen Aden Ridgeway -19 June 2002
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