Editors --- "Hindmarsh Island Bridge Royal Commission - Digest" [1996] AUIndigLawRpr 46; (1996) 1(2) Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 315

Hindmarsh Island Bridge Royal Commission

On 21 December 1995 the Premier of South Australia released the report of the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Royal Commission. The Commissioner concluded that secret Ngarrindjeri "women's business" was a fabrication. This had been the basis for a report and a declaration under s. 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 (Cth) preventing construction of a proposed bridge between Goolwa and Hindmarsh Island (Kumarangk) near the mouth of the Murray River.

The s. 10 declaration under the Act was held to be ultra vires for procedural defects: Chapman v. Tickner (1996) 1(1) AILR 31; Tickner v. Chapman (1996) 1(2) AILR 238.

The Royal Commissions conclusions were rejected by those Ngarrindjeri women who had asserted that the area was sacred, and who refused to give evidence at the Royal Commission, and by some Ngarrindjeri men. (See also ALRM v. South Australia and Stevens on page 237 of this issue.)