Right to Climb

Historian of some renowned Keith Windschuttle has a devasting column on the Quadrant Website from the November edition of the Quadrant magazine exploring the reasons behind the closure of the Ayers Rock climb. It's behind a paywall, but one well worth the entry fee. Here's a taster.... Subscription available HERE

In Australia, we believe we live in a secular state where religion and government are separate. There is a clause in the Commonwealth Constitution that prevents the government from establishing a state religion or imposing religious observance.  Section 116 states: The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.  Victoria has a bill of rights that protects twenty one fundamental human rights including: Right to freedom of movement (section 12)  Right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief (section 14) Right to freedom of expression (section 15) Right to taking part in public life (section 18) Cultural rights (section 19) With this in mind, how did we end up with a religious fatwa being imposed on climbers at Ayers R...

Ayers Rock: closing the climb John Perkins has written a piece for Online Opinion on why the Ayers Rock climb should not be banned. I agree with his sentiments. National Parks are secular places and if landowners want to enforce their dated belief system on visitors then it ceases to be a National Park and must be run as a private park without government support. Short extract below. Read the whole thing at Online Opinion The climb should not be banned. To pretend that their myths are true, does not benefit the Anangu. It divorces them from reality. The creationist beliefs are more pervasive than other fundamentalist beliefs, and harder to compartmentalise. It is a spiritualism that is hard to reconcile with modernity. It is a cultural loyalty that must inevitably lead to a degree of epistemic confusion. The veneration of such superstitions is counter-productive and actually serves to perpetuate their relative disadvantage. To climb the Rock is a natural human aspiration. The vi...

This series of posts showcase the contents of the Last Logbook on Ayers Rock. Part 10 -FINAL: Cover and pages 171-188. Last July when I climbed the Rock with my daughters I left a blank exercise book in a container at the summit memorial. The front cover looked like this: The text on the cover reads: Signing the summit logbook has been an important cultural institution at Ayers Rock since the 1890s. Sadly, since the late 1980s Park Management have denied Australians and International visitors the opportunity to record their achievement. The first climbers to leave a note marking their achievement were Allan Breadon and W Oliver on March 4, 1897: “We added a few stones to the pile and left two wax vesta boxes (tins) with names and date thereon.” Glass coffee jars held the names of climbers between 1932 and the 1950s. In September 1950 the jars held the names of about 70 climbers. Formal log books, termed the “Achievers’ book”, replaced the assorted collection of jars and tins l...

Guest Post by Dr John Perkins. John gave me permission to repost his letter to the Minister. It's a plea for reason. I understand the Minister is attending the official ceremony to ban awe and wonder in the Park. Hopefully, she reads it and it's not answered by a departmental hollow man. "While many of those on the Management Board may have literal belief in the Tjukurpa, it is not proper that these beliefs should unduly intrude into Park management decisions, to the detriment of Park visitors." 24 October 2019 Hon Sussan Ley MP Minister for the Environment House of Representatives Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 Dear Minister Ley Re Uluru – closing the climb I would like you to review the decision to close the climb of Uluru/Ayres Rock please. The conditions for closing the climb have not properly been met. In particular, adequate new visitor experiences have not been established. The attention of the Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park management has ...

Article in the New York Times explores the issues about the Ban- has some nice photos. I think it could have said more about the contradictions of the Anangu religion by the long legacy and views of past owners who climbed and had no problem with visitors climbing. Claims in the article that most Australians support the ban are incorrect and based on 30 years of propaganda by Parks Australia. A Chapter Is Closing at Uluru. But There’s More to This Australian Story. While banning climbing at the iconic rock is a once-unthinkable victory for an Aboriginal people, they still face material hardship and a measure of resistance. NYT photo by Matthew Abbott The situation at Mutitjulu is covered well. The ban will certainly not lead to improvements for the locals. I spoke with Reporter Jamie Tarabay  for about 30 minutes for this report and get a brief mention. Marc Hendrickx, a geologist who has campaigned against the closing, said that the sheer number of people coming to ...

Great to be able to discuss the ban once more with Andrew Bolt. Interview available through the link below. Bolt Report 24 October 2019 I had prepared for some discussion about the role of media in reporting of the Climb but we ended up speaking about different issues. Some of this below... #Nopressfreedom at Ayers Rock In a week when the media have been highlighting issues affecting Press Freedom one thing that perhaps hasn’t really been discussed that much is the media’s ability to self censor itself, particularly soft left media outlets, from asking the hard questions on sensitive issues. And Climbing Ayers Rock is certainly one of those issues. Not a single Australian based reporter I spoke with over the last two years was prepared to take on Parks Australia’s draconian media restrictions and interview people at the summit monument or climb and take their own photos of the remarkable World Heritage Listed views that people go up there to see. It’s been quite surreal. I thi...

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Quadrant have been the only media organisation prepared to consistently expose the myths and contradictions opened up by the ban on climbing Ayers Rock. In a week in which the media are raising questions about freedom of the press it seems that one of their major hurdles remains self censorship. Thankfully we have one media outlet prepared to expose the truth. Thankyou to its forward-thinking editors, you can read Quadrant's coverage HERE One last hurrah .... This is all wrong! The park board and the petty bureaucrats of Parks Australia have stolen my dreams for my children with their empty words and lies. How dare they! And yet I am one of the lucky ones. I was able to climb. My children, and their children and their children’s children will not be able to climb and share the joy and wonder of views listed as World Heritage by the United Nations. How dare you! For more than 30,000 years people have been climbing Ayers Rock. The first humans to see the Rock climbed it. ...

We launched a Go Fund Me campaign earlier in the year to try and raise funds to launch a legal campaign to prevent the ban from happening. I posted the following update there today: A short note to say thankyou to all who contributed. The funds raised did help in obtaining legal advice about the ban and this is also useful now to help inform other campaigns to save access to other natural spaces in the country (eg Grampians). Unfortunately, we were well below the amount required to launch a meaningful legal challenge. Given the likelihood of a win in a lower court it's also highly likely that Parks Australia would have taken it all the way to the High Court meaning costs would easily have escalated into the millions. The ban on climbing will take place on Saturday. There are a few last-minute actions in play (see http://righttoclimb.blogspot.com/2019/10/call-for-minister-to-act-on-world.html) dealing with a lack of due diligence on the part of Parks Authorities in regard to t...

ABC Alice Springs Breakfast Radio Producer Justin Fenwick spoke with Ms Nisha of UNESCO about what it would mean if the Park was declared a World Heritage in Danger Site. It seems likely that Parks Australia have not followed the proper procedures and risk placing World Heritage in the Park in danger. I have called on the Minister to suspend any plans to remove or destroy climbing infrastructure until UNESCO can complete its assessment. Map in 1987 World Heritage Nomination showing summit path and lookout Page 3 of the 1987 World Heritage Nomination in which the summit views are described. Dear Minister,  I refer to revelations that were broadcast on ABC Alice Springs breakfast radio that indicate UNESCO were not properly consulted about the impact banning the Ayers Rock Climb and proposed destruction of climbing infrastructure (including the summit monument, chain and memorial plaques) would have on the 1987 World Heritage Agreement. The summit path and summit loo...

Thanks to Tom Elliot at 3AW for having me on his radio show . I recorded an interview with Tom from the top of the Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree  while on holiday in WA. There is some irony that this climb with views over WA's magnificent southern forests remains open while safety is being used as one of the excuses to shut down the Ayers Rock summit walk. Those who have climbed it will understand. Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree-provides another remarkable view of Australia's natural wonder. It's up for individuals to decide if they want to climb either and petty bureaucracy and the religious views of others should not stand in the way of our enjoyment of the natural world. Link to soundcloud interview HERE . From 3AW site:  https://www.3aw.com.au/debate-rages-as-tourists-flock-to-uluru-to-climb-it-before-its-officially-banned/

Climbing Mt Olga. Prior to 1986 visitors to the Ayers- Rock Mt Olga National Park had much more freedom to explore the area. One activity that was banned in 1986 was climbing to the summit of Mt Olga. As this represents a much more difficult and risky climb compared to Ayers Rock it is not something many visitors have completed but there is a rich history of climbers reaching the summit. Tony Healy at the Mt Olga Summit Cairn, 17 April 1954 The early climbs, from the first recorded climb by Constable Bill McKinnon in 1932 to those undertaken up to 1955, are documented in "The early Ascents of Mt Olga" by Tony Healy (1995). This is a self-published book held in the National Library. The climbers following in MacKinnon's footsteps include John Béchervaise (1948); the author himself (with Bruce Jephcott in 1954); and Kath and Dennis Henschke (1955). A total of 21 people climbed Mt Olga in this period, two of whom were women. Healy's list of climbers is reprodu...