BOMBSHELL: Ngarakbal - Githubal confirm no consultation on Mt Warning

Representative of the Ngarakbal - Githubal Women, Elizabeth Boyd, daughter of Marlene Boyd, has provided a statement and press release about the closure of the Mt Warning National Park and provided permission to share it. This statement once and for all confirms NPWS have failed in their obligations under the Act to properly consult the rightful Aboriginal Custodians for over 20 years. It confirms the Minister and Public have been misled about Aboriginal Heritage in the Park by NPWS.

Based on this extraordinary statement the Minister must act immediately to suspend those involved and initiate a far-ranging independent inquiry into management failures in the Mount Warning National Park.

Please send your questions to Minister Griffin and Premier Perrottet!

Statement text below:

Press Release

Statement of Elizabeth Davis Boyd  regarding the closure of the Mount Warning National Park

My name is Elizabeth Davis Boyd — Tribal name "Eelemarni

I am an authorised representative of the Ngarakbal Githabul women.

We are totemic Lore keepers of the OLD-WORLD Lore

We do NOT identify as Bundjalung.

Our ancestors did not migrate here in a canoe like the NEW World Three Brothers Bundjalung tradition.

My ancestors were already here.

We are the keepers of the Grandmother Rainbow Serpent , Seven Sisters OLD World Traditions.

I am the living Gulgan , Eelemarni - of the Seven Sisters Wiangaree Tcherunga Grandmother Rainbow Serpent OLD World Traditions

I inherited this totemic responsibility in accordance with the traditional lore's and customs of my moiety — the Yoocum Yoocum.

The Ngarakbal Githabul Women have NOT been included in any of the consultative process in regards the management or closure of Mount Warning , including the studies by Southern Cross University, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Services , NSW State Government or by the Wollumbin Consultative Group.

Mt Warning and the closure process is being internationally reported as a Bundjalung men's site. This is not correct and is doing great damage to my ancestral culture, traditions and lore's.

Sacred women's lore sites, specific to the Seven Sisters Wiangaree Tcherunga Dreaming, are located within the Declared Aboriginal Place area on Mount Warning. Principally, the step ledge on the northern face of Mt Warning.

There is also a memorial to the late Gulgan, my late mother, Marlene Boyd, who was the previous Eelemarni [Gulgan]. This memorial is located on the Lyrebird Track at the base of Mount Warning National Park which State government are trying to permanently close.

The closure of the Mount Warning National Park will permanently dispossess our women from access to our highly significant women's cultural lore sites, and prevent my people from attending the Eelemarni memorial.

The State Governments administrative decision to permanently close Mount Warning not only contravenes my Customary Law Rights and Women's Rights / Human Rights of my moiety, but also my cultural responsibilities to the Gulgan memorial

A group of men appears to be extinguishing the ancestral Women's Lore by claiming everything in Mount Warning National Park as exclusively male and Bundjalung. This "one tribe policy", exclusively endorsing Bundjalung is highly discriminatory and an act of genocide against the Grandmother Rainbow Serpent, Seven Sisters Lore Traditions of my moiety.

Injunction applications were filed against previous State Labour Ministers in relation to the 2001 Collaborative Solutions Mount Warning Cultural Heritage Report's unauthorised appropriation of my grandmother , Millie Boyd's Intellectual property.

Extensive correspondences regarding the exclusion of the Ngarakbal and Githabul from participation in the Mount Warning National Parks Management were exchanged with Lisa Corbin, the then Director General of DECC and her staff.

So why have NPWS continued to appropriate the cultural and intellectual copyrights [moral rights] of my grandmother Millie Boyd and wrongfully claiming Mount Warning as exclusively Bundjalung men's lore?

Why are National Parks continuing to exclude the Ngarakbal Githabul Women from the management of the Mountain?

Why will my tribal sisters and I not have access to our ancestral Women's Lore sites on Mount Warning?

Why will my family and I no longer have access to my mother's memorial on the mountain?

Why are the Ngarakbal Githabul Women's Human Rights continuing to be ignored?

Is this exclusion because we do not identify as Bundjalung, or as men?

As the living Gulgan, Eelemarni, of the Seven Sisters Wiangaree Tcherunga Traditions, why have I been excluded from participation?

Signed

Elizabeth Davis Boyd

Witnessed by Linda Bell JP

21/11/2022

My letter to Minister sent 23/12/2022

Dear Minister,

I draw your attention to the attached press release by Elizabeth Boyd authorised representative of the Ngarakbal Githabul women. In her press release regarding closure of the Mt Warning National Park Elizabeth Boyd states: "The Ngarakbal Githabul Women have NOT been included in any of the consultative process in regards the management or closure of Mount Warning , including the studies by Southern Cross University, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Services , NSW State Government or by the Wollumbin Consultative Group."

The Minister would be well aware of this following my correspondence on the matter ( refer letter 8/9/2022). NPWS have shamefully ignored contact and consultation with this group of important Aboriginal Elders for the last 20 years. I drew attention to this to the NSW ombudsman's office and following this press release have asked them to investigate NPWS for malfeasance and misconduct. 

NPWS have for 20 years misled the government and public over Aboriginal views about public access on the Mountain. 

How long will you, as Minister permit this injustice to continue, or due you stand by this blatant act of discrimination and cultural genocide?

Regards

Marc Hendrickx