Below is a longer version of an essay I wrote that appears in the March 2024 issue of Quadrant Magazine. If you are interested in helping save what was once one of the best family bushwalks in eastern Australia, sign the Reopen Mt Warning Parliamentary petition via the following LINK.
Locked out of the sunburnt country
Marc Hendrickx
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!
-- Dorothea Mackellar
Australia’s cultural identity has forever been closely connected with the Australian Landscape. The natural world around us has helped forge our unique Australian spirit from which emerges our sense of humour, creed of mateship, altruism, ingenuity, self-reliance, courage, and resilience in the face of hardship. Despite the fact the vast majority of us live in cities or suburbs, our character still draws on our close connections to our bushland, beaches and harsh desert interior. In visiting the natural world with our families to picnic, bushwalk, swim at the beach, go fishing, four wheel driving, go hunting or explore the country in caravans we reaffirm and reinforce our connection with our landscape. Our attachment to our land is reflected in the image of Australia we present to the rest of the world. Popular images used to sell our country feature pristine beaches, coral reefs full of colourful coral and fish, forested mountain ranges and the red sands of our desert interior with Ayers Rock standing proud against a deep blue sky. Many of these areas are protected as National Parks and until recently remained accessible to everyone via long established tracks and trails that open the gate to remarkable vistas, waterfalls, canyons, rivers and other natural features that inspire awe and wonder.
Over the last twenty years a number of our natural wonders have been drawn into controversy due to beliefs about their religious significance by a small group of mixed race Australians who identify more closely with their Aboriginal ancestry over other cultural and racial connections in their background. According to their religious views only certain men or women can access these places, all others are excluded under threat of punishment of some sort. Sadly, these animist beliefs built on Stone Age myths and superstitions have been permitted to re-emerge under the cover of identity politics and racial grievances. It is a travesty that they are being accepted as legitimate reasons to manage access in our public lands by supposedly secular Government authorities. This has recently lead to the closure of the iconic walk to the summit of Ayers Rock in October 2019 and in October 2022 to the ban of the public from the summit and higher elevations of the Mount Warning National Park in northern NSW. A large number of rock climbing routes in the Grampians in Victoria were closed to the public in 2020 pending Aboriginal cultural heritage assessments and many of these routes are unlikely to be reopened. Restrictions have been proposed on public access to the summits of Mount Beerwah, Mount Tibrogargen and Mount Coolum in the Glass House Mountains in south eastern Queensland. Official QLD government policy supports a ban on public access to these places based on Aboriginal ideology. St Mary’s Peak in South Australia has signs requesting visitors stay away and stop at a lower saddle with a lesser view, and the official position of the South Australian government is to support a ban likely to come in the near future. All these restrictions have emerged as National Park authorities across the country adopt and promote Aboriginal ideological beliefs and force them onto the rest of the community.
The net effect has been twofold.
Firstly our freedom of movement is impinged and the public lose access to previously highly popular awe inspiring locations that provide life affirming, uplifting experiences from which all society benefits through improved physical and mental health, and an appreciation of the importance of preserving these special places for future generations. Our understanding of the natural world is diminished if we are not allowed to enter, explore and experience these remarkable vistas. The economic consequences of these closures are emerging as tourists go elsewhere where they won’t be made to feel guilty about enjoying the natural world.
Secondly, as our Governments officially promote and pander to irrational cult like beliefs we allow their adherents to be locked into a cycle of ignorance isolating them from rational viewpoints and scientific perspectives that provide a means of personal growth and enlightenment and enjoyment of the full benefits of modern civilisation. Locking people into Stone Age belief systems is doing them great harm and limiting their full potential.
This essay explores two of the recent closures – Ayers Rock and Mount Warning - and demonstrates for both that justifications for closures used by Commonwealth and State Government authorities were not based on facts but on myths and misconceptions and a rejection by public servants and bureaucrats of the sound principals of utilitarianism that should be applied in formulation of public policy. In the end the benefits to the public from our experience of awe and wonder in these beautiful natural places far outweigh any sense of offense felt by small groups who seek to impose their ideology onto the rest of us.
Ayers Rock
As I write it’s been about 1500 days since one of the world’s most iconic, exhilarating, awe inspiring experiences of the natural world, the Climb up Ayers Rock (Climb with a capital C) was banned. With the ban sadly Australia becomes the only nation I know that has outlawed awe and wonder on religious grounds. What sort of malicious organisation would ban access to a place that has generated so much joy? The Uluru Park Board mistook the climb for a Disney like experience but at the same time have now introduced Disneyland to the park in the form of a glitzy field of lights display and a Las Vegas style drone show along with other gimmicky side show attractions like the Segways around the base. These mediocre installations will never meet the experience of climbing the rock and the declining number of visitors reflects the loss of the Climb, one of the main reasons to go to central Australia.
A few Ayers Rock Climbing Myths
Since 1991 the Board of Management of the Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park in concert with Parks Australia have been disseminating many falsehoods about the Climb up Ayers Rock. My book “A guide to Climbing Ayers rock” in exploring the history of the world’s most famous hill climb explodes these myths and demonstrates conclusively that past Traditional Owners climbed and supported visitors climbing, that the Climb is a safe activity with little risk to responsible visitors and that it is still an activity that many visitors want to undertake. The facts show that just about everything Parks Australia and the Park Board say about the climb is a myth.
Respecting the Traditional Owners.
As you approach the base of the western climbing spur at Ayers Rock you are faced with a sign that purportedly expresses the views of the Traditional Peoples of Uluru, the Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra people who these days call themselves “Anangu“. The sign reads “Under our traditional law climbing is not permitted” If you read the official guide book you are told that “Due to cultural reasons Anangu do not climb Uluru”. In the 1990 Management plan this was expressed in the form: “We never climb”.
It didn’t take much research to work out this “We never Climb” message was false. In fact there is a rich history of Aboriginal People climbing the rock and it goes back to the very first humans to arrive in the Red Centre about 25,000 years ago. These pre-Anangu peoples who did not share Anangu culture but like all humans shared a curiosity about the natural world and likely climbed during the last ice age and watched the end of the mega fauna and experienced a changing climate with the surrounding dune fields active during the Pleistocene. These early visitors left their mark in the form of rock carvings. Carvings the Anangu believe were done by dreamtime spirits. Anangu culture emerged around Uluru about 4000 years ago. We know this because their creation myths include the dingo. An animal that was only imported to Australia from Asia around that time. We know Anangu climbed for generations. Past elders climbed with Anthropologist Charles Mountford in the 1940s, 50s and 60s and shared stories about summit features that had been passed down for generations. In the 1940s tourists wanting to climb would be guided by local Anangu men. The most famous of these was Tiger Tjalkalyirri who guided Lou Borgelt and Arthur Groom to the summit in the 1940s. Borgelt’s visit is preserved in a remarkable piece of colour film footage restored by the Lutheran Archives. A highlight of Borgelt’s film is the camaraderie between tourist and guides missing from the confected, highly regulated and politically correct tours at our modern UluRules. Many past visitors who climbed have recounted having no issues with local Traditional Owners. In 1969 David Hewitt a long term Northern Territory resident and a man who worked with local Aboriginal people in the Ayers Rock area for decades climbed with the daughters of Anangu elders busting the myth put out by the board that the Climb is for men only. In the 1970s it was made very clear by the man recognised as the Principal Owner of the Rock, Paddy Uluru that Traditional People climbed it.
Derek Roff lived at the Rock with his family between 1968 and 1985, he was the longest serving Ranger at the park and in the 1990s he was interviewed by the Northern Territory Oral History unit about his experiences managing the Park. In his 17 years as head ranger he indicates that tourists climbing Ayers Rock was never raised as an issue by Traditional Owners. In relation to Traditional Owners climbing he says: Paddy Uluru used to tell me about climbing the Rock. It seemed to me that it was mainly the senior, traditional people who climbed, rather than everybody. But there was no doubt about it, that ceremonies were carried out in certain areas up there, that people did climb it.
This notion that the Traditional People never climb is clearly a myth and the board of management owe the Australian people an explanation for the many decades they have spread this “never climb” message.
In the early 1970s Derek Roff asked the Traditional Owners if there were any areas around Uluru they wanted closed to the public. Paddy consulted with 35 owners and came back to Roff with just 1 site: Warayuki: the men’s initiation cave. Roff promptly acted to close public access to this area by erecting a fence and signs. This work was captured in 1975 by ABC current affairs program This Day Tonight. In the report ABC reporter Grahame Wilson interviewed Paddy’s Brother Toby Naninga. Grahame asked Toby: aside from Warayuki do you mind tourists going anywhere else. Toby replied that anywhere else was alright including the summit.
The Uluru Park board tells us that Tjukurpa, the Anangu belief system, is unchanging. Based on the views of the old men who were born at the rock and were well versed in the land and its lore and who supported the climb, either Tjukurpa is as open to change as any other system of belief, or the current board in its malicious act of banning the climb are effectively committing an act of blasphemy by ignoring and disrespecting the views of those knowledge holders who were closest to Traditional culture.
Safety
There are many more myths about the Climb, chief among them is the notion that the Climbing is not safe
If you can’t discourage them with political correctness then scare them with disinformation about safety. In its Fact Sheet about the Climb Parks Australia state: “The climb is physically demanding and can be dangerous. At least 35 people have died while attempting to climb Uluru and many others have been injured. At 348 metres, Uluru is higher than the Eiffel Tower, as high as a 95-storey building. The climb is very steep and can be very slippery. It can be very hot at any time of the year and strong wind gusts can hit the summit or slopes at any time. Every year people are rescued by park rangers, many suffering serious injuries such as broken bones, heat exhaustion and extreme dehydration.”
There are a number of ways to tackle these misrepresentations. Environmentalist Arthur Groom described the climb prior to the chain being installed in 1947 as “nothing else but a strenuous and spectacular uphill walk” and that description still fits for experienced bush walkers. People of all ages have climbed from 80 year old Grandmother Sarah Esnouf who climbed without the assistance of the chain in 1957 as part of the Petticoat Safari. A TAA tour of women of all ages from all over Australia that highlighted the wonder of a visit to the Red Centre. To the very young, children as young as 4 have climbed unassisted under the watchful eyes of their parents.
The real myth busting about safety is in the numbers. Parks Australia claim 37 people have died on the rock since the first in 1962. I tried to obtain details of these deaths including the names, where people were from, how old they were and where on the rock they died, but Parks Australia were unable to produce any data. On the 6th of November 2017 in a radio interview with Tim Webster Park Manager Mike Misso provided an insight into those figures when asked about deaths on the Rock: Mike said: “Yeah, look over 30 people have known to have died from climbing, and what I mean by that, people could, um, you know, potentially climb it, go to the resort and then you know, could have a heart attack later.”
So Parks base their toll on people who potentially climbed it and died sometime later in the resort. I can see why they decided against providing the data.
My own research has provided evidence for 18 deaths on the Rock. Six from falls and twelve related to heart failure. The falls from misadventure included one women and five men, all under the age of 32. For the twelve heart attacks all to men one was aged 44 and the rest were over 52. There have only been two deaths on the rock this century, in 2010 and in 2018. The same number of deaths have occurred to tourists at nearby Mt Olga (Kata Tjuta) but Parks Australia and the Board have not proposed closing walks there. The alarming description from Parks Australia suddenly doesn’t seem so scary and it falls to pieces when one looks in more detail at the actual risks.
An analysis of the risks associated with climbing provides a stunning rebuke to Parks propaganda that the climb is dangerous. For responsible climbers under the age of 50 there has only been one death. Given 75% of the 7 million people who have climbed fit into this category the risks in micromorts (a Micromort – being a unit of risk defined as one-in-a-million chance of death from a given activity) is just 0.2 micromorts.
For responsible climbers over 50 there are 11 deaths from about 1.75 million climbers providing a risk of about 6 micromorts. The average risk for all climbers is just 1.7 micromorts. The equivalent risk can be provided by the following activities: driving a car 800km, riding a motorbike just 2km, flying 3000km; flying to Ayers Rock from Sydney provides the same risk as the climb. For comparison the climb up Mt Fuji in Japan carries a risk of 15 micromorts. Typical daily exposure for all causes of death amount to about 20 micromorts per day (1 in 50K). For people under 50 undertaking the climb represents just 1% of the average daily risk.
It is clear when you look at the facts that Parks Australia and the Park Board have grossly exaggerated the risks of the Climb, to serve their own warped agenda and the warped views of the current board of management.
The facts presented above are still not available anywhere in the Park or official Parks Australia publications. No attempt has been made to correct the record. Myth and lies live on in the official park story. The Board do not celebrate past Owners who climbed and had no issue with visitors climbing. There is no statue to Tiger Tjalkalyirri or Paddy Uluru or Derek Roff at the base of the Rock.
Millions of people from all over the world have climbed Ayers Rock, revelling in the beauty and majesty of the summit views and exhilarating in the physicality of the Climb. We owe it to their descendants and the descendants and relatives of Tiger, and Paddy to fight to ensure the Climb will be reopened so millions more can again experience the same wonder and joy. The rights of many outweigh the offense felt by a few.
Mount Warning
As I write legal access to the summit of Mount Warning remains in a state of limbo, the body is laid in the coffin but the nails are yet to be hammered in. The Mount Warning National Park was subject to a series of rolling “temporary” closures starting in March 2020 based initially on flawed advice about the risk of spreading and acquiring Covid19 at the summit, then on erroneous assessments about the risk of injury or worse due to the condition of the summit track after the summit chain was removed secretly in August 2020. In October 2022 the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service agreed to an Aboriginal Place Management Plan for the park built on myth, superstition and sorcery and announced access in the park would await finalisation of a Memorandum of Understanding between it and the Wollumbin Consultative Group, the Aboriginal Group NPWS has negotiated with on management of the park since the early 2000s. The Wollumbin Consultative Group are the chief authors of the absurd Aboriginal Place Management Plan. The MOU is expected to be completed in 2024 and it is anticipated it will provide for formal closure of the summit trail on the bizarre basis that public access is “culturally unsafe”. The public and tourism industry have been left out of the consultation process and ignored by NPWS for many years.
Mount Warning is one of the biggest ancient shield volcanoes in the southern hemisphere. It was active 23 million years ago when its eruptions covered much of northern New South Wales with lava. The eroded volcanic landscape with its stunning scenery has attracted tourists since access became possible in the mid-1800s. Prior to the “temporary” closure in March 2020, the summit was visited by over 100,000 people annually with substantial economic benefit to local businesses. The visitor numbers would likely be higher if not for a decade long “demarketing” campaign by NPWS to reduce visitation. Many visitors walk up to catch the sunrise—the summit is the first place to catch the sun’s rays each day in eastern Australia. The views over the caldera complex, World Heritage listed subtropical forests and to the coast are outstanding and offer an insight and education into the natural history of northern NSW.
The walking track to the summit of Mount Warning was established in 1909. The track includes a wonderful series of drystone walls near the summit, that represent a remarkable feat of engineering in a remote location, but unfortunately these walls have been overlooked as park heritage by NPWS. The track was so well made that it was once possible to ride a horse to the base of the rock scramble about 150m from the summit. In 1929 over 200 people, including many school children, stood at the summit to formally open the Mount Warning National Park. A chain was installed on the rock scramble in the late 1970s to assist visitors. Steel and timber lookouts were constructed at the summit by helicopter in 1989 to help protect the summit area from erosion and improve visitor’s experience. The trail and associated infrastructure have not been well maintained by the NPWS since it agreed with claims of some Aboriginal Groups about closing access in the early 2000s. Since then NPWS has used exaggerated claims about safety, minor environmental issues and contested cultural claims as excuses to close the summit track and the park. As with the unjustified reasons used to ban public access at Ayers Rock, these excuses do not stack up and the NPWS’s real agenda seems to be more about the promotion of identity politics and protecting its delicate bureaucrats and rangers than any real concerns for the public.
The safety claims at Mount Warning are exaggerated. The NPWS claimed the summit chain was unsafe and removed it in August 2020. The chain is not actually required for the walk. Rather than remove it, the chain could have be repaired or upgraded for a small cost (less than $60000). Or, the chain could be removed altogether and people could climb the last section unaided, as they did in the past and as they currently do on much steeper and longer rock scrambles at Mt Tibrogargen and Mt Beerwah in the Glass House Mountains to the north. I walked to the summit in January 2021 to inspect the summit trail for myself and provide NPWS with independent engineering advice. At the time I had been lead to believe the chain was still in place but I found that the NPWS had ripped out the chain, pre-empting the results of a planned review on public access and giving away NPWS’ longer term plans about a permanent closure. When I was there the summit lookouts were in good condition, but the timber was in need of sanding and paint after twenty years of exposure and neglect. The environmental problems NPWS raise to do with rubbish and toileting are minor and manageable. On my walk the only rubbish I found, a drink bottle on the rock scramble to the summit, was likely left by NPWS officials when they removed the chain. NPWS claims of “extreme” risks to walkers from landslide and rock falls were found to be in error as NPWS confused risk with vulnerability. In reality the risk is on par with similar walks in the state that remain open.
False claims about safety and environment are one thing but NPWS claims about Aboriginal culture in the park take the misrepresentations to a whole new level. Since 2006 there has been a sign at the base of the walk that reads:
Wollumbin (Mount Warning) has been a sacred place of significance to the people of Bundjalung since time immemorial. Wollumbin, along with other significant sites in its surrounds, provides a traditional place of cultural law, initiation and spiritual education. Under Bundjalung law, only specifically chosen people are allowed on this mountain. Climbing to the summit is against the wishes of Bundjalung Elders. Visitors are asked to respect the cultural and historical significance of Wollumbin at all times.
These claims, including the very name applied to the mountain and the notion of the Bundjalung Nation, are contested and it seems there is another Aboriginal story that the NPWS has not properly acknowledged and has long kept secret from the public.
There is indisputable evidence for different Aboriginal stories and attitudes about access on the mountain, revealed by other Aboriginal groups that have been completely ignored by the NPWS. How it could post the Bundjalung statement and promote it so strongly while aware of these counter-claims smacks of callous indifference and bias.
According to the Ngarakwal/Nganduwal people, arguably the true Aboriginal custodians of the mountain represented by the Late Millie Boyd who was acknowledged as the gulgan or keeper of Mount Warning, the Aboriginal name for Mount Warning was Wulambiny Momoli, and it was an increase site where hunting was forbidden so that brush turkeys might replenish their numbers. It was not an initiation site as claimed by the Bundjalung. The Ngarakwal/Nganduwal applied the name Wollumbin to a smaller mountain to the north-east of Mount Warning, owned by the McKenzie family since the mid 1800s. These revelations are well documented and come from NPWS own anthropological research conducted by its in-house expert Howard Creamer in the 1970s and 1980s. Creamer conducted extensive interviews with Aboriginal elders in northern NSW and the issue of climbing Mount Warning never arose. Millie Boyd’s daughter, Marlene Boyd was an elder of the Ngarakwal people, and inherited the Bootheram (dreaming) of her people from her mother. In a 2007 interview with the local newspaper the Daily News just before she died, Marlene Boyd stated:
Mount Warning is not the Fighting Chief as the Bundjalung claim. The real mountain gazetted as Mt Wollumbin is in Eungella and belongs to the McKenzie family. We are the Wollumbin tribe who are traditionally the Ngarakwal/Nganduwal Aboriginal Moiety—we are the original custodians of Mount Warning. We are not Bundjalung.
She accused “self-proclaimed Bundjalung elder” John Roberts, of telling lies about Mount Warning: “He has no right to come into my ancestral Ngarakwal lands and tell such lies about the cultural lore of the mountain.” Marlene Boyd had no problem with people climbing the mountain: “I do not oppose the public climbing of Mount Warning—how can the public experience the spiritual significance of this land if they do not climb the summit and witness creation!”
Claims by the Boyd family on behalf of the Ngarakwal/Nganduwal people are supported by other local elders. Wijalbul elder Fletcher Roberts, issued a press statement in January 2000 following attempts by Bundjalung activists to prevent a climb to the summit organised by NPWS to witness sunrise at the summit of Mount Warning on the Millennium New Year’s day:
They have had walking tracks up the mountain for decades, but no one has tried to stop people from climbing it before. This claim is a modern day invention. This claim is being perpetuated by someone who is overstepping his cultural responsibilities and he will have to face the consequences of Aboriginal lore for what he is doing. The white community needs to wise up to the Aboriginal sectors that try to use their lack of understanding of Aboriginal culture for their own purposes. The white community needs to make sure it identifies the true elders of an area. It is not unusual for clans to have disputes over boundaries and this still happens today as it did in the past … but for people from Mullabugilmah [near Grafton] to claim that they have some jurisdiction over Mt Warning is too far a stretch of the imagination. If they still believe in the culture they should stick to their own areas.
At the time Agnes Roberts, a senior Widjalbul woman, said the action to stop the Millennium walk gave the Bundjalung people a bad name. “We say there is no problem with these people climbing Mt Warning. We believe they have respect for the mountain”.
Quadrant readers will be aware of the overlapping and conflicting Aboriginal cultural claims that apply to many natural features in the country. The issue here is that New South Wales NPWS has unfairly given one version its official stamp and completely ignored other groups whose ties and claims to Mount Warning appear much stronger. Worse still they have deliberately hidden these alternate voices from the public. It is little wonder that it is the version that best suits the long-term desire of its woke employees to see the summit walk closed that it has promoted.
In its November 2020 information update about the park, NPWS gives weight to a visitor survey that found:
There is a high level of community acceptance of the significance of Wollumbin Summit and the message not to climb. Of the 858 domestic participants in a recent visitor research survey (DPIE 2019), 49 per cent stated they would not climb Wollumbin summit upon receiving the request not to climb, most of the remaining participants were unsure or needed more information, and only nine per cent still wanted to climb Wollumbin.
This a case of Cargo Cult statistics as NPWS never told respondents the other Aboriginal views that embrace and promote climbing as a means of experiencing the remarkable natural world around us. One wonders what those survey results would be if those asked were also provided with Marlene Boyd’s inspirational words, which should be posted at the start of the walk: “I do not oppose the public climbing of Mount Warning—how can the public experience the spiritual significance of this land if they do not climb the summit and witness creation!”
NPWS have allowed Mount Warning to be stolen based on lies and misrepresentations. The safety and environmental issues NPWS are concerned about have been exaggerated out of all proportion to reality. The problems are trivial and easily fixed with some minor inexpensive track maintenance. NPWS’ embrace of the ideology of one Aboriginal group with tenuous links to the mountain, whose tenets of sacredness are a “modern day invention”, over groups with closer ties established long ago. This is simply reprehensible and the “secret men’s business” at Mt Warning is worthy of an ICAC investigation or Royal Commission.
Getting to the heart of the problem
The heart of the issue for both Mount Warning and Ayers Rock is very poor management. Arguably neither Parks Australia nor NPWS have shown competent management of either of these natural wonders for many years. Ayers Rock was better managed under the direction of former Ranger Derek Roff up to his departure with the forced takeover of the Park by the Commonwealth Government in 1985, coincident with the handover of the title to local Aboriginal Groups. At Mount Warning the last act of sound management was the construction of the summit lookouts in 1989 and trail maintenance prior to 2000, it’s all been downhill since then in regard to information, facilities and maintenance. One simply has to look at the manner in which similar natural wonders are managed overseas to quickly realise how badly things are managed here. Zion National Park in Utah attracts nearly five million visitors annually and manages to balance access to remarkable walks and lookouts like Angels Landing with competing safety, environmental and cultural responsibilities. The much smaller Diamond Head State Monument in Hawaii with the popular Diamond Head walk attracting a million visitors a year similarly successfully manages high visitation while preserving important environmental and cultural sites. There needs to be a fresh approach and public access to long established lookouts needs to be returned as a first order priority.
Public lockouts at Ayers Rock and Mt Warning provide an important message to all clear thinking people and we should be resisting these irrational actions taken on our behalf by Governments we elect. Everyday Australians, too busy getting on with life, have been slow to realise the full consequences of the political war being waged against them by so called “progressive“ political players that now control much of our public service and inhabit higher places in government bureaucracy, media and corporations. Their corrosive influence on public policy where nonsensical post-modernist concepts of race and gender and animist ideology have been permitted to flourish by hollow headed, plain ignorant politicians to take precedence over historical and scientific facts, democratic ideals of utilitarianism, and freedom of speech and movement. Pragmatism in managing our National Parks is being replaced by an impossible zero harm safety mentality coupled with over-regulation, environmental alarmism, animist mysticism, myth and superstition and it is being done under our very noses. Too few of us have been prepared to stand up and argue against the tyranny of their regressive and immoral actions. As environmentalist Arthur Groom outlined over 70 years ago “we think and live literally within four walls”; this is now made immeasurably worse in our “smartphone” era where our news is controlled, groupthink dominates and dissenting rational voices and views are shamed and ignored. The grievance industry where thin skinned minority groups claim victimhood based on distant historical injustices have easy access to guilt ridden, sensationalist media and government agencies who are too eager to appease and not strong enough to simply say NO. Instead of opening up debate our internet era has narrowed it ever tighter with the wave of political correctness controlling everything we are permitted to say and do. The time is long overdue that the silent majority who value the opportunity to enjoy the natural world on their own terms without undue influence from government or the ideological beliefs of others raise a voice and demand to be heard and listened to. If we fail to stand up for our common ideals we risk being locked out of the wonderful country around us. Standing at that locked National Park gate erected out of spite, we risk losing the link to the natural world that has helped forge our unique Australian character. In appeasing the shallow minded, selfish minorities, who see themselves as perpetual victims we agree to be locked out of the Australian landscape and risk losing the very essence of what makes us Australian.
As I write the country is considering a permanent “Voice” for Aboriginal Australians be added to the Australian Constitution, with future moves to a Treaty and “Truth telling”. It is clear from what happened at Ayers Rock and Mount Warning that there is more than adequate means of consultation in the political space for Aboriginal groups and the Voice is an unnecessary, unwanted and costly addition that will only cause further division as one group of Australians is given more rights than others. If passed it is clear it will lead to further lockouts as Government continues to pick and choose which Indigenous Voice it listens to. (Thankfully Australia voted NO).
Marc Hendrickx is a geologist who has worked across Australia. He specialises in landslide risk analysis. His books available through Conner Court about Ayers Rock and Mount Warning provide facts and information that Government Authorities have long ignored and supressed. His work shows there is no rational basis to close these or other summits.
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