Right to Climb

Time travellers guide to forbidden places of awe and wonder At the invitation of the Victorian Branch of the English Speaking Union   and as part of National Heritage month I gave a presentation " Time travellers guide to forbidden places of awe and wonder in Australia"  at the ESU Victorian offices on May 2, 2025. The talk provided a historical, mythbusting perspective to recent closures of bushwalking and climbing sites in Australia, including the Grampians, Mount Arapiles, Ayers Rock and Mount Warning. The closure of public access to landscapes of awe and wonder in Australia has been wracked with controversy. Summit access at Ayers Rock and Mount Warning has been banned without due acknowledgement of the wonderful history of climbing at both locations. This approach is also apparent in the bans on rock climbing at the Grampians and Mount Arapiles in western Victoria. In line with the heritage month theme of "unearthed" history the presentation provided evidence f...

  Mt Warning: 5 years of lies and government ineptitude When Mt Warning was first closed temporarily due to fears walkers could catch covid at its blustery clean air summit my youngest daughter was starting high school. She's now in the middle of her HSC. My older daughter has nearly completed a university degree. This ridiculous "temporary" closure based on lies, ignorance and falsehoods marks it's 5 year anniversary today, with no end in sight and what appears to be a low likelihood of a common sense resolution. The temporary closure is extended to the end of 2025 as government officials and the Environment Minister Penny Sharpe move at a snail's pace to make a decision. NSW NPWS tossed out years of its own anthropological research that conclusively demonstrated there were no Aboriginal concerns about public access to the summit. The views of the recognised guardian of the mountain, Millie Boyd, tossed under the bus by NPWS for a false cultural tale that was cal...

The spiritual home for motorsport in Australia, Mt Panorama in Bathurst, is the latest place to be under attack from the irrational demands of aboriginal groups.  Ben Fordham 2GB...  "is someone taking the piss here"  The report below from The Australian: Link to article Indigenous sacred status bid for iconic Mount Panorama site James Dowling The fringe Indigenous group that brought down the billion-dollar Blayney mine project has laid the groundwork for an unprecedented legal bid to declare the peak of Mount Panorama, overlooking Australia’s iconic motor racing circuit, a sacred site, after one of its former members’ ashes were scattered there. The Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation, which launched a successful last-minute effort to scupper the goldmine last year, has sought to register the peak as a state heritage site, after it held a smoking ceremony and scattered the ashes of former member Uncle Brian Grant there in late 2022. McPhillam...

Budget estimates - hot air from Minister on Mt Warning and NP handovers Hansard extract Budget Estimates 3 March 2025 NSW budget estimates are currently on. Hon John Ruddick, Libertarian Party MLC, has asked some searching questions of Minister Penny Sharpe in relation to Mt Warning and handover of NSW National Parks to aboriginal groups.  Relevant Hansard below - can be access via this LINK  (will open Hansard PDF file).  On both issues no firm answers from the Minister to any questions and no commitment to reopen the  Mt Warning summit to the public. Mt Warning has been closed for nearly 5 years - half a decade of intransigence on the part of both the previous Liberal Government and current Labor government that still has the mountain and lives of the surrounding community in limbo.  Clear message is that a vote for the Libertarians, and their greater success, is the only way this will reach a satisfactory conclusion.  Thankyou John Ruddick MLC for your c...

Thankyou Andrew Powell! https://www.facebook.com/AndrewPowellMP/ Our information obtained through FOI has triggered one of the clearest statements about public access to the Glass House Summits from a QLD government in many years. It is clear from the documents released that the previous Labor government was well under way with plans to close Mt Beerwah and restrict access at other mountains. On 4BC radio today Andrew Powell MP Minister for the Environment and Tourism and Minister for Science and Innovation and member for the Glass House made the following statement: “My response is that there will be categorically no closure to Mount Beerwah on a permanent basis, nor, for that matter, any other of the Glasshouse Mountain peaks or for that matter, any national park.” “My role, as set by the premier, is to ensure Queensland’s natural landscapes remain accessible for education and experience, so people can get out there and appreciate their conservation value.” I thank the Minister ...

 Right to sail: Recreational access to Lake Eyre banned https://www.lakeeyreyc.com/OurRightToBoat/index.html# South Australia's Department for Environment and Water have announced that recreational access to Lake Eyre will be banned in a new management plan released last week .  The new management plan restricts recreational access to the lakebed, including visitors entering the lakebed on foot. All other recreational activities, including swimming, driving, boating and landing aircraft, are already restricted under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972. The department's woke minions are selling this as a win for the environment and visitor safety. In reality, it is a decision founded in myth, superstition and stone age sorcery.  A decision that is racist and discriminates against people who have used the Lake for generations for swimming, sailing,  or simply to experience a walk on its vast salt-encrusted surface. It was the scene for a land speed record by Donal...

 FOI CORRESPONDENCE CONFIRMS GLASS HOUSE SUMMIT CLOSURES  Documents released through a FOI request confirm QLD National Park bureaucracy have plans to limit future access to Glass House Mountains summits.  Concerns about future closures to Glass House Mountains summits are well warranted based on QNPS statements of support of local Aboriginal Groups who want to stop the public climbing to the summits of Mt Beerwah, Mt Tibrogargan, Mt Coolum and other GHM summits.  A recent letter we received from the new Environment Minister, and local state member Andrew Powell suggests there is no plan to ban the public from the GHM summits (14 January 2025): However, among the correspondence released is a chain of emails from 4 July 2022 that discusses a Glass House Mountains Precinct Visitor Management Implementation Plan (see File E pages 92-95) . For some reason, the plan was not included in the documents released and we have asked the FOI officer why this is the case and for a...

QLD NATIONAL PARKS FOI RELEASE: PUBLIC ACCESS AT BEERWAH AND TIBROGARGAN SUMMITS Email 4 July 2022 - refer File E page 95 Key Facts • Despite recent assurances the Department still appears to be working towards closure of Glass House Mountain Summits including Mt Beerwah, Mt Tibrogargan, Mt Coochin and Mt Coolum, (I’ll provide evidence from the documents that support this in a subsequent post). • Risk to public from Landslides at Beerwah and Tibrogargan remains in tolerable range according to geotechnical advice. • It took over 12 months to process this FOI request – 12 time extension requests were made by the Department. • No documents were released with correspondence from aboriginal groups, contrary to the request. • 610 pages released (with much duplication). • Cost was $1366.70. • Over 3000 emails from “Office of the Deputy Director-General, Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and Partnerships’ excluded from the request, exempted under s41 of the QLD Right to I...

NSW NATIONAL PARKS HANDBACKS - PROCESS HAS STARTED:  Welcome to the new Apartheid   People also said that Aboriginal knowledge holders need to have a role in determining the appropriate activities that can be carried out on Country/in parks.  People called for equal or majority Aboriginal representation on any joint management governing body, with a view also put forward that the governing body should consist of Aboriginal people only. A view was also put forward that the land should be restored to how it was at the point of first contact – pre colonisation.  This view went to the extreme of saying Healthy Country means the removal all things that were not present in 1788, including all buildings, introduced species and other infrastructure. NPWS' busy bureaucrats are in process of negotiating handover of our National Parks to private interests. The plan will potentially see every National Park in the state handed over to as yet unknown Aboriginal groups then leased...