21 March 1996
Nyoongars Want Royal Commission
BY MICHAEL DAY
THE Swan Valley Nyoongar community has petitioned Premier Richard Court for a royal commission into events involving the University of WA's former archaeological consulting arm the Centre for Prehistory.
UWA vice-chancellor Fay Gale closed the centre in 1992 after a recommendation from a UWA committee, political pressure from Kalgoorlie MHR Graeme Campbell and lobbying by mining interests and private consultants.
In its petition, the community said it also wanted the commission to look into the petition of Aboriginal sites the workings of the Aboriginal Heritage Act, the Aboriginal Cultural Materials Committee mining companies and anthropologists.
"We have every reason to say wrongful pressure has been put on a lot of people," it said.
The petition, signed by Nyoongar elder Robert Bropho and seven others said Aboriginal religion culture and beliefs were on the road to destruction.
It called for investigations into pressures being applied and dishonest practices.
Before its closure in mid-l992, the UWA centre undertook about 120 archaeological assessments throughout Australia clearing the way for gid, uranium and diamond mines as well as road works and other developments.
Clients included BHP Telecom and the Tasmanian Hydroelectric Commission.
The only report on which there was substantial controversy was an ethnographic survey at Yakabindie that became the trigger for pressure to be applied to close the centre.
A 1991 UWA review of the archaeology department suggested the centre be closed for the-time being because of its demands on staff time but did not reject the possibility the university might again get involved in commercial archaeology.
A report three months later on the long-running Rindos affair at UWA by Professor Doug Clyde and Associate Professor Stan Hotop recommended the centre be made a centre within the department to which archaeology staff were moved.
The staff moved to the anthropology department but Professor Gale despite lobbying by Mr Bropho and other Aborigines, closed the centre.