Aboriginal heritage committee reversed decision to knock back Roe Highway works, WA Parliament told

source: abc news

Aboriginal heritage committee reversed decision to
knock back Roe Highway works, WA Parliament told

A controversial Perth highway extension project was initially knocked back by a committee set up to assess whether Aboriginal cultural sites would be disturbed, it has been revealed.

The extension of Roe Highway from its current Kwinana Freeway terminus to Stock Road is part of a wider plan to construct the $1.6 billion Perth Freight Link, which the WA Government says will remove up to 5,000 trucks a day from Perth's other roadways transporting goods to the Fremantle port.

Aboriginal Affairs Minister Peter Collier confirmed in State Parliament that the Aboriginal Cultural Material Committee initially recommended heritage approval not be granted for the Roe Highway Stage 8 works.

The Department of Aboriginal Affairs committee scrutinised construction of the highway extension because it runs partly through an area sacred to Indigenous people.

"The Committee ... resolved to recommend to the Minister for Indigenous Affairs that consent not be granted based on the ethnographic significance of the sites the subject of the notice and the objections to the Purpose raised by the majority of Aboriginal [sic] consulted," the committee said in the minutes of its initial 2013 decision, released to Parliament.

But that decision was revisited in June 2015, with the committee recommending that conditional consent be granted.

"The applicant has indicated that the purpose will be designed and constructed in a manner to minimise the road footprint and impact on Aboriginal sites and places," the committee later said.

The route runs through the North Lake and Bibra Lake region, which is considered by Indigenous people to be sacred because of the legend of a giant serpent called Waugul.

Mr Collier granted Aboriginal heritage approval for the project, saying extensive consultation was conducted and arguing the importance and significance of the area will not be disturbed any more than had already occurred.

He told Parliament it was appropriate for the committee to re-consider the matter, because he had been prevented from assessing it until this year while environmental approval was pending, and significant time had passed since the 2013 assessment.

The Minister also said new information about the "archaeological heritage places on the land" had been received for the second consideration.

But Greens MLC Lynn MacLaren described the sequence of events as deeply concerning, and said an investigation was needed to clear up several aspects.

"The fact that an archaeological survey was ordered by the department between 2013 and 2015 smacks of the department trying to shop around for a different outcome, which is what they eventually got," Ms MacLaren said.

"Clearly Aboriginal heritage in this area is significant and important and should be respected over and above any other values, and our system of heritage protection has failed."

Here is the link to the original news article from ABC NEWS

MAIN ROADS ADVERTISING STRIKES AGAIN

Main Roads continues to spend spend spend on advertising for the ROE 8 Highway extension which is planned to destroy the Beeliar Wetlands, also know as Bibra Lake and North Lake. Recently, physical advertisements have popped up in Shopping Centres, with social media spreading the word quickly and successfully forcing the removal of all ads within 24 hours of their placement. Other ads have recently been spotted on Facebook, with a number of people voicing their concerns by ultimately flagging those ads, and since then, few have been seen.

Now it seems Main Roads have moved on to Google Adwords, a service by Google in which companies can pay for an ad that puts their webpage to the top of the search results - when a user does a search on that particular subject, that company is then charged for that 'click'. This occurs for every click that ad receives and the cost per click counts down a budget set by the company who placed the ad until the budget for that day (or month) is met and the ad is removed until the next day.


Before we move on, you can read HERE for a bit more info on Google Adwords

Here is the AD

Now if you quickly do a bit of messing around on Google Adwords, you can do a bit of math - these are just examples, and in no way say with any certainty that this is how much Main Roads is spending, it is just to get a basic idea of how this service works. It is believed that for the size of the ad in question, Main Roads would be spending considerably more than these examples here, for less clicks.

As I said earlier, companies using Adwords can set a monthly (or daily) budget for their ad, which gives them an approximate on the amount of clicks the ad can receive before the budget is met and the ad is removed. They do this so you don't end up with a massive bill at the end of the month if your paid ad is a particularly successful one.

If the power of social media came together again and clicked that ad enough times to meet that ads budget, it would actually disappear! What a fun little experiment that could be, right? RIGHT?

Google Adwords is nothing new - you will see these when searching for almost any product or service online - but I can't imagine many road infrastructure projects need this form of marketing. This can be a costly service, so it begs the question, how much is Main Roads spending on this round of advertisements, and why? If this Road was such a good idea, accepted by all, or even a majority, would they even bother spending the money at all? Why is there such a need to sell this road, at what is starting to look like any cost?

The mess that is the Roe 8 / Perth Freight Link seems to know no bounds.