SA: Last legal hurdle overcome in Hindmarsh bridge saga

AAP General News (Australia)
04-13-2000
SA: Last legal hurdle overcome in Hindmarsh bridge saga

ADELAIDE, April 13 AAP - More than a decade after it was first planned, and with construction
now well under way, the controversial Hindmarsh Island bridge appears to have overcome
its final legal hurdle.

The South Australian Supreme Court today struck out action from Ngarrindjeri Aboriginal
Darrell Sumner seeking to stop the project, rejecting his argument that it represented
an act of genocide against his people.

Mr Sumner named Great Britain, the SA and federal governments, past and present state
government ministers and Hindmarsh Island developers Tom and Wendy Chapman among the defendants.

He claimed the bridge construction was part of a long history of genocide against the
Ngarrindjeri and had caused them serious mental harm.

He also argued that the developers had been given no consent to occupy Aboriginal land
and had not consulted Aborigines over the bridge.

However, Justice Margaret Nyland ruled against him today, agreeing to an application
from the defendants to have the action struck out.

Justice Nyland said it was with a profound sense of regret that she looked upon the
history of Aboriginal dispossession, discrimination and cultural suppression within Australia.

But she said the distinction had be drawn between the legal responsibility and social
responsibility of other Australians to help solve these problems.

"While all Australians might bear a social responsibility to play their part in the
resolution of issues pertaining to indigenous peoples and in promoting a process of reconciliation,
it is an entirely different matter to determine whether individual Australians, groups
of Australians, Australian companies or even the government of the day have a legal responsibility
to this effect," she said.

Justice Nyland said she also accepted that none of the defendants, through building
the bridge, had any intention to destroy the Ngarrindjeri.

"The statement of claim, in its present form, discloses no reasonable cause of action
against any of the defendants," she said.

"It is clear that it must be struck out."

Today's decision continued the long saga of the Hindmarsh Island bridge, south of Adelaide,
which was first proposed by a former state Labor government in 1988.

It was subsequently banned by the federal Labor government in 1994 amid claims of secret
women's business.

That order was eventually quashed and a royal commission found the women's business
had been fabricated.

Construction of the bridge began last year.

AAP tjd/cjh/br

KEYWORD: HINDMARSH NIGHTLEAD

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