Barrambin Cultural Heritage Statement
A formal Cultural Heritage Statement on Barrambin (Victoria Park), Brisbane, written and submitted under my own name in support of applications for permanent protection under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 (Cth).
Barrambin holds a songline location, a sacred waterhole and a Bora ground. Its Queensland Heritage Register listing was expanded in September 2025, after the 2032 Olympic stadium was announced for the site.
The Minister declined the emergency application under section 9. Applications for permanent protection under section 10 remain under assessment, with an independent reporter appointed.
Read the statement (PDF) Background and further reading
Related writing
Two essays set Barrambin in a wider frame.
- Queensland Removed Them, Then Asked Them to Prove They Never Left — Barrambin as the sharpest contemporary test of what a city preparing for 2032 owes the First Peoples whose land it occupies.
- Social Justice for First Nations: The Challenge for Allies — Barrambin as ministerial discretion made physical: a government suspending statutes by fresh legislation on heritage-listed land.