Sacred site ‘destroyed’ by vandals

A police investigation has been launched after vandals drove on to an historic Aboriginal site at Flinders Island, performing donuts in act described by Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff as “enormously disrespectful.”

Wybalenna was Australia’s first mission site in the 1800s, led as an open-air detention centre for over than 200 Aboriginal men, women and children.

Tasmania’s Aboriginal community has condemned the actions and said it had been treated with “reckless disregard”.

The site was returned to Aboriginal people in 1999 and is considered a sacred place.

Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania chairman Greg Brown called it “devastating” and “painful”.

“Wybalenna is a place of memory, of grief, and of resilience. It embodies the history of Tasmania’s Aboriginal people and their enduring connection to the land,” he told the ABC.

Over 100 Aboriginal people are buried in unmarked graves at the site’s cemetery, alongside marked non-Aboriginal plots.

Pakana Sea Country ranger Fiona Maher said it was unfathomable.

“We’re quite upset and devastated that someone could even lower themselves to commit such an act in such a sacred place,” she said.

“We feel very close to our ancestors there, and it’s a place of healing for our people. This has definitely upset our healing journey.”

“Vandals have driven a vehicle, or vehicles, over land at Wybalenna sacred site, near Emita, on the western side of Flinders Island,” a spokesman for Tasmanian police said.

“The ground has been torn up by a series of vehicle skids and donuts.”