Update 3.10.26

Can you help us protect the special area around  the Djab Wurrung birthing tree you supported five or more years ago?   Can you email Premier Ben Carroll and Roads Minister Paul Hamer?  We will only win if the decision-makers see that lots of people care about this!!

There are two trees with hollow bases, where Aboriginal people cooked and, it is believed, sheltered new born babies. There is another route that avoids the eastern tree far better and is less destructive in other ways too; we have called it the Northern Route.

We gather from a politician’s post that they have moved the bridge ramps on the Melbourne (eastern) end a iittle further away from the special tree there. Although the hollow tree and other significant trees are to be spared, bulldozing a four lane highway through a significant DjabWurrung area, with 9 metres high bridge ramps and all the sights and sounds of high speed traffic, will certainly desecrate the area. The hills will still be "machined for traffic” - have wide roads cut through them, altering the landscape’s shape -  and this will destroy the songlines, all avoidable on the alternative Northern Route.

The local Registered Aboriginal Party (RAP) may have agreed to the desecration, but there is no need for it, as it can be avoided on the alternative Northern Route, which is also cheaper, quicker and safer to construct. Senior DjabWurrung Women do not agree with the local RAP.

Every other negative remains on their planned route:

• further injuring already critically endangered communities,
• cutting down around 70 ancient (600-year old) trees, and
• funding of about $157 Million+  (as at 2017) instead of the proposed Northern Route, which has been estimated to cost approximately $96 million
• The latest news is that the Victorian Government is planning to start soon with its 4 lanes of  highway between the outskirts of Buangor through to Ararat. BUT there's an election looming and this Aboriginal area is in a marginal seat.  Candidates may take Labor to task for degrading Aboriginal culture and at the same time wasting money on the more expensive route.

Governments only listen when people speak up. Please send short emails to Premier Ben Carroll and Roads Minister Paul Hamer at: 

ben.carroll@parliament.vic.gov.au 

reception.hamer@transport.vic.gov.au 

If you like, you could Cc us on: protectdjabwurrungtrees@….   so we know how the campaign is going. 

Also, you could write a comment on the petition to let us know that you have contacted the Premier and the Minister.

Tell the Premier and the Minister  they are unnecessarily and knowingly destroying one of the last remaining DjabWurrung areas. Tell them their route needs to be changed to the suggested Northern Route.