OPINION

Each passing day only underscores the sheer scale of the bullet Australia dodged on referendum day. Despite the endless protestations of “unity”, it was clear to anyone who actually read the Uluru Statement (all 26-odd pages of it) that this was a deeply divisive proposal.

It really irks the Yes lot to point out that it would have turned Australia into an apartheid state. That is, a state with racially-separatist laws at its heart. The Yes side protested that “Apartheid only applies to anti-black laws in South Africa”, which is as fatuous as arguing that “democracy” only applies to land-owning free-men in Athens.

But, even without apartheid laws entrenched in the national Constitution, state governments are busily enacted apartheid measures of their own. Including declaring “Aboriginal-only” zones, where white “trespassers” will be heavily fined and persecuted by state race goons.

Public service investigators armed with rare search, seizure and entry powers are using draconian cultural heritage laws to threaten Victorian rock climbers and others with heavy fines of more than $346,000 per offence.

Victoria’s First Peoples-State Relations unit is covertly using ­vehicle registrations and other on-the-ground intelligence to decide whether Grampians National Park users should be prosecuted under cultural heritage laws.

A rock climber’s house has twice been visited by a First Peoples unit investigator who works within the Department of Premier and Cabinet, with a direct claim that a vehicle registered in their name has been connected to possible cultural heritage breaches.

“Cultural heritage breaches”, meaning: rock climbing.

This is the most significant move since rock climbing was banned in 2019 in large parts of the Grampians – one of the world’s top locations for the sport’s elite, ­including free climber and Hollywood star Alex Honnold.

Under the state’s Aboriginal Heritage Act, tangible and intangible cultural heritage is protected, with huge fines for anyone interfering with heritage, even if it is invisible.

“Intangible”, “invisible”. Yes, rock climbing offends the umbagumba serpent, or something.

Parks Victoria has shut down large swathes of the Grampians from access, including to climbers, walkers and campers, allegedly to protect cultural heritage such as rock art. Much of the rock art is ­invisible to the naked eye but ­experts – and rock climbers – accept there is some significant art worth protecting.

So, you can’t see it, but you better believe them that it’s “significant”.

And remember how Victorians flocked to see The Book of Mormon, which makes fun of Mormons for believing Joseph Smith about a bunch of gold tablets no one was allowed to see?

Parks Victoria made a series of false or unverifiable claims about rock climbers when it pushed to oust the pursuit from large parts of the Grampians.

This included allegations of vandalism that have never been substantiated, although climbing chalk and bolts are visible in some areas.

ACAV president Mike Tomkins said the Victorian government was now aggressively moving to shut down most of the Grampians to public use.

Which is only a rinse-and-repeat of what other states have done. From Mt Warning in NSW, to Mt Coonowrin in Queensland, large swathes of former national parks have been closed off to all but Aborigines, for “cultural reasons”.

The government’s bans on climbing – and many other outdoor pursuits – have bewildered some of the world’s best adventurers, including mountaineer Tim Macartney-Snape.

So, what are these magnificent achievements of the so-called “World’s Oldest Living Culture” that must be protected at all costs from white eyes and hands? (Not including, of course, the suspiciously white folk who make up the bulk of Victoria’s “Aborigines”.)

You don’t get more Aboriginal than this bloke. The BFD.

Much of the Grampians art has disappeared due to weathering and bushfires, but special X-ray glasses have been used to detect some drawings. Cultural heritage also includes areas where stone tools may have been made or middens, which can contain shells, were located, or gum trees used to create canoes.

The Australian

So, a handful of rock scribbles that no one can actually see, and a bunch of rubbish heaps.

Not much to brag about, for 60,000 years, one would think.

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Punk rock philosopher. Liberalist contrarian. Grumpy old bastard. I grew up in a generational-Labor-voting family. I kept the faith long after the political left had abandoned it. In the last decade...