A stopwork protest halted a Roads and Maritime Services archaeological survey in Nowra on Monday.
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Seven Jerrinja men stopped the test pitting and sieving operation on land near the overflow car park for the Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre.
Jerrinja traditional owner Ron Carberry was upset that he had never received any paperwork to notify him or other Jerrinja people of the search for artifacts.
Carberry said it was also taboo in indigenous culture to allow non-Jerrinja indigenous people to work on Jerrinja country.
He was driving past in the morning and had seen archaeologists and Aboriginal people conducting the survey.
Multiple holes, about 40 centimetres deep, had been dug and soil had begun to be sieved before they stopped the work.
“They had four Aboriginal workers from Wollongong here and the four archaeologists workers here,” he said.
“None of them were from Nowra, from Jerrinja, who are the traditional owners of this land and should be them working here under the Land Rights Act and the Native Title Act.
“[We] said to the Aboriginal workers, [we’re] not having a go at you, we’re here to enforce our rights as traditional owners of this land. We shouldn’t have to tell them.”
Carberry called for an overhaul of the policy for Aboriginal staff as it doesn’t include cultural lore and respect rights to work within traditional country boundaries.
“[Cultural lore] It still exists, it’s an unwritten law,” he said.
“If RMS changed the process, [the workers] they would have to prove they came from this land.
“Then we wouldn’t have to come here and argue about it, because it makes us look bad doing what we did today.”
On Tuesday, the Jerrinja men met with RMS officials at the site and came to a resolution over the issue.
Carberry said the four Aboriginal workers had accepted their position and that RMS would review an application for Jerrinja people to begin work on the project from Monday.
“We are hopeful for two traditional owners starting [work on] Monday,” he said.
A RMS spokesperson said the works were part of heritage investigations for the proposed new Nowra Bridge.
“Roads and Maritime Services is working with the local Aboriginal community to resolve the matter so the investigation work can be completed,” the spokesperson said.