Hindmarsh Island bridge controversy

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The Hindmarsh Island bridge controversy was an Australian legal and political controversy that involved the clash of Indigenous Australian religious beliefs and the rights of property owners.

In 1988 a plan to build a bridge from Goolwa to Hindmarsh Island in the Murray River estuary, South Australia, was proposed by local marina owners, Tom and Wendy Chapman. However a group of Ngarrindjeri women objected, claiming the island was sacred to them for reasons that could not be publicly revealed. Initiating legal action in April 1994 they applied to the federal government for an order prohibiting construction. As a part of this process they wrote down some of these secrets and sealed them in two envelopes marked 'Confidential: to be read by women only'. In July 1994 Robert Tickner, then Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, placed a 25 year ban on the bridge construction.

In 1995 the media and politicians aired the claims of other Aborigines who stated that what has become known as secret women's business was a hoax. In March, Shadow Minister Ian McLachlan resigned after tabling some of the secret documents in Parliament and misrepresenting how he obtained them. In June, the Hindmarsh Island Royal Commission was called by the South Australian government and by December found that the secret women's business was a fabrication.

When John Howard's Coalition government came to power in 1996, it legislated to allow the bridge to proceed (see Hindmarsh Island Bridge Bill 1996). In 2001 a civil case in the Federal Court of Australia was determined against the developers and the claims of fabrication.

The bridge attracted much controversy because the issue intersected with broader concerns about Indigenous rights in the Australian community at the time. It coincided with the Mabo and Wik High Court cases regarding Native Title and the election of conservative Prime Minister John Howard.