Australia’s Rock
Posted by papundits on 07/09/2009
By Andrew Bolt
TonyfromOz prefaces …..
Uluru is the Australian Indigenous People’s traditional name for what has previously been called Ayers Rock, and both names are common for this monolith rising out of the centre of Australia. It ranks as one of our most popular tourist attractions, for overseas visitors especially, and for Australians as well. There is a walking track to the top, but the climb, and the descent, are steep, and it is quite a challenge to climb. Around 100,000 people make that climb each year. Peter Garrett came to fame as the singer fronting well known Australian rock band Midnight Oil, and is now the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts in the current Federal Government.
Uluru (Ayers Rock) Commons Image taken by Stuart Edwards. Click on the image to open in a new window and then click again on the image to view it in a larger perspective.
Whose rock is it anyway? And is this really about religion … or power?
THE Northern Territory Labor government and the federal opposition are furious with a federal plan to close the climb to the top of Uluru, saying Peter Garrett is slamming the gate on a world famous tourism experience.
A 10-year draft management plan for Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, released yesterday, indicates the days of climbing the rock are coming to an end: “For visitor safety, cultural, and environmental reasons, the director and the board will work towards closure of the climb,” it says.
One reason to instinctively distrust this try-on is the claim that a ban is also for “visitor safety” and “environmental reasons”. Every visitor who climbs it knows full well from all the signs that it’s a challenge, and it’s clearly their own judgment that the climb is worth the risk, just as countless people judge that flying is worth the risk of deep vein thrombosis. By what right does Garrett insist it’s not? As for the “environmental reasons”, I rather suspect that a million more people may walk on this giant rock without grinding the thing into a pile of sand.
Andrew Bolt is a journalist and columnist writing for The Herald Sun in Melbourne Victoria Australia.
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