Land earmarked for an open cut mine expansion near Muswellbrook may have the same historical significance as the sacred battlefields of Europe some planners and indigenous communities have argued.
The Independent Planning Commission was expected to make a determination this week on Glencore's proposed Glendell extension project for the area.
However it has requested the Department of Planning provide further assessment about the Aboriginal heritage value and potential national significance of Ravensworth Estate, which forms part of the proposed extension project.
Colonial records that show a series of attacks and counter-attacks between Aboriginal people and settlers occurred at the estate and the adjoining Lethbridge Estate between 1825 and 1826.
Tensions between the groups culminated in late 1826 when, with the endorsement of Governor Darling who sought revenge for the murder of two settlers and destruction of crops, a posse of mounted police and settlers hunted down and massacred a group 18 Aboriginal people.
Heritage NSW representatives and the chair of the state's Heritage Council recently agreed the land, which also contains the Ravensworth homestead, was of major significance both in terms of battles between Aboriginal people and colonial settlers and the presence of Aboriginal cultural sites.
"The evidence given in the 28 March 2022 meeting suggests that Heritage NSW is no longer satisfied that the project's residual impacts are unlikely to have a significant incremental or cumulative impact on the Aboriginal or European heritage values of the region." Independent Planning Commission planning director Stephen Barry wrote.
During the meeting Heritage NSW described the historical value of the Ravensworth Estate as comparable to World War One battlefields and the Tasmanian World Heritage convict historical sites.
"..... but in NSW particularly Ravensworth is the leader, and amongst the leaders of that manifestation of colonial aggressive land acquisition breaking up the country, meaningful dispossession of Aboriginal people and has a causal link to the particular massacre site that's associated in the region because staff on that property were involved in some of those escalated events," Heritage NSW chair Tim Smith said.
Heritage NSW and the Department of Planning previously stated that the project's residual impacts were unlikely to have a significant impact on the Aboriginal heritage values of the region.
The Glendell extension project would extend the mine's life until approximately 2044 and result in the extraction of an additional 140 million tonnes of coal. It is estimated the project would support more than 1000 jobs and inject $229 million into the Hunter economy.
Glencore and the Wonnarua Nation Aboriginal Corporation disputes that a massacre occurred on the site of the proposed mine extension.
The company declined to comment on the latest development regarding its proposal.
Lock the Gate national coordinator Georgina Woods said the Planning Department's support for the coal mine expansion is now untenable.
"Heritage NSW has finally admitted the historical and cultural values of the Ravensworth Estate will only remain intact if the property is left in-situ. Australia honours the battlefield of Villers-Bretonneux and the Ravensworth Estate is equally significant.
"If its Planning Department ignores all the evidence now before it, and again recommends approval for Glencore, then the NSW Government will be complicit in an abhorrent act of cultural and historical destruction."
