By PAUL MILLAR
An historic Geelong cemetery, regarded as “sacred to the community” was the wrong place for a Telstra tower and the telecommunications giant should listen to the voice of the people, according to Richard Marles.
The Federal Member for Corio had “enormous concern” about a Telstra push to appeal a City of Greater Geelong decision denying permission to build a 35.7m tower in the Geelong Western Cemetery grounds.
The older graves told the story of the history and evolvement of Geelong, Mr Marles told Federal Parliament.
Telstra will challenge the council decision at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, despite widespread local opposition, including 371 objections, sent to the council.
Mr Marles said it was one of the most significant cemeteries in Victoria and was the burial place of King Billy, also known as Willem Baa Nip – the last of the indigenous Barrabool tribe – who died in 1885.
“He fought for the right of his people to live on their land. He saw in his lifetime Geelong develop from a small camp, really, to a major agricultural centre. Today, he is an enormously significant figure in Geelong, and particularly among the Wathaurong people,” he said
“I add my voice to those locals against this. I urge Telstra not to go through with the appeal. It is an error of judgement on their part, and they need to listen to their community.’’
The Geelong Cemeteries Trust has signed a lease agreement with Telstra but that would only become valid if all legal concerns were satisfied.
Darryl Thomas, the trust’s chief executive, said his organisation was locked into an agreement that it could not step away from.
He also said the site earmarked for the tower was a soil storage area.
Mr Thomas said the Trust was open to meeting with anybody with any concerns.
Jonathan Connor, a spokesman for objectors, said his group expected Telstra to take the fight to VCAT and protesters would continue to rally against the proposal.
“They would be impacting on the sanctuary and sacredness of the site,” Mr Connor said.
“Every person that I have spoken to says it’s disrespectful and it would be an exaggeration to suggest that Telstra had even been involved in minor consultation with local residents,” he said.
Duane Dalton, from Telstra said there were a wide range of factors that determined where a mobile base stations was located,
“It’s especially important to locate the sites as close as possible to the customers the site is intended to serve,“ Mr Dalton said.
“Due to the growth in demand in Herne Hill the cemetery has been decided as the best place, to provide the most coverage to people living in the area.”
