Present Day Controversy
In 2005 a developer was granted the right to build homes on the site. This caused a dispute between the Western Victoria's Glenelg Shire Council and the local Koorie community on whether or not the location should be protected.
Kilcarer clan traditional owner Walter Saunders, a descendant of one of the two massacre survivors, explained the cultural importance of the site on ABC radio:
- "It stands on the same level as the Eureka Stockade and Gallipoli from our perspective. It is the first recorded massacre in the state. This is where Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal people fought over the resources of this great country and they happened to kill a large number of my relatives and my mother's relatives."
As a result of a confidential agreement in 2007, some development would occur but the Convincing Ground would become a public reservation.
Read more about this topic: Convincing Ground Massacre
Famous quotes containing the words present, day and/or controversy:
“The entire fruit is already present in the seed.”
—Tertullian (c. 150–230)
“If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if the town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)