We all have special places we care for. For Larrakia people, we are especially connected to the places that hold our Creation Stories, where our Ancestors are buried, our places of Healing and Ceremony and the Sacred Lands we’ve cared for - for generations. People who created the colony of Australia stole, extracted resources, and built their wealth from these special places. As a result, Aboriginal people have been prevented from protecting and nurturing our ancestral lands, life-giving forests and sacred waterways. Today, many of these places are damaged - which impacts all of us. Lee Point in Darwin is one of these special places. Lee Point is a sacred area of Larrakia Dreaming, Ceremony and history that is currently under threat of being destroyed by Defence Housing Australia to build 800 houses for the military and First National Real Estate O'Donoghue's profits. With trees older than the colony of Australia, Lee Point is a beautiful coastal bushland teeming with life, song and Spirit. For millennia, Larrakia people have cared for the lands surrounding Lee Point. Generations of Larrakia families have brought our children to Lee Point to hunt, fish and be with family, to learn who they are and how to care for Country. Today, Larrakia people are working to protect Lee Point after people in government gave Defence Housing Australia permission to demolish our sacred lands and stop us from passing our culture onto the next generations. Our goals are to protect Larrakia Country and culture, stop Defence Housing Australia from desecrating our sacred lands at Lee Point and ensure the NT and Federal governments return Larrakia lands to Larrakia people. For Larrakia people to look after these places based on thousands of years of knowledge, we need Country returned to our care. When this happens our people, Larrakia people, can again fully enact our responsibility and guardianship of the lands we all care about.

Darwin knows what care looks like.  We know how to feed families and whole communities with a line and a hook. We know how to stand together and make sure no one is left behind.  That spirit is under threat. Greedy fossil fuel corporations want to dredge our harbour, pollute our seas, and poison our water — all to make a quick buck. The proposed expansion of the Middle Arm gas hub risks destroying the very things that make Darwin home.  It doesn’t have to be this way. The Federal Labor Government has a responsibility to the people of Darwin and to Larrakia Country. Instead of throwing $1.9 billion of public money into a polluting gas hub, the government must fund what truly sustains us — a safe climate and thriving communities. That money could protect what we love: clean seas, a living harbour, restored creeks, cooling forests, and families with secure futures. Darwin life is unique, vibrant, and abundant. We know how to make a lot with a little. We know how to care for each other and for Country. Tell the Federal Labor Government to throw a line to our future — protect Darwin Harbour from pollution and greed, and invest in a First Nations‑led future that cares for people and Country.