2026-01-13 15:52:47 +1100
To: The Speaker and the Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
Return Lee Point to the care, ownership and protection of Larrakia people
We the undersigned support the Return of Lee Point and Casuarina Coastal Reserve to the care, ownership and protection of Larrakia people. Lee Point and Casuarina Coastal Reserve are sacred to Larrakia people. Lee Point, in particular, is a place of ceremony, creation stories and history that holds Larrakia medicine, sacred sites and native foods. Currently Lee Point is under threat of being destroyed by Defence Housing Australia to build houses for the military and private profit. If this goes ahead, it will cause irreversible damage to Larrakia Country and culture as well as the wellbeing of Larrakia people. For Larrakia people to look after Lee Point and Casuarina Coastal Reserve based on thousands of years of knowledge, they need their Country returned to their ownership, protection and care. When this happens, Larrakia people can again fully enact their responsibility and guardianship of Larrakia land and futures.
YOUR PETITIONERS THEREFORE HUMBLY PRAY THAT
The Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory recommends the Return of Lee Point and Casuarina Coastal Reserve to the care, ownership and protection of Larrakia people enacted across three phases: (1) An immediate moratorium on all land clearing at Lee Point (2) A commitment to working with, and resourcing, all eight Larrakia family groups to work together to establish and manage a new Larrakia-owned entity which will co-manage Casuarina Coastal Reserve and Lee Point with Parks & Wildlife NT and (3) The transferral of ownership of Casuarina Coastal Reserve and Lee Point to this Larrakia-owned entity along with the resources needed to care for and manage Country in a fully self-determined way by 2030.
AND YOUR PETITIONERS AS IN DUTY BOUND, WILL EVER PRAY
Why is this important?
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.