Larrakia custodians seek emergency heritage listing to halt Darwin's Lee Point estate

Two Larrakia custodians are making a last-ditch play to save Darwin's Lee Point from the bulldozers. Lorraine Williams and Tibby Quall have asked the Australian Heritage Council and the federal environment minister for an emergency heritage listing, hoping to block a federal government housing estate on the peninsula. Their application seeks protection for the site as the 'Binybara cultural heritage landscape', citing its Indigenous, biodiversity and historical values.

The approved development covers 132 hectares and would put up 600 private homes and 200 houses for defence personnel. Williams says it would interfere with the registered Binybara Larrakia sacred site, a rock reef off Lee Point beach, and a sacred women's site inside the development area. 'Hopefully we'll achieve protection for the entire area so that it's not developed, and is left to be natural bush because the land is culturally significant to us and our culture and history,' she said. Without land rights or native title in Darwin, she said the custodians are using 'all of the different acts that are available to us' and will 'keep on fighting until we get full rights to this land'.

Defence Housing Australia, the federal developer, has built five houses at the site so far. During clearing of one block, it uncovered Indigenous cultural artefacts including a grinding stone. Last week the agency announced it had revised its Lee Point plan to address biodiversity and sacred site concerns — a move Williams said did not go far enough.

Their lawyer, Ally McAlpine of Environmental Justice Australia, said the nomination includes a request for a provisional emergency listing to freeze further work while the full application is assessed. 'This application isn't just about individual sites or objects; it's considering the whole of the peninsula and the particular cultural significance it has to the Larrakia people, its military history significance and its biodiversity and its ecological significance,' she said. The site has drawn four years of protests from the public and Larrakia custodians.

The custodians argue Lee Point deserves a spot alongside the six other Northern Territory entries on the 127-place national heritage list, which include Kakadu National Park, the Hermannsburg Historic Precinct and the Wave Hill Walk Off Route. Charles Darwin University scientists have rated its tropical eucalyptus woodland as one of the few remaining Darwin coastal habitats vital to endangered species including the black-footed tree rat and the Gouldian finch. 'I want the government to acknowledge that those animals and plants are actually important to Larrakia people and our culture — they are part of our biocultural knowledge and biocultural heritage,' Williams said.

The Australian Heritage Council assesses nominations before referring them to the federal environment minister to accept or reject. To qualify, a place must show 'outstanding heritage value to the Australian community as a whole' and stand out against similar sites. Emergency listings have stopped developments before: Tasmania's Tarkine in 2009 halted a commercial tourism road, and Melbourne's St Kilda in 2017 forced major changes to a railway. Backers of the estate counter that some of the habitat was cleared for World War II defence fortifications, a caravan park already operates there, and the housing would not touch the Binybara site off the coast.