By signing this community representation, I support the Section 10 application(s) currently before the Hon Murray Watt MP, Federal Minister for the Environment and Water, seeking protection for Barrambin, also known as Victoria Park, under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984. 

I support federal protection for Victoria Park Barrambin on the following grounds:

The particular significance of the area to Aboriginal people

Barrambin (Victoria Park) holds particular significance to the Aboriginal peoples of Brisbane and surrounding areas. This significance is documented through various forms of cultural use and traditional knowledge:

Documented Cultural Use: Barrambin is eligible for protection due to documented cultural use, including bora grounds, rainmaking ceremonies and corroborees. According to the Yagara Magandjin Aboriginal Corporation, the Yagara and Goori from other areas have lived in and cared for this place since time immemorial. The hills, watercourses, springs, ceremonial grounds, and trees are all interlinked and integral to their language, law, and identity, reinforcing that Country, language, culture, and Goori are one. Sacred ways with trees are also recorded.

Sacred Waterhole: The park contains York's Hollow - the last and largest remnant of the many spring-fed waterholes that once characterised this area. It has special significance for First Nations people on many levels - spiritual and historical. Corroborees were performed in the vicinity and it was central to the camps in the vicinity, both in early settlement times and in the 1930s-1950s.

Despite substantial land use changes, the York’s Hollow springs retain resilient hydrological features and have, remarkably, persisted into the present day. As a result of the prolonged legal protection afforded to the park as a water reserve initially and then as a recreational reserve, the current York’s Hollow is the only persistently functioning spring-fed freshwater water course within the CBD. This hydrological exceptionality, along with Aboriginal and European cultural heritage values attached to the springs, suggests that the York’s Hollow springs and their broader catchment have high conservation value. The lack of any other CBD parklands with relic watercourses highlights the importance of protecting and rehabilitating the remaining springs watercourse and the inextricably linked open, unpaved catchment area.

Historical gathering place and major campground: The site has served as a camping ground and a place of congregation for Aboriginal people for thousands of years. In fact, Victoria Park represents the longest continuously-used First Nations living area (camp) of greater Brisbane during post-settlement times. There are First Nations elders alive today who grew up in Barrambin and continue to return to it. Open green spaces have traditionally been maintained to perpetuate legacies of this sort (e.g. Musgrave Park) because they best embody the environment-focused spirituality and lifestyles of First Nations peoples. Cluttering the park with man-made structures would severely impact this legacy.

Intrinsic Value to Wellbeing: Cultural heritage for First Nations people is vital to their wellbeing and mental health, contributing to closing the gap and preserving unique identities, languages, traditions, and histories, providing a strong sense of belonging.

Topography and landscape: Victoria Park is one of very few open spaces in greater Brisbane that retains significant elements of the original grounds, “viewscapes” and vegetation that once constituted a major First Nations living area and meeting place. The park’s enduring natural features - particularly its undulating topography with ridges and gullies - largely maintains the original setting of the Aboriginal camps and corroboree grounds that existed here from pre-European settlement up until the 1950s. The park's numerous viewpoints to other elevated districts in Brisbane make it one of the few surviving examples of viewscapes traditionally used for smoke-signalling communication. The landscape also retains the original outlines of one of Queensland's earliest water reserves and spaces for public recreation, dating to the early 1840s. The remnant elements of this ancient land would be severely disrupted or destroyed by the intended Olympic stadium construction.

Significant events: Victoria Park was the site of key historic events and characters important to First Nations people and Europeans alike - e.g. the Duke of York; the York’s Hollow affrays of 1846 and 1849; the post-Reserve encampments of the 1930s-1950s. 

Existing legislation: Barrambin (Victoria Park) is listed on the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Register. It is explicitly stated that Barrambin is protected by law because it holds First Nations cultural value. Both the North and South sections of the park are recognised for their Aboriginal cultural heritage significance.

The nature and extent of the threat of injury to, or desecration of, the area

The community has been kept in the dark as to the details of the nature and extent of the development. No plans detailing location of key venues, cut and fill quantities, trees to be cleared nor infrastructure upgrades including sewerage, stormwater, water, electricity, road and public transport upgrades have been provided to date. However, the Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority (GIICA) have indicated in their Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) referral application that the disturbance footprint of all activities required to support deliver Brisbane Stadium, National Aquatic Centre and precinct-related works is 99.5 hectares (ha), which encompasses the entirety of Victoria Park Barrambin.  

York’s Hollow Springs: Placement of stadiums and associated paved and roofed infrastructure over the springs and/or broader catchment areas would result in interception of rainfall infiltration to the underlying source aquifer for the springs. Interception and diversion of rainfall infiltration would circumvent the natural aquifer water storage, filtration and delayed persistent groundwater release processes, including during dry periods. The fundamental hydrogeological, cultural and ecological functioning of the springs system would likely be permanently terminated or unacceptably diminished.

Thousands of trees - including 1,200-1,500 in the north section alone - are expected to be felled. Critically, there are numerous native trees that pre-date European settlement (over 200 years old) that will be destroyed as a part of the development.

The scale of construction will be similar to that of a large quarry and will destroy vital habitat that supports animals and birds that live and forage in the park. There are over 60 bird species and numerous animals including possums, flying foxes, micro-bats and squirrel gliders that live in the park. Significantly the park is only 600 m from a nationally significant roosting site of the Grey-Headed Flying-Fox (listed as vulnerable under the EPBC Act) and provides important foraging grounds for this species.

In summary, the planned construction of Olympic venues will likely cause broad scale damage to Barrambin, injuring and desecrating the values of the landscape, trees and waterways that are intrinsic to its First Nations spiritual and historical significance. This in turn will severely limit access to the currently free open and parkland, permanently disrupting local First Nations’ traditional use of the area.

The risk of the threat of desecration of the area is increased due to the lack of State cultural heritage protections. These were overridden by the Planning (Social Impact and Community Benefit) and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2025 (the POLA Act), passed by the Queensland Government in 2025. Additionally, as of 1 June 2026, the park will transfer from public parkland to freehold. The significance of this change cannot be understated. Freehold title means the government is free to sell the land to the private sector. This fundamentally changes the character of one of Queensland’s oldest and largest inner-city parks, and removes a critical structural protection that has safeguarded the land from private development for a century and a half.

Extent of Area to be Protected and Prohibitions/Restrictions

In September 2025, the Queensland Heritage Council, an independent statutory body, recommended the entirety of Victoria Park / Barrambin be State Heritage listed. After a rigorous assessment, the Council recommended the listing based on both the First Nations and the post European settlement's historical significance of this land. We strongly recommend that all 64 hectares of Barrambin be permanently protected under federal law.

Potential impacts on the proprietary or pecuniary interests of person other than the applicant (the Aboriginal person or group)

In addition to considering the applications submitted, the Minister must also consider impacts on persons other than the applicant (the Aboriginal person or group) with a right or interest affected by this decision. Proprietary or pecuniary interest can be very broad: you could own real estate in Brisbane as a home owner or investor which has access to the park, you may drive through the area and be affected by traffic causing you time and expense to take alternate routes, you may be concerned about the healthcare services at RBH or educational facilities at Grammar School or QUT causing you expense to obtain those services elsewhere, you may regularly use Victoria park for fitness and mental wellbeing causing you expense of gym membership and or expense of driving to locate these services elsewhere.

In the form below, you will have the option of selected those impacts that relate to you. 

Add Your Name to the Submission