SIR, – In reference to two comments attributed to a ‘government spokesperson’ in Dylan De Jong’s article in Highway Plans under Scrutiny, The Weekly Advertiser, April 15.
I represent the Djab Wurrung Traditional Owners who have succeeded three times in the Federal Court since 2019 to have decisions by the Federal Minister for the Environment quashed when she refused to protect the area and trees on a stretch of the Western Highway between Beaufort and Ararat.
It is incorrect for the government to claim the Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation ‘represents the Djab Wurrung people and we continue to respect their cultural authority to speak for the Djab Wurrung country’.
My clients have repeatedly rejected that claim, in submissions to the courts.