00:00A celebrated film director, a proud Urunda and Kalkidan woman, and until yesterday, a board member of the authority in charge of protecting Aboriginal sacred sites in the Northern Territory.
00:13It's an organisation that I've been aware of all my life and it's held in really high regard, so of course when I was asked, I accepted.
00:22Perkins' sudden resignation in response to plans to build an 11-storey hotel at Darwin's waterfront precinct, now given the green light despite claims it will desecrate a sacred site,
00:34and made possible by new territory laws, allowing the developer's name to be added to a 20-year-old certificate, which she says was issued for a completely different purpose.
00:43It was marina-orientated commercial activities. Now the certificate is being revived for an 11-storey building.
00:53Now free to air her concerns in public, Perkins says it's caused extreme distress for fellow ARPA board members,
01:00who believe they'd face legal action from the NT government if they refused to sign off on the development.
01:06Along with some Larrakia traditional owners, Perkins believes the NT government made changes to the Sacred Sights Act
01:12with a view to expedite construction, even though the Singaporean developer had already applied for a brand new sacred site certificate.
01:21The applicant then withdrew that certificate and then shortly after the laws were changed.
01:27Now you don't have to be a genius to put two and two together and work out the cause and effect of what's happened here.
01:38A claim the NT's acting Chief Minister strongly denied on ABC local radio this morning.
01:43Have you just done the changes to the Sacred Sights Act to ensure you could get this development going?
01:48Absolutely not, Brashi. That is just so far away from what we've done.
01:52What we've done is we've brought certainty into the industry.
01:55Further condemnation of the decision today from Larrakia man Eric Feijo,
02:00who says written history of cultural and material dispossession on the Darwin waterfront dates back to the 1870s.
02:07The language for ceremonies and corroborees and all that has been diluted where our ceremonies are our religious practices.
02:14Our sacred sites are our cathedrals.
02:16Mr Feijo commends Perkins for resigning from the ARPA board and has encouraged others to do the same.
02:22There's been no reciprocation on trying to work together with First Nations on this.
02:26How can we work with people like that?
02:28And like I said, ARPA was the gatekeeper for us and they were honourable, integrity and they had soul.
02:35The certificate, you know, you might as well just like tear it up and throw it away because it's just not worth its weight in paper.
02:44DR.
02:46DR.
02:47DR.
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