Uluru: dancing - and stripping - on solid rock

Patrick of Alice Springs (8.00 pm on Wednesday) pointed out that thousands of people had been naked on the steps of the Sydney Opera House just a few months earlier. (This event was organised by the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and stage-managed and photographed by the American artist, Spencer Tunick. Like Uluru, the Opera House is also a World Heritage Site.) The entire hullabaloo over one French girl in a bikini, he suggested, was a “lot of fuss for nothing”.

Of course this is not the first time that there has been a raging controversy over the Climb at Uluru. Twelve months ago when the new draft management plan for the national park was released - with its suggestion of an eventual closure of the Uluru climb - there was a near stand-off between the views of Environment Minister Peter Garrett and then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

In a radio interview from Italy at the time, Rudd said that “it would be very sad if we got to a stage though where Australians and frankly our guests from abroad weren't able to enjoy that experience ... to climb it [Uluru]”.

Po-faced Garrett on the other hand said that he had refused to climb Uluru despite many opportunities because he respected the wishes of the traditional owners. “I think you can take in all the fantastic beauty and cultural significance of the site without climbing it,” he told ABC Radio.

But are we hearing the real voice of the traditional owners in regard to the climbing issue? While Alison Hunt and David Ross (not a traditional owner from Uluru, it should be added) were adamant in their opposition to people climbing the Rock, some traditional owners have not been so forthright.

Back in January 1999, Eileen Hoosan - a traditional owner of Uluru and public officer of the Yankunytjatjara Kuta Association - told the Sunday Territorian that there had never even been a meeting of traditional owners about the issue of climbing the Rock.

“It’s not an issue with traditional people, climbing that Rock. But it is an issue with the Board of Management, it seems,” Ms Hoosan said.

And Australian filmmaker James Ricketson recalls being at Uluru just prior to the 1985 Handback when he was shooting a documentary for the Australian Film and Television School. In early 2004 while I was a researching a story for 4x4 Australia magazine, Ricketson told me that he had extensive consultation with Anangu (the traditional owners) and that they were very clear about what could and couldn’t be filmed - but added that there was no issue then about people climbing.

“We were accompanied by two elders - a man and a woman - whenever we went out filming,” he said.

“They stayed at the base of the Rock but they had no spiritual objections to us going up to the top. And that footage is in the film.”

One other issue that is completely ignored in the moral handwringing over the Uluru climb is that climbing, or strolling to the top of large hills or low mountains, is a very “traditional” activity in a national park. Indeed, every day thousands of Australians and plenty of foreign tourists will be out scaling peaks in the Kosciuszko National Park, the Grampians National Park in Victoria, in the World Heritage-listed Tasmanian wilderness and in Western Australia’s Stirling Range National Park - and no one (yet) is applying moral pressure against those people for choosing to climb.

What is also ignored by the proponents of a ban on climbing at Uluru is that Anangu spirituality is already being substantially respected in the national park, as none of the 36 domes of Kata Tjuta can now be climbed. Yet before the 1985 Handback, several of these were quite accessible.