This letter to the editor was sent in by Nan Nicholson.

Read more about the issue: Patrick Healey leads independent team into council election campaign

Patrick Healey, of the Lismore Independents team, claims to support Bundjalung heritage but also supports the Dunoon Dam which would destroy extremely important Aboriginal living heritage as well as burial sites that have been dated as pre-contact.

Strangely, Patrick Healey doesn’t even mention by name the people who would be shattered by this desecration: the Widjabul Wia-bal people.

He is of Aboriginal descent himself, and all the people on his team are either Indigenous (but not local) or are apparent supporters of Indigenous people.

There are a few possible reasons for this stand:

1. Patrick Healey's team holds local Widjabul Wia-bal people in contempt

2. they hope that the Widjabul Wia-bal people will not notice this betrayal.

3. they have been told that the sites are somehow safe. This is what Patrick Healey claimed in a FB reply but when challenged to supply evidence of this claim he deleted it. 

Here is the link to the (redacted) Cultural Heritage Impact Assessment released by Rous. https://rous.nsw.gov.au/page.asp?f=RES-UZW-46-31-12   

It shows that the burial sites and other important cultural sites would indeed be destroyed by the dam.

Please Patrick, be true to your people and renounce this cruel support for a project that would damage them so badly.

Keep the rest of your policies but let go of this one that diminishes you and all of your team as well as the Widjabul Wia-bal people.

Claiming that you don't have to decide because of the newly announced CSIRO investigation does not absolve you of responsibility to stick up for your people. You need to show where you stand right now and support Indigenous citizens.