Wiradyuri creation ancestors and Australian motor racing: Competing intangible cultural heritage values for Wahluu Mt. Panorama at Bathurst (NSW)

Mount Panorama Motor Racing Circuit at Bathurst is Australia's most famous racetrack, 'the spiritual home of Australian motorsport' since the 1930s. The mountain also is Wahluu, a highly significant Wiradyuri mythological and ceremonial place, closely linked to other, prominent cultural landscape features in the region. In 2020, the Bathurst Regional Council approved the construction of a go-kart racing track on a women's sacred site on the mountain, rejecting the views of the Wiradjuri Elders. This followed a cultural heritage assessment process that recognised Wiradyuri cultural values but was restrained by the NSW heritage legislation's focus on tangible, archaeological heritage at the expense of its intangible cultural heritage significance. The Wiradyuri Elders appealed to the Commonwealth government for protection for Wahluu. In April 2021, despite a negative recommendation from the Reporter appointed to investigate that also privileged tangible over intangible heritage values, Environment Minister Sussan Ley declared a 10 year protection order for the women's site under the Commonwealth's 'Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act (1984)'. This case study illustrates the difficulties of recognising the intangible cultural heritage of place, and for reconciling divergent values where places have different cultural meanings and associations for different groups of people. The Australia ICOMOS Burra Charter ('Burra Charter') and associated Practice Notes on Indigenous and intangible cultural heritage provide clear advice on working through these issues but need to be more widely circulated in development planning and cultural heritage management circles, and understood and used by this audience. Understanding intangible cultural heritage independently of tangible heritage seems to be an ongoing problem that may require specific education and training to overcome. This case study also highlights the efforts of local Wiradyuri Elders to build mutual recognition and respect towards reconciling the different perceptions of intangible cultural heritage at Wahluu/ Mount Panorama.