Protests are planned outside Western Australian parliament today over the introduction of a new bill that Aboriginal people say will continue to allow the destruction of their cultural heritage.
It comes despite WA government assurances that the bill will be a “new way” of protecting heritage in the wake of the Juukan Gorge disaster.
The Aboriginal cultural heritage bill was made public late on Tuesday and will be introduced to parliament on Wednesday. The state government says the bill gives “Aboriginal people a much stronger say” in managing their cultural heritage and was developed after a lengthy consultation process.
But many Aboriginal traditional owners, land councils and heritage groups say they have not seen this version of the bill, despite asking for almost a year.
The Kimberley Land Council was shown a copy of the legislation on Tuesday night, less than 24-hours before it was tabled in parliament.
There have been more than 100 changes to the updated draft. The new bill makes consultation with Aboriginal people compulsory in a “tiered process” of development planning. An Aboriginal cultural heritage council, with majority Aboriginal membership, will be appointed to advise the minister.
The draft gives the Aboriginal affairs minister, Stephen Dawson, the final say over heritage disputes. The minister will be able to issue stop activity and prohibition orders, amend plans and impose conditions.
But traditional owners have limited rights of judicial appeal over those decisions. They will only be able to go to the state administrative tribunal in six specific circumstances.
The Kimberley Land Council warned of a “cultural catastrophe”.
“It’s a devastating day for Aboriginal heritage,” said the KLC’s chief executive, Tyronne Garstone.
“We have repeatedly called on the McGowan Government to pause this Bill and make the changes required to ensure Aboriginal heritage is protected. By ignoring our concerns the McGowan Government has treated Aboriginal people beneath contempt.”
Garstone said the McGowan government, with its 88% majority, had “become arrogant” and was not listening to the concerns of traditional owners.
“The state government has proved it is too close to industry and too dependent on royalties to be objective and transparent when it comes to matters concerning Aboriginal heritage,” he said.
The Greens senator Dorinda Cox, a Yamatji Noongar woman, said the McGowan government had disrespected traditional owners and Aboriginal elders across WA by not giving them time to see the bill before it was introduced.
“This is a sad day for First Nations people in Western Australia, and, from this day forward, no Aboriginal person can believe that this government will protect cultural sites if a mining proposal looks too good to refuse,” Cox said.
“There is still a lot of mistrust and trauma after the Juukan caves were destroyed by a system that handed out permits to mining companies to destroy our cultural heritage.
“The government claims that this bill was co-designed in equal and genuine partnership with First Nations people, but First Nations people have not been provided with the latest version.”
Cox says the bill does not give free, prior and informed consent to traditional owners.
“If TOs and mining companies can’t agree, the minister gets the final say. Now we know that of the 143 section 18 permits that have been considered by the minister between 2017 and 2020, only one was knocked back.
“This system favours the developers and the mining companies at the expense of thousands of years of cultural heritage and connection to country for First Nations peoples.”
Cox is calling for “Labor backbenchers who say they support First Nations people” to cross the floor and vote against the bill.
WA’s heritage legislation is widely viewed as outdated and in need of an overhaul.
Rio Tinto obtained ministerial consent to destroy Juukan Gorge under the old Aboriginal Heritage Act.
That explosion led to an international shareholder revolt, cost the jobs of three senior Rio executives and sparked a federal inquiry, which said new federal laws were needed to set the standard for states and territory heritage laws to uphold.
It said those new laws should give traditional owners the right to withhold consent over developments on their country.
Traditional owner groups say a “tragedy the scale of Juukan Gorge can, and will, happen again” under the new proposed heritage laws.