Article by Josh Zimmerman courtesy of The West Australian.
Two events in the past week provide a revealing insight into the Cook Government’s approach to the implementation of updated Aboriginal heritage laws.
Last Tuesday, a petition bearing 29,714 signatures — collected in the space of a fortnight — was tabled in Parliament.
It called for a six-month delay to the new regime to allow Government to “establish a working approvals system” and for stakeholders to familiarise themselves with complex regulations only released in early April.
Remember: the website designed to facilitate Aboriginal heritage queries and applications is only going live on Saturday — the same day the new Act comes into effect.
Additionally, none of the 40 Local Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Services originally envisioned as key planks of the system is up and running.
It was against that background that Premier Roger Cook stood up in Parliament and dismissed the pleas for a delay on the basis the document that outlined them collected signatures online.
“I thought it was a proper petition. It is just an e-petition, is it? All right. That is fair enough. It is good to clarify that,” Cook said.
Around the same time, guidelines outlining the future requirements for surveys establishing the presence and management of Indigenous heritage were published online.
Within hours, they had disappeared.
Quizzed in Parliament on Thursday about the hasty retraction, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Tony Buti offered only that there was “some issue” that had been raised by “industry”.
“We have a very consultative process with industry and we want to make sure that industry is comfortable,” he added.
When the guidelines resurfaced on Friday, the results of that “consultative process” became clear.
The start date for new, more rigorous survey requirements had been pushed back an entire year: from July 1, 2023, until July 1, 2024.
Under the updated guidelines, proponents with an existing survey — or who could complete one before next July — would also be able to continue relying on that assessment indefinitely, provided it was ticked off by the relevant “Aboriginal party”.
In effect, industry had been handed a one-year reprieve to a key component of the Act.
It is not difficult to figure out what sector stands to benefit most from the changed guidelines.
Miners and resources companies have long taken a proactive approach to Aboriginal heritage and many of their existing surveys far exceed the requirements of the current Act.
But the fact the outcome sought by “industry” was achieved so quickly while broader calls for a delay were dismissed is instructive.
It suggests that sometimes it’s not the quantity of signatures demanding change that counts. It’s the quality.
