Difficult balancing act leaves no one happy, says man behind Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act guidelines

The man behind the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act guidelines has told an Albany workshop that the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage had not been able to make everyone happy, just days out from the controversial Act’s potential scrapping. About 150 were in attendance at the workshop — the second opportunity in six weeks for DPLH heritage projects manager Cesar Rodriguez to explain the Act to concerned community members. During the first workshop, Mr Rodriguez emphasised that harming Aboriginal heritage had been against the law under the 1972 Aboriginal Heritage Act and the new Act, which came into effect on July 1, 2021, had not made anything new illegal. This time around, his emphasis shifted to the idea the new Act was about providing certainty to landholders — including the costs involved, what they were required to do to protect cultural heritage and the processes involved for different tiers of activity. “We want to protect the heritage, but we also wanted to reach a balanced outcome as well,” he said. “In that balanced outcome, what we hear from land users was about wanting certainty. “Wanting certainty of process by knowing who to consult, certainty about time frames associated with approvals and also certainty about costs of assessment.” As with the June workshop, Mr Rodriguez outlined several activities that are exempt from the Act and said other activities would be assessed according to a three-tier system. Exempt activities included minor residential developments “like building a swimming pool or putting up a granny flat” where a house already existed no matter the size of the block. He later noted due diligence for tier-one activities only required land users to assess their area for potential signs of cultural heritage prior to starting work. He also said consultation with a relevant Local Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Services will be capped at a maximum of $500 if required for tier two activities. “For tier two activities, what they can charge for is limited to $500 to review your ACH permit application,” he said. “For a tier three activity, they can charge you for a range of things including consultation, undertaking surveys and negotiations.” After a 40-minute presentation, Mr Rodriguez spent a further 45 minutes answering questions from the floor. Questions ranged from those about how to self-identify potential cultural heritage to why there was a distinction between blocks that were 1101sqm and 1099sqm and if there had been considerations about how the Act would impact land value. Mr Rodriguez said DPLH would provide online guides to help land users identify cultural heritage but they weren’t expected to be “experts” and he expected some things would be missed, which “doesn’t sit well with me”. “This is about trying to reach that balance and it’s been really difficult to put a list of activities together to make everyone happy,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve made anyone happy because, for a lot of reasons, Aboriginal people want activities to be tier two or three so they can be involved in the process. “And a lot of land users want more things to be exempt or in tier one so they don’t have to go through an application process.” Following the meeting, the West reported on Friday evening that the overhaul of WA’s Aboriginal heritage laws would be scrapped completely within days.