Western Australia will overturn its 2021 Aboriginal cultural heritage protection laws, set down after the destruction of the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge rock shelter, in response to widespread opposition, the state's premier said on Tuesday.
Farmers, pastoralists and small landowners have been up in arms over what they say is onerous and costly regulation put in place after Rio Tinto (RIO.AX) legally destroyed rock shelters that had shown human habitation stretching back 46,000 years.
The change may temper rising angst in the state over Indigenous rights. Support has been falling for government-backed plans to establish an Indigenous advisory body in parliament that Australians will vote in a referendum later this year.
The state government will scrap the 2021 legislation and instead restore and amend a 1972 law to ensure the protection of important sites, Premier Roger Cook said.
"The Juukan Gorge tragedy was a global embarrassment but our response was wrong, we took it too far, unintentionally causing stress, confusion and division in our community," Cook said.
The amendments to the 1972 old law, he said, were "simple and effective" and would prevent another Juukan Gorge from happening.
The destruction of Western Australia's Juukan Gorge rock shelters for an iron ore mine caused deep distress to Indigenous groups and a global outcry that eventually cost Rio's chief executive, chair and senior executives their jobs. It also sparked a national inquiry.
The Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) Aboriginal Corporation, whose rock shelters were destroyed, said at the weekend they were devastated by reports of the state government's impending decision.
Its chairman said the old legislation had allowed the destruction and the 2021 laws now being scrapped were an improvement.
“The previous heritage act ... permitted the wanton destruction of Juukan Gorge. While the new act is not perfect, it is better than what it replaced,” Corporation Chairman Terry Drage said in a statement.
"If the state government had listened to community feedback during the consultation phase, we would not be in this mess. Fix the guidelines, which are the biggest problem, not scrap the Act.”
The CEO of WAfarmers Trevor Whittington told Reuters the 2021 heritage protection legislation was not fit for purpose and his group was waiting to see what the amendments entailed.
"Every new farming activity that we undertook would require a new heritage survey," he said of the 2021 legislation.
"It was unworkable."
Cook, however, dismissed those assertions saying the only obligations for farmers or other landowners to undertake a heritage survey under the 2021 legislation was if they planned activity that would impact a known cultural heritage site.
One of the key grievances that Aboriginal groups had with the new act was that they had no right of veto and the ultimate decision maker over heritage destruction was a government minister. In the 1972 legislation, miners or landowners could appeal a minister's decision but Indigenous groups could not.
“We will make sure they have a right of appeal in the event a decision is made,” Cook said.
A spokesperson for Rio Tinto did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
