Tuesday, 28 May 2024

Cultural heritage management plans

Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (21:04): (914) My adjournment is for the Minister for Treaty and First Peoples, and the action that I seek is for an urgent review of cultural heritage planning processes that are unnecessarily holding up building and developments. An example of this is a constituent of mine in Leongatha. In 2021 Ben, together with three small business owners, bought 12 acres of industrial zoned low-density land with minor cultural heritage overlay. The Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006 requires landowners with this overlay to consult cultural heritage advisers and a registered Aboriginal party, or RAP, to provide a plan. According to the act, this process should be timely and efficient while providing mechanisms enabling dispute resolutions.

Unfortunately, the opposite has occurred. The RAP in this instance was the Bunurong Land Council, who in the last decade have been put under administration twice for alleged fraud, theft and tax evasion, and yet they continue to operate, a decision the federal investigator called a sham. Initial digging on Ben’s property found minimal artefacts, which were agreed to be sectioned off and preserved – a decision quickly, and without justification, overturned when an elder glancing at a map allegedly said, ‘Make them dig’ and walked out. So far this process has cost nearly $54,000 and has caused enormous stress. With field representatives due back sometime in 2025, there is no end date to these delays and the costs, with potentially 12 acres having to be dug up by hand. There are no clues provided as to what they are looking for, and that is not a surprise given the amount of secrecy around these situations. The Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Register is not publicly accessible due to culturally sensitive information, so an urgent review of the cultural heritage planning cannot be overstated considering the level of secrecy, autonomy and broad-based scope provided for RAPs under the government’s First Nations treaty. So I ask for this action.