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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Thursday, 5 August 2004) . . Page.. 3550 ..

One of the ongoing problems we have faced in the existing arrangement is that the only real penalty in many situations has been to withdraw the lease, on the basis that the leaseholder was breaking the conditions of the lease. Not surprisingly such action, to my knowledge, has never been taken. I think it is also fair to say that the more formal heritage interests have approached this issue from one direction and that PALM—now ACTPLA—and, arguably, developers have approached it from the other direction. So while the heritage council would probably prefer to direct, rather than advise, ACTPLA it seems fairly clear that the whole scheme, new or old, is dependent on a reasonably collaborative approach to work. At least with this bill the option remains for the heritage council to take matters to the AAT. There are other devices too, such as the minister’s call-in powers, as it happens, to ensure that any conflict over the value of a heritage site can be appropriately played out in public.

I am still somewhat uneasy about the development of this bill with regard to Aboriginal heritage. As I understand it, the approach we have taken here is generally considered to be contemporary in the Australian context and has been developed with advice from a Tasmanian expert who also guided other states in their approaches. Only the Northern Territory, however, includes Aboriginal heritage in its heritage conservation act—and it has a stand-alone Aboriginal sacred sites act as well.

I am aware that there has been concern expressed at different times that the final version of the bill was not circulated to relevant Aboriginal people prior to being introduced to the Assembly, and some uncertainty about how well this approach will work has been communicated to my office. I would also like to acknowledge that it is not an entirely straightforward matter to identify appropriate Aboriginal people or groups to provide advice or be consulted on all matters of possible Aboriginal heritage here in the ACT. As a consequence, however, I would hope that this legislation was developed with those requirements and complexities in mind.

While I believe that this legislation is workable, which is perhaps the most important point, I would say that a greater level of detail in consultation or negotiation on Aboriginal heritage matters might have been usefully pursued. In particular, the fact that the final version of this bill does not appear to have been brought to the attention of all representative Aboriginal groups in a timely fashion seems to have created more problems than it has solved.

It is for that reason that I would support an adjournment of this debate, after the in-principle stage, in order to ensure that representative Aboriginal groups have at least been shown the courtesy of a consultation on this bill, including the proposed amendments, which I would argue address some of the problems we have identified in our analysis of it. Best practice in consultation on law relating to Aboriginal affairs is that relevant communities have adequate opportunity to understand and give their view on any proposed changes.

This was, in effect, the first recommendation of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs 1999 inquiry into the Reeves report on the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act—namely that the act not be amended without traditional Aboriginal owners in the Northern Territory first understanding the nature and purpose of any amendments and as a group giving their

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