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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 09 Hansard (Tuesday, 17 August 2004) . . Page.. 3769 ..

MRS DUNNE (8.15): The Liberal opposition supports Ms Dundas’s amendment. As was stated earlier, we do not want to work on assumptions. People constantly complain to me about planning and land management laws. Essentially, heritage is part of that suite of legislation. We lack certainty in this legislation. People might do something one way on the first day and depending on how they feel they might do it differently on the second day. People need certainty. This amendment will ensure that consultation takes place.

Proposed new clause 50A agreed to.

Clause 51.

MR WOOD (Minister for Disability, Housing and Community Services, Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for Arts and Heritage, and Acting Minister for Health) (8.16): I seek leave to move amendments 23 and 24 circulated in my name together.

Leave granted.

MR WOOD: I move amendments Nos 23 and 24 circulated in my name together [see schedule 3 at page 3803]. The government is proposing a heading change for clause 51, the insertion of clause 52 (2) (a) and the removal of clause 52. Taken together, these changes will restrict information about heritage places and objects as already occurs for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal heritage. Information will be restricted once council declares it to be so, and not automatically as previously advised. In the government’s view it is better that way. The proposed arrangement in clause 52, of having information about Aboriginal places and objects automatically restricted, was not considered appropriate by some Aboriginal people as it would place the Heritage Council in charge of information about Aboriginal places and objects with which council really has nothing to do.

MS TUCKER (8.17): These amendments reflect some of the additional discussion and consultation that took place between the government and local Aboriginal groups. That seems to confirm the view that has been expressed in the Assembly in the last sitting week that the detailed and final stages of discussions with stakeholders, in particular, Aboriginal stakeholders, were inadequate. When I listened earlier to Mrs Dunne talking about a white minister deciding who would represent Aboriginal communities it reminded me of how a white minister—a minister with whom Mrs Dunne had worked—decided who would represent Aboriginal communities on the Namadgi interim management board.

Mr Wood would remember that rather unfortunate process. People who had an outstanding native title claim were told that they would be appointed to the board only if they gave up their claim, which was outrageous. It meant that the Ngunnawal group was excluded from making a formal input to the draft management plan. I commend Mrs Dunne for the role that she is playing in this debate and I wanted to put that bit of history on the record. I refer now to the government’s amendments. Given that this legislation is not based on other indigenous heritage legislation—rather, it reflects contemporary white heritage practice in Australia—it does not reflect well on government.

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