Akerman: Labor hellbent on killing economy with ‘net zero’ and now the crippling Voice

The dramatic overkill of WA’s Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill is just a foretaste of the nation-crushing rort a Yes vote on the Voice would deliver, writes Piers Akerman.

The elements of the economy the Albanese Labor government’s “net zero” insanity won’t kill, a successful Voice referendum certainly will.

Australia is facing its gravest threat since WWII – and it springs from the inner urban suburbs, where Green-Labor supporters now live, and in the affluent enclaves where Teals wooed ignorant elites with their hopey-wishey siren songs.

The unachievable “net zero” is a massive con. Our piddling contribution to reducing emissions of CO2 is wiped by the growth in emissions-producing power plants in China, Africa and elsewhere. Oh, and it’s destroying our economy too.

But it wasn’t enough for Labor and the Greens and the Teals to have signed up to this humbug. They went further and backed the Voice referendum which, if passed, would give a blank cheque to anyone claiming a skerrick of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage to challenge any law and administrative action, or non-action, on the grounds that they may be affected.

Anthony Albanese has descended to ad hominem attacks as he attempts to cover his ignorance of the concept he’s trying to flog. His Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney is totally out of her depth, such is the incoherence of her contradictory statements about the effects of constitutional change.

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

West Australians are about to suffer the damage socialist power wreaks. Three years ago, the destruction of a rock shelter known as the Juukan Gorge site, which showed evidence of human habitation going back 46,000 years, triggered a major reset of WA’s heritage laws.

With a total lack of consultation, the state introduced a truly appalling piece of legislation in 2021, the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill.

Juukan Gorge in Western Australia, where -- mining giant Rio Tinto has admitted damaging ancient Aboriginal rock shelters in the remote Pilbara region while blasting near the 46,000-year-old heritage site to expand an iron ore mine. Picture: PKKP Aboriginal Corporation/AFP

Under the legislation, which comes into effect on July 1, penalties for serious harm to Aboriginal cultural heritage by an individual range from five years in jail to a $1m fine, or both.

There is a daily penalty of $50,000 a day or part of a day during which an offence continues, and for a body corporate there is a fine of $10m and a daily penalty of $500,000.

You can employ a local Aboriginal cultural heritage consultant at a daily rate of $600, ranging up to $2250 – depending on how much consulting needs doing – and there is a 15 per cent administration fee on top of that.

In remote areas, an additional 20 per cent may be charged for service provider fees.

It’s a perpetual cash machine for people who are still to be trained, which raises real questions about who holds the traditional knowledge now?

A petition opposing the laws has garnered almost 30,000 signatures but the government is adamant it is going to proceed, even though there are not enough heritage officers to manage the enormous caseload.

The big mining lobby has signed up. But farmers are bitterly opposed as they will have to seek cultural approval before almost any work involving anything beyond scratching the dirt. On top of the looming live-sheep export ban, this is crippling.

Anthropologists say the law goes too far, but the anthropology industry is now so locked into the Aboriginal industry, few will speak out.

No one doubts the importance of preserving cultural heritage but this is dramatic overkill.

And it’s just a foretaste of the nation-crushing rort a Yes vote on the Voice would deliver.