‘Almost useless’: heritage law failing to protect sites
The law aimed to give last-resort protection to heritage sites has proved almost useless in offering protection.
The commonwealth law aimed to give last-resort protection to heritage sites is almost useless in offering long-term protection.
Under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, there have been 539 applications for urgent ministerial intervention but only two sites remain protected.
About 200 of the applicants sought long-term protection for a threatened heritage site, yet successive environment ministers have made only seven such declarations since the act was created in 1984.
Of those, two were overturned by the Federal Court, two expired and one was revoked because the site gained protection under state law.
This is despite the act giving the federal environment minister substantive powers to intervene when state heritage regimes failed to protect indigenous sites.
The act was flagged as an avenue of last resort that Pilbara traditional owners could have pursued to save the 46,000-year-old Juukan Caves, which they had discovered were due to be destroyed only days before Rio Tinto set off blasts in May.
The figures show the act was unlikely to have provided enduring protection of such sites.
There are only two places where permanent protection under section 10 of the act remains in place, a sacred site and a cave in NSW that were declared last year.
The ministers have made other emergency declarations to protect sites for shorter periods of up to 60 days.
The act also protects heritage objects in collections or significant items put up for sale.
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