Farmers’ revolt threatens to stifle the Indigenous voice to parliament

WA farmers are ‘paralysed with fear’ because of new Aboriginal cultural heritage laws that loom as a key threat to the voice referendum.

National Farmers' Federation chief executive Tony Mahar.

The nation’s peak agricultural lobby says West Australian farmers are “paralysed with fear” and uncertain “what they can do on their own land” because of new Aboriginal cultural heritage laws that loom as a key threat to the voice referendum and Labor’s political dominance in the state.

The National Farmers Federation has sounded an alarm over Anthony Albanese’s plan to legislate a stand-alone national framework for Indigenous cultural heritage protections, saying the rollout of separate federal rules could “intensify the confusion in WA with overlapping federal laws”.

NFF chief executive Tony Mahar said “the (federal) government needs to learn from the mistakes of WA” following a fierce backlash to the introduction of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act in the state on July 1. “Nobody wants to damage cultural heritage, but at the moment the (state) laws are too open to interpretation. We’re hearing from farmers who are paralysed with fear, not certain what they can now do on their own land,” he said. “That shouldn’t be the case – it should be clear cut.”

WA Pastoralists and Graziers Association president Tony Seabrook said the shake-up to heritage laws in WA represented the “greatest attack on private property rights since federation”.

He urged the government to scrap them, saying the new cultural heritage laws had eroded support for Labor under Premier Roger Cook and would result in the state voting No in the voice referendum.

“They’ve rewritten the book on how to do the maximum amount of harm in the shortest amount of time,” Mr Seabrook said. “The voice is dead over here. The Premier has absolutely cooked it. If this can be imposed upon us without a Yes vote in the referendum, God save us if the voice gets up.”

Speaking in parliament on Nov­ember 24 last year, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek linked the government’s plan for a national rollout of cultural heritage protections to the voice – a connection that some Labor figures now believe could undermine the chances of a successful Yes vote.

“We’re protecting Indigenous cultural heritage for the same reason we’re supporting the Uluru Statement from the Heart and the voice to parliament,” she said.

“We are always a better country … when we give everyone a seat at the table.”

One senior WA Labor source told The Weekend Australian that “the voice has dominated the last three months and then that’s been conflated here with Aboriginal cultural heritage”.

“It’s looked like Labor is only focused on those issues which, for most people, are completely niche,” the source said.

“I’ve always thought that the voice was going to go down over here … people still don’t understand what the voice is and why we need to do it. I think the Yes camp and the government has failed to mount a retail argument for how this is going to help anybody.”

The WA state laws establish a complex three-tiered system requiring landholders to organise potentially costly heritage assessments through local Indigenous corporations before undertaking basic work on properties larger than 1100sq m.

Permits could be required for ground excavations of up to a depth of 1m, with Mr Seabrook saying this could include anything from “putting up a fence, laying a pipe underground to a water-point, putting up some sheep-yards or putting up a shed.”

The Albanese government agreed to legislate a national ­cultural heritage framework as recommended by a 2021 parlia­men­tary inquiry into the ­destruction of the caves at Juukan Gorge containing evidence of human life dating back 46,000 years.

The framework would be developed through a process of “co-design with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples” and set a series of minimum standards for state and territory protections.

Speculation has grown the government will wait until after the voice referendum before advancing any legislation, with a spokeswoman for Ms Plibersek saying: “We want to make sure we take the time necessary to get this right. We are committed to improving protections for First Nations cultural heritage and to provide clarity … for business.”

Opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Price said it would be “absolutely within the scope of the voice” to demand a national rollout of the WA laws while WA Liberal MP Andrew Hastie said the backlash to the new state laws from landholders was a just a “foretaste of what is to come from the voice”.

Yes supporters said WA cultural heritage laws were being exploited by the No campaign.

WA teal independent Kate Chaney said the “confused rollout of this updated law has been weaponised against the much bigger issue of the proposed voice”.

Former Coalition Indigenous Australians spokesman Julian Leeser said “the focus on the WA law is a clever scare tactic of the No campaign, but that law has absolutely nothing to do with the voice. It was created without a voice. The voice is about advice. It doesn’t make decisions.”