WA election: Brewery a blow for Labor candidate

A brewery on Aboriginal land threatens to blow up the Cook government’s chances in the seat of Mandurah at the state election next month.

WA Premier Roger Cook, left, with Mandurah candidate Rhys Williams.

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A brewery on Aboriginal land threatens to blow up the Cook government’s chances in the seat of Mandurah at the state election next month.

Labor candidate Rhys Wil­liams was already facing community anger over his support for the plan to allow a pub on a waterfront park when it emerged this week that the park is registered under the state’s little-used Aboriginal heritage laws.

Mr Williams was the mayor of the satellite city of Mandurah at crucial stages of the plan for a “leisure precinct” that the council predicts will draw 750,000 visitors a year.

He continues to support the development and so does the Labor-dominated council.

Residents who oppose the brewery have now joined forces with Noongar elder Ivy Bennell and other local Aboriginal people to fight the development.

In a letter to the Mandurah council on Tuesday, law firm Lavan Legal told the council the state government’s own register of Aboriginal heritage places includes a map of the foreshore in Mandurah that “clearly includes the location of the proposed ­development”.

It is listed as Winjan’s Camp and described on the register as a sensitive site under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972.

WA has highly restrictive ­Aboriginal heritage laws and successive governments – Liberal and Labor – have tried unsuccessfully to find lasting agreement on reform.

Two years ago, then registrar of Aboriginal places Ben Harvey warned local governments across WA: “It is worth noting that under the current act there are no exemptions. If you are doing anything – if you are cutting dead grass under the current act you need an approval”.

The Cook government replaced the state’s heritage laws briefly in July 2023 with a regime that provided exemptions to farmers, local government and other landholders for a category of works considered daily activities, for various new buildings and upgrades, and replacement if existing infrastructure such as roads and fences.

However, the laws had been in place for barely a month when the Cook government buckled to an outcry from landholders confused by the regulations.

The new, more permissive laws were repealed in August 2023 and the state reverted to the 1972 act that is highly punitive but had been only occasionally enforced.

Under the reinstated legislation, Toodyay farmer Tony Maddox was convicted last week for concreting an existing dirt road over a creek on his own property. Mr Maddox, 72, told The Australian he would never have been convicted under the Cook government’s short-lived Aboriginal heritage regime.

He said the Cook government’s fix for Aboriginal heritage was “much less nasty” than the laws that farmers are now stuck with. However, he said nobody seemed to understand that at the time.

On Tuesday, Lavan Legal told Mandurah council it must act in good faith and consult Aboriginal people about the proposed brewery development at the park.

This week Liberal leader Libby Mettam said, if elected on March 8, she would review and reform the state’s Aboriginal heritage laws.

Former Indigenous affairs minister Ben Wyatt said: “So basically Libby will review the act to introduce the reforms she demanded be repealed.”