Patrick Dodson (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Reconciliation) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] I wish to speak to the final report, tabled today by the Joint Committee on Northern Australia, on the destruction of Indigenous heritage sites at Juukan Gorge in Western Australia. Firstly, I commend the chairmanship of Mr Warren Entsch, who conducted the inquiry with fairness and sympathy. The committee's interim report, Never again, was published in December last year. It focused largely on what went wrong within Rio Tinto before and after the explosions on 24 May last year which destroyed the caves at Juukan Gorge. The nation was shocked and outraged. Australia's international reputation was seriously damaged, and we're still on trial about it. The caves have provided shelter to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples for over 40,000 years. Our committee was able to visit the site and hear firsthand the grief and trauma that the PKKP people had suffered as a result of the destruction of their heritage.

If indeed there's never to be another Juukan Gorge catastrophe, governments must act with integrity and urgency to fix the legislative regimes around the country that have been shown to be wholly inadequate. Let's not forget that the destruction of Juukan Gorge was licensed by the laws of Western Australia. The Aboriginal Heritage Act was never fit for purpose, if in fact that purpose was ever meant to adequately protect Aboriginal cultural heritage. That wholly inadequate legislation remains in law today. Section 18 exemptions have allowed wholesale destruction of Aboriginal cultural heritage sites across Western Australia. Mining companies continue to hold section 18 exemptions stating they can legally destroy similar cultural heritage without penalty. But the laws of other jurisdictions are just as deficient.

First Nations people are fearful that their already diminished heritage is at risk of further ruin and, with it, so is essential evidentiary material that supports their native title rights and interests. That's why our report recommended Commonwealth legislation to provide minimum standards for all states and territories. Some government members of the joint committee say there's no need for overarching Commonwealth legislation. I just cannot believe they hold that view after all the stories of heartache and distress in all parts of Australia that we heard about the loss of Aboriginal culture and that we heard from Aboriginal witnesses in the course of our inquiry. Theirs is not a majority position. It's very clear where the balance of public opinion on this issue is.

On this side of politics, we want to see urgent legislation that gives real meaning to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, emphasises the concept of free, prior and informed consent and gives people a right to say no to the destruction of their cultural heritage. We want to see ministerial responsibility for Indigenous heritage matters moved from the Minister for the Environment to the Minister for Indigenous Australians. Existing Commonwealth laws, as unsatisfactory as they are, should have provided remedy for the PKK people when they came knocking on the door of Canberra. Instead, the PKKP got the run-around and experienced only inertia and uninterest in ministerial and departmental offices.

For too long, governments have turned a blind eye to the widespread destruction of the heritage of First Nations peoples. It's been nearly a year and a half since the explosions at the Juukan caves reverberated across the world. What has this government done over that time to give comfort to First Nations peoples that they'll never see another Juukan Gorge? Very little—in fact, nothing at all. All we hear from the other side is this nonsense about how better laws and regulations can be used as deliberate weapons against the resource sector. But the evidence we heard from the sector itself during our inquiry acknowledges that things must change. Especially we heard support from the mining industry for upholding the principle of free, prior and informed consent and removing from contracts gag clauses that limit the rights of First Nations peoples that seek redress when their heritage is threatened.

From the earliest times of colonial settlement, there's been no appreciation of the intrinsic value which First Nations peoples attach to their heritage. The widespread, enormous destruction of ancient materials that accompanied the occupation of this land of the First Nations peoples has served to obliterate the connection to country and the prima facie proof of their native title in these lands. Real property rights have been trashed without compensation.

What became apparent during the joint committee's inquiry was the weight of demand endured by native title holders who have to deal with the well-resourced mining sector, especially in the Pilbara. Native title representative bodies and prescribed bodies corporate are clearly underresourced. Some have had to use compensation money to respond to the demands placed on them by the industry, therefore limiting their own capacity to leverage their opportunities. There's a fundamental imbalance here.

But getting governments to face up to their responsibilities has always been a difficult exercise. The private sector has shown itself to be more ready and willing to improve its performance. It's demonstrated more leadership than this government. Driven, perhaps, by commercial imperatives and the pressure from shareholders, the outrage over the destruction of the Juukan Gorge prompted investors to call for sanctions. The protection of Aboriginal cultural heritage is now not only a moral and ethical issue; it's now an issue of economic risk. The government should at least recognise that, in this space, that alone should be sufficient reason for the Commonwealth and state governments to reshape their cultural heritage laws and their relationships with First Nations.

The nexus with the Native Title Act was also a matter that came to our attention, and the real need for an inquiry into various sections of the future acts regime under which many of these native title holders operate. They feel very much under duress and at a disadvantage, even to the extent of criticisms about the National Native Title Tribunal itself.