Bob McMullan (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have pleasure in entering this debate to support the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Amendment Bill 2005, extremely disappointing as it is, and the second reading amendment moved by the member for Grayndler. I listened with interest to the member for O’Connor. I always try in these speeches to start by finding something in what the member opposite says that I agree with. I was battling right until the end when the member for O’Connor said that this bill will not do very much. I certainly agree with that, but I do not think much of anything else that he said.

It is a very disappointing piece of legislation. It is a piece of legislation with a gestation period that has been sufficiently long to have produced several elephants, but it does not produce even a mouse. It is a piece of legislation more noteworthy for what it fails to do than for what it does. It is just a stopgap measure to cover a few short-term problems. They are legitimate problems that I think needed to be addressed, and therefore the opposition have correctly said that we will not deny the bill a second reading and we will allow it to pass, but it does nothing about protecting Indigenous heritage. Not one extra piece of Indigenous heritage will be protected as a result of this legislation. Some minor useful bureaucratic things will happen better, and that is good—that is one thing we need to do—but not one extra piece of Indigenous heritage will be protected as a result of this legislation, unless the Victorian government uses the opportunity provided for it to take some initiative, because this legislation takes none.

It is consistent, in my view, with the general emerging weakness that we see in the Howard government’s approach to heritage protection, in its approach to Indigenous issues and in the Howard government overall after 10 years. It seems to me that this bill reflects all those features of a very tired government that has lost its shape. It is darting hither and thither, putting fingers in dykes in various small issues, but there is no pattern, no purpose, no agenda, and no plan for the future in any of the areas of important public policy, and certainly none reflected in this bill.

There are a number of features of the amendment which I agree with and which I will refer to indirectly because they are covered by other things I want to say on the bill, but I want to pick up on one in particular which I really welcome. That is proposition (4) in the amendment which goes to the call for a review of Indigenous heritage protection. Too often in this place we call for reviews when in fact what we mean is that we are opposed to something or we have an alternative view. But in this instance it is absolutely correct. I have not felt comfortable about proposing merely in 2006 that we should implement the Evatt report. I thought it was a very good report in its time, and had we implemented it when it was brought down it would have been a big step forward, but the world has changed in a decade and I think another review would be appropriate.

I would prefer that this legislation had some of the features of the Evatt report in it. It would be much better legislation than that which we have before us. I am not being critical of Elizabeth Evatt, whose report, while I do not agree with every dot and comma of it, was very important in its day. But let us have a new look, a fresh look, post native title. The state body of legislation is much better than it was 10 years ago, it is much more comprehensive, and we have a new piece of national heritage protection legislation. I am not a great fan of that act, but it is a new piece of legislation that has been in place for some time, some protections have been put in place under it and we have the effective operation of the moveable cultural heritage legislation.

So we are in a new situation, and we also have a different sense of Indigenous consciousness and a number of Indigenous people skilled in matters of heritage interpretation and experienced in the areas of heritage, museum management and cultural heritage who could really play a very fine role in such a review. To cite an example, without wishing to embarrass her because I have never discussed it with her, I can imagine Dawn Casey playing a terrific role in leading a review of Indigenous heritage. She ran the National Museum, she is now actively engaged in Western Australia, she has worked in Victoria, she has been a consultant and she is internationally respected in this area. Not only is she a person of Indigenous heritage who knows a lot about Indigenous heritage but also she has been a senior public servant and she understands the dynamics of government. So I think that is a very fine part of the amendment.

However, what really concerns me about this legislation is the extent to which it is a step back from the 2003 commitment by former Senator Hill that is referred to in the second reading amendment. I have a lot of respect for former Senator Hill. I have disagreed with him about things, but we were in the Senate together for a long time before he became a minister and I became an opposition member in the House of Representatives. I dealt with him often and I found him a person of integrity. When he gave me his word he kept it. Yet he came into the parliament in 2003 and promised that the government recognised the shortcomings of the existing system and that reform was long overdue and said he was anxious to have a new and better piece of legislation put in place as quickly as possible—but it never happened.

Was Senator Hill lying? No, I do not think he was. I think he meant it. I think he believed it was going to happen, and he got rolled. Why do I think that? I think it because there is a history. When I was shadow minister for Indigenous affairs and my friend and then colleague Senator Bolkus was the shadow minister for the environment, we negotiated an agreement with Senator Hill one evening while this House was sitting that we would support some legislation that he was introducing, provided there were some amendments. I will not go back over all the detail, but we came to an agreement and that legislation was going to go forward. In those days they needed some support other than from themselves for legislation to pass the Senate. The Greens and the Democrats would not support the legislation but we said that we would agree subject to those amendments.

Senator Hill agreed in good faith, I am in no doubt. I did not do the final discussion; Senator Bolkus did—but I think they came to a genuine agreement. What happened? Senator Hill got rolled by the National Party and he was never able to proceed with the proposition in accordance with our agreement. You could say that he welched on the agreement, but I do not believe that would be fair because I am sure that he acted in good faith and set out to use his best endeavours to implement the agreement that he had come to with us. He just got rolled in his party room—or in the cabinet, as I recall.

It was indicated at that time—and it is consistent with the latter part of that extraordinary speech from the member for O’Connor, Mr Tuckey—that the people who rolled Senator Hill then purported to speak on behalf of the mining industry in protecting them from the adverse consequences for them of the amendments being proposed for the Indigenous heritage legislation. I have to say, Mr Deputy Speaker, in my experience the mining industry is far ahead of the Howard government on Indigenous and heritage issues. I do not agree with all the positions taken by the Minerals Council on either heritage or Indigenous issues but I find them responsible, progressive and open. They are saying, for example: ‘Why is everybody worried about native title? We can work with native title.’ They are way ahead of the Howard government.

That is another reason why I think that if we had a review some of the fear mongering that was reflected in the contribution by the member for O’Connor, to the extent that he referred to the bill at all, would be dispelled. Time and again we find the agreement making that has flowed particularly from the native title legislation but also from some state Indigenous heritage legislation has created a very good relationship in many circumstances between miners and Indigenous groups. Just today we had another announcement of another mine going ahead as a result of an agreement with local Indigenous people. As I recall, it is in Queensland. I may be incorrect about that, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am pretty sure it is in Queensland. That range of agreements is a very healthy thing and I think that, with decent Indigenous heritage legislation paralleling native title and what is left of land rights legislation after this government has finished with it, we could have a very fine body of legislation to balance the legitimate economic interests of miners and the long-term heritage and cultural, social and economic interests of Indigenous people.

There is nothing wrong with the tiny steps this bill does take in providing certainty for international cultural loans. Of course we should do that. But it does not do anything about protecting heritage. It is a useful thing to do. If there were a problem, as the parliamentary secretary to the minister outlined in the second reading speech, it should have been remedied. This legislation does it, and I have no trouble with that, but it provides no extra protection. To clean up the anachronism with regard to Victoria, where legislation was introduced in 1987 to overcome an impasse between the then Cain Labor government and an intransigent Victorian upper house, and put Victoria on the same basis as all the other states and properly allow for Victoria to put in place decent Indigenous heritage legislation with a fallback position if it did not occur—all that is a proper thing to do and I support it; but in itself this legislation does not protect one extra piece of Indigenous heritage. I am optimistic that after the Victorian election, which will be held quite soon, the Labor government will be returned and it will be able to pass a better piece of Indigenous heritage legislation than we have at the Commonwealth level. But this legislation itself does nothing about protecting Indigenous heritage. There are some technical matters about subordinate legislation which are broadly okay; I think that if I had a look at the fine print I might not agree with every dot and comma of it, but broadly it is okay. But it is not about protecting Indigenous heritage. It is about the government’s agenda, not about an Indigenous agenda.

I heard today advice that, after we finish debating this bill tonight—and we will not finish it and pass it—the government are not going to proceed with it. They are going to push it to one side and proceed with their Indigenous corporations legislation. It is another example of the government running Indigenous affairs according to their agenda and not reflecting the interests of Indigenous people. Indigenous people are not out there saying, ‘We want a new bit of legislation about how we manage our corporations.’ Broadly, I think what is being proposed for Indigenous corporations is probably a step in the right direction. But this shift just shows the government’s priorities as well as reflecting, as I said earlier, a government that has lost its shape, that is dashing hither or thither with no pattern or purpose or agenda or plan for the future.

What is wrong with this legislation is that there is not one real step forward. It is not as if there are not issues. Ten years ago the Evatt inquiry was recommending respecting customary restrictions on information, protection from disclosure, guaranteed access rights to sites of recognised significance, minimum standards for state and territory cultural heritage laws, the establishment of Indigenous cultural heritage bodies and particularly going to questions about intellectual property.

All of those issues are outstanding today. The one thing that is probably not so necessary—although I think Commonwealth legislation still needs to address it, but it is not so pressing—is the question of minimum standards for state and territory cultural heritage laws. There has been significant improvement in every state with regard to that—certainly, in a substantial number of states; I think in all of them.

There are important issues being addressed with the new capacity the internet gives people to have layers of information password-protected so that that information can be protected digitally and disseminated broadly. But a subset of that information could be made accessible only to people with a particular level of knowledge within the Indigenous community, and that could be password protected and accessed only by those people. We should find the Commonwealth government giving assistance for those sorts of initiatives—modern ways of protecting heritage, making that which is generally available broadly available and protecting it for those people who have the right to special and sacred knowledge.

AIATSIS, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, based here in my electorate, has got some very promising propositions in that area that a government serious about addressing Indigenous heritage should be looking at. There may be a better proposition about than the Indigenous cultural network idea that I have seen at AIATSIS, and I would welcome that. It is not for me with my level of knowledge and expertise to say, ‘This is unquestionably the best proposition.’ But it is a direction in which we should go in protecting cultural heritage, preserving it and yet making it available—not locking it up so no-one can know and not making that which should be secret and sacred accessible to those who should not have access to it.

Modern technology allows us new ways of doing this. It was what the member for O’Connor could not seem to work out: heritage and cultures develop, change and evolve. I find his two propositions extraordinary. One is that nomadic people cannot have sacred sites—that would be a great revelation to a lot of nomadic cultures in countries all around the world; they would be amazed to find that it is inconsistent with a nomadic existence to have sacred sites. But I heard the member for O’Connor say it, and I am sure he believes it. Two, I was astonished to hear him say we did not need to protect the rock art at the Burrup because some of it was duplication. It would be terrible. Perhaps Monet painted too many haystacks, so we do not need to keep more than one; we could probably get rid of the rest and save a lot of money! It was one of those propositions where you have to pinch yourself to make sure you are awake when you hear it and then you say, ‘No, it’s really a nightmare.’

The one thing I will say about this legislation coming forward, poor and inadequate as it is, is that it gives us the opportunity to discuss the fact that Australian heritage needs to be protected. At the core of that protection is the need to protect the incredibly valuable and unique Indigenous heritage of this country. It is an obligation placed on our society—all of us; Indigenous and non-Indigenous—to recognise that we have in our country the world’s oldest living culture. We want to use our skills, our resources, our knowledge and modern technology to enable it to be protected. This legislation does nothing about that. That is why I support the amendment. I support the legislation because it will administratively make certain things operate more smoothly. I look forward to the review called for by the member for Grayndler and to an incoming Labor government actually introducing a decent piece of legislation that does something about protecting Indigenous heritage.

See this speech in context