Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

A couple of months ago the environment minister did something that happens very rarely in this place: she listened to traditional owners and made a declaration to protect First Nations cultural heritage. This was the first time Minister Plibersek had used her power under the federal Aboriginal heritage protection act to protect sacred heritage.

The federal heritage protection act is a last line of defence for First Peoples and only applies when state or territory legislation has failed. The declared area in this decision is the area which comprises part of the Belubula River, its headwaters and its springs on Wiradjuri country at Kings Plains near Blayney in New South Wales.

Kings Plains contains a multitude of cultural sites of significance, particularly at the headwaters of the Belubula River. The Kings Plains region sits between the three brothers: Gaanha Bula, Guhanawalnyi and Wahluu. The three brothers dreaming story is well known in the region and songlines transverse this area between the three mountains. There are other dreaming stories related specifically to the headwaters of the Belubula, meaning the springs above and the river below. These stories cannot be shared due to cultural sensitivity.

Since colonisation, First Peoples have asserted our ensuring sovereign rights to manage, access and care for country. This includes our right and responsibility to maintain and protect our tangible and intangible cultural heritage including the lands, waters, skies, our sacred sites and our songlines.

Wiradjuri elders and custodians have asserted their sovereign rights to protect their sacred heritage. They have done by this using one of the only tools that First Peoples have to avoid destruction of their heritage: by making an application under the federal heritage protection act. This happened back in 2020 and was followed by a comprehensive assessment that included independent reporting and mapping of significant sites. There were significant delays to the decision, which eventually told us what Wiradjuri elders have known for thousands and thousands of years. They know their country, and they know where their sacred sites and dreaming stories are.

Following the minister's decision last month, we have seen a full-scale assault by the coalition, the business and mining lobbyists, and the Murdoch media. It has been relentless with stories on Sky News and in the Australian every day attacking the environment minister for simply listening to traditional owners. It is clear that certain groups, like the coalition and mining industry, claim to support protecting First Peoples' cultural heritage until it impacts their bottom lines.

Our heritage laws, like our environment laws, are not broken. These laws have been carefully designed by the government and industry to allow for the continuation of the systematic plundering and exploitation of country, displacement of First Peoples and desecration of our cultural tangible and intangible heritage. The loopholes that riddle the legislation were created so that big industry, particularly agriculture and mining, would be able to do what they have done since colonisation: rape, pillage, plunder and pollute the lands, waters and skies of this continent with little to no regard for the destruction caused to our sacred sites, our totems and our songlines. This ecocidal project is an act of cultural genocide, and it continues to this day.

When politicians have actually used their power to protect country, the political backlash has been swift and severe. It's been so severe that Prime Minister Albanese has had to step in and undermine his environment minister. In the last few weeks, he's shown just how willing he is to bend over backwards for the Minerals Council and the Business Council. This shows that the mining industry expects the Labor government to do its bidding. What else are all its donations for? When Labor steps out of line, the industry teams up with the Murdoch media to punish them. Governments are supposed to work for the community—not for themselves and not for the corporations. This bill, the Blayney Gold Mine Bill 2024, which is the latest attack from the coalition, seeks to override the minister's section 10 decision and prevent any further cultural heritage processes happening on the proposed mine site.

First Peoples have not ceded our sovereignty. This means we have not given up our sovereign rights and responsibilities to care for the lands, waters and skies of this continent. This is why we want a treaty, so that each sovereign nation across the continent can self-determine its own aspirations and assert its sovereign rights to care for country and protect sacred sites. Treaty will avoid some of the issues that have come up here by ensuring that the right people with the authority to speak for country are properly consulted and that their rights to free, prior and informed consent are upheld. Native title should be abolished in this country. Native title is a racist piece of legislation that only divides our families and communities. It pits us against one another. Mining companies won't be able to pick off a particular land council or native title body only to be challenged years later for doing so. They will have to respect the cultural authority of language groups and ensure all families and knowledge holders are involved in decision-making so that First Nations can self-determine our own aspirations.

Treaty offers a pathway forward that respects the rights, knowledge and expertise of First Peoples. The federal government has committed to truth and treaty, and it needs to make good on these promises. The federal government must begin treaty negotiations with all sovereign First Peoples as a matter of urgency to enable all language groups to uphold their cultural authority over country, self-determine their own aspirations and have greater control over decisions relating to the management of country, rather than the mission management style that this government uses to undermine our people.

We know that our cultural heritage laws are failing First Peoples. It has been three years since the inquiry into the destruction of Juukan Gorge and A way forward, the final report, recommended a total overhaul of cultural heritage protections in this country and mapped out a pathway for reform. But we are still waiting. The recommendations from the 2021 Juukan Gorge inquiry are still yet to be fully implemented. What do you know? Every day that these recommendations wait to be implemented, sacred sites and songlines risk being further destroyed. There is an urgent need for new standalone cultural heritage legislation, including protections for intangible cultural heritage and underwater cultural heritage.

The Albanese Labor government committed to implementing these recommendations and mapped out its commitments to First Peoples in its Nature Positive Plan, including new standalone legislation and a national environmental standard on First Nations participation and engagement in decision-making. Yet we are six months out from an election and still have seen no evidence of any progress. Labor says one thing and Labor does something else. It's all words and no action.

While the government stalls on cultural heritage protections, there are tragedies like the destruction of Juukan Gorge happening all over the continent. This includes Binybara, which you may know as Lee Point, where earlier this year Minister Plibersek rejected a section 10 application by the Larrakia custodians and paved the way for Defence Housing Australia to destroy the sacred sites and dreaming stories situated at Binybara. That's not to mention the section 10 application at Murujuga, which the minister has been sitting on for years now, leaving Murujuga custodians waiting for a decision while they watch their sacred rock art, a worldwide wonder, being destroyed. Murujuga traditional custodian Raelene Cooper said recently:

I am heartbroken, devastated and furious that our governments continue to allow Woodside to destroy our sacred rock art, our songlines and our precious marine sanctuaries.

I have now been waiting more than two years for a Section 10 application I filed in early 2022 under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act.

In those two years the development on Murujuga has continued unimpeded, and there has been irreversible and irreplaceable damage to my Ngurra. The rock art has been moved and the damage has already been done. We are still waiting for any protection for our cultural heritage.

As far as I am concerned, we have now exhausted every avenue, every mechanism and every protection available to us as traditional custodians trying to care for our Country, and we still don't have any defence against industry.

The federal government must progress its work program for strengthening protections for country and First Peoples' tangible and intangible cultural heritage as a matter of urgency—if you really care—including through the establishment of transparent timelines and broad public consultation processes, not the ones with mining companies but the ones with our people. You must allow for appropriate scrutiny and accountability. The federal Labor government must implement in full all recommendations from the 2021 A way forward report into the destruction of Juukan Gorge, including the introduction of new standalone cultural heritage legislation, as a matter of urgency.

Everyone speaks of being committed to First Nations justice in this country. The earrings and the designer Aboriginal clothing that you walk in here wearing and your dot paintings on the wall—they're all nice and fluffy for you, and they make you feel nice. You might even have an Aboriginal friend, but you do nothing in this place. You actually do nothing around justice for my people, justice for this land and justice for this water that we all depend on. Our future generations depend on clean drinking water, but this place doesn't care about that.

This place cares about the bottom line of a vote and about being in bed with mining companies and corporations who donate large sums of money to both major parties, so they're basically buying votes. When I had the Minerals Council's CEO come and loiter outside my door asking for my vote, she said to me, 'If you vote for us and help us, we will support deaths in custody.' That's what she said—the audacity of these people. Where is the care? Where is the empathy? That's what we're dealing with.

The only way forward in this country is with a treaty. It will end the war against our people, which is ongoing. If this government had the will and put their money where their mouths were, they'd entertain this, but they're so scared of losing this next election that they'll scrape the bottom of the barrel to be mates with the coalition so that they may get elected next time. Well, if you do nothing about black justice while you've got a little bit of time left, then I'll encourage everybody to not support this government ever again.

That's why we need more black sovereigns and more Independents in this place so that the Aboriginal people in this space are not managed by a whitefella. If you look at all the parties, they're all white men. You've got Dutton, Albo and Adam Bandt, so the black people in these parties are kneeling to a white master. We're not going to get anywhere that way. We need more of me. We need more Independents who are loud and proud and not part of the native police.