Journal
of the Australian Association
Journal of the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists, Issue 1, 2013: 1-10
of Consulting Archaeologists
Volume 4 (Supplement), 2016
Journal of the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists, Volume 4 (Supplement): xx-xx
Aboriginal Heritage Law Reform in NSW: ‘no future’?
STEVE BROWN
Steve Brown (University of Sydney, steve.brown@sydney.edu.au)
In its simplest form, a law or policy reform process requires a problem, an agreed position (or
‘solution’), and political will. The New South Wales (NSW) Aboriginal Heritage Law Reform
Process lacks both an agreed position and political will, despite laudable intentions by
government, Aboriginal groups, archaeologists and heritage practitioners. After seven years,
there is no agreed model for stand-alone Aboriginal cultural heritage legislation and, using the
issue of ‘who speaks for Country’ as a stalling mechanism, there is no ‘reform’. In this paper, I
background the rocky road to no reform and touch on three of many stumbling blocks: a failure
to conceptualise the nature of NSW’s Aboriginal heritage, poorly framed and implemented
consultation processes, and a pervasive attitude of anti-intellectualism. Until these matters are
thoughtfully and effectively addressed, the road to reform will be long and winding, destination
unknown.
Introduction
In 2010, the NSW Constitution was amended to
acknowledge and honour Aboriginal people as
the state’s first people and nations. In the same
year, the NSW Labor Government committed to
the development of stand-alone Aboriginal
cultural heritage legislation. This commitment,
supported by both major parties in the then NSW
State Parliament, was a response to calls from
Aboriginal people to remove Aboriginal heritage
management provisions from the NSW National
Parks and Wildlife Act 1974. These provisions, it
was argued, equated Aboriginal people with the
plants and animals of NSW, echoing colonial
constructions of Aboriginal people as part of the
faunal assemblage of the State (NSW Aboriginal
Land Council 2010: 5). Thus, in 2010, Aboriginal
communities and the Parliament were of the same
opinion: separate Aboriginal heritage legislation
was a necessary and powerful anti-colonial
symbol and empowering action.
More than seven years on (September 2016) there
has been no delivery on the February 2010
commitment. Politics has and continues to play a
role in this failure. For example, on 4 September
2014 the Hon. Mark Speakman, Minister for the
Environment, Minister for Heritage, and
Assistant Minister for Planning, raised the issue
of ‘who speaks for Country’ as a reason for the
delay in progressing the Aboriginal law reform
process. In response to questioning, Minister
Speakman stated:
In September 2013 the Government released
a proposed model for stand-alone Aboriginal
cultural
heritage
legislation.
We
subsequently had extensive consultation.
Yes, there has been a delay, but at the end of
the day it is more important to get things
right than to cut corners. This area is
extremely sensitive. There are difficult
issues. One difficult issue is who speaks for
country. This is answering your question
because I am explaining why it has taken
this time. One issue we will have to grapple
with is who speaks for country. We
Article History: Received 11/05/2016, Accepted 15/09/2016, Published 01/11/2016
Journal of the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists, Volume 4 (Supplement): xx-xx
exhibited a model in 2013, where we tried to
have traditional owners do that. As I
understand it, the New South Wales
Aboriginal Land Council, among others,
preferred a model where the land councils
are the interlocutors, if you like. That is a
difficult issue to resolve. It is a sensitive
issue and we want to take the time to do it
properly. At the end of the day, we want to
get the right answer rather than cut corners
and end up in the wrong spot because we are
more interested in expediency than a good
outcome.1
Equally, and beyond stalling and evasion within
the arena of State politics, there have been
shortcomings
within
the
public-sector
administration of the NSW legislative reform
process. That is, the NSW Office of Environment
and Heritage (OEH), responsible for overseeing
the reform process, has, in my view, shown a lack
of leadership and capacity to advocate for
legislative change. In this paper, I draw on public
information and personal knowledge, experience,
and perceptions of the legislative reform process.
In the period 2010 to 2013, I was employed as a
Cultural Heritage Researcher within the OEH,
during which time I periodically undertook
research, developed public information and
participated in consultation processes as part of
the NSW Aboriginal heritage law reform process.
My critiques centre on failures to conceptualise
the nature of NSW’s Aboriginal material
heritage, the inadequate conception and
implementation of face-to-face consultation
workshops, and the anti-intellectualism of the
reform process. While my arguments might be
dismissed
as
‘embittered
ex-employee
syndrome’, my concern (in Latourian terms) is to
highlight problems within government that have
served to complicate and destabilise the genuine
and broadly agreed commitment in 2010 for
1
General Purpose Standing Committee No. 5. 4 September 2014.
Examination of proposed expenditure for the portfolio areas – The
Environment, Heritage. Available at:
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/committee.nsf/0/
2507420d743bce8aca257eb90002994f/$FILE/150904%20UNCOR
RECTED%20-%20Environment%20Heritage%20(Speakman).pdf
[1 December 2015]
stand-alone Aboriginal heritage legislation for
NSW. While there is a need for both getting it
right (to reference Minister Speakman) and
getting it done, the former is not a credible reason
for failing to achieve the latter.
A background to Aboriginal heritage
legislation in NSW
Although there is a history of calls in NSW for
legislation to preserve and protect ‘Aboriginal
sites’ dating back to 1889, it was not until 80
years later that legal protection commenced
(Table 1). The initial legislation, the NSW
National Parks and Wildlife (Amendment) Act
1969, incorporated provisions for the blanket
protection of all Aboriginal ‘relics’ (objects and
sites). The Amendment was driven by a desire to
halt the private collecting of Aboriginal ‘relics’,
in particular stone artefacts and human remains
from surface and buried contexts. It is notable for
its failure to make mention of the living
Aboriginal people of NSW and their culture. The
framing was of course typical of its time and
similar contemporary ‘relics’ legislation, but not
congruent with present day views on the
continuity between Aboriginal heritage and the
State’s living Aboriginal culture (Byrne 2013).
Although Aboriginal heritage management after
1969 initially focused on what heritage
practitioners would now frame as archaeological
or scientific values of Aboriginal heritage places,
things soon changed. In particular, the National
Parks and Wildlife Service’s (NPWS) Sites of
Significance Survey (1973-83), instigated by
Sharon Sullivan and led by anthropologist
Howard
Creamer
and
Aboriginal
researcher/activist Ray Kelly, documented
aspects of the ‘living heritage’ of Aboriginal
people in NSW (Kijas 2005). The survey
recorded deep time storied places (including
‘sacred sites’) as well as post-contact places such
as missions, cemeteries, and fringe camps. As a
consequence of this work, the revised NSW
National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 made
provision for the gazettal of ‘Aboriginal Places’:
that is, ‘places of special significance with respect
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Journal of the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists, Volume 4 (Supplement): xx-xx
to Aboriginal culture’. This provision was the
first recognition of the idea of intangible heritage,
whether Indigenous or non-Indigenous, in NSW
heritage legislation.
Despite the work of the Sites of Significance
Survey, the 1970s and 1980s in NSW are notable
for the privileged position given to archaeology
and regulatory regimes that relied heavily on
archaeological expertise. During this period,
Australian legislatures for the most part evolved
quite robust and efficient regulatory systems that
were archaeologically based – including
development impact assessment and permitting
systems. The period is also notable for the
formulation, by Australia ICOMOS, of the first
iterations of the Burra Charter, notable for its
inclusion of the phrase ‘places of cultural
significance’ and adoption of the concept of
‘social value’. During the 1980s, the NSW
Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 led to the
establishment of a network of Local Aboriginal
Land Councils (or LALCs) across NSW. The
legislation provided for LALCs to protect and
promote awareness of Aboriginal culture and
heritage. Today the LALC network comprises
120 councils divided into nine regions.
The 1990s was the decade when Native Title was
recognised by Australia’s High Court, Aboriginal
co-management of national parks was enabled,
and the Australian Government established its
Indigenous Protected Areas program. It was also
during this period that the NSW Government,
whilst retaining a largely archaeological
definition of Aboriginal heritage in legislation,
began to adopt a broader view of Aboriginal
heritage in its policies and practice, as well as
using language that recognised and respected the
importance of cultural heritage to Aboriginal
communities. During the 2000s, Aboriginal
heritage gained further prominence within the
NSW Government as Aboriginal people
increasingly occupied senior management roles
and Aboriginal heritage and culture was
integrated into a State-wide, government-led
program titled Two Ways Together (2003-2013)
that aimed to improve quality of life for
Aboriginal people and their communities.
From the mid-1970s, there has been a long and
complex history of calls for reform of the NSW
Aboriginal heritage legislation (NSW Aboriginal
Land Council 2010; OEH 2010). The most
notable attempts relate to the work of the NSW
Select Committee of the Legislative Assembly
upon Aborigines (the Keane Committee; 19781981), established by the Wran Labor
Government in 1978; and the NSW Aboriginal
Cultural Heritage Working Group (1993-1996)
established by the Fahey Liberal Government.
Few of the foremost recommendations of these
committees were supported or implemented.
After 2010: the promise of ‘stand-alone’
Aboriginal heritage legislation for NSW
In February 2010, the NSW Labor Government
committed to the development of stand-alone
legislation for Aboriginal cultural heritage
(ACH), promising delivery within a two-year
period. To summarise events from 2010, three
chronological phases can be identified.
Phase 1: Beginnings
In October 2011, the NSW Liberal Government
established an Aboriginal Culture and Heritage
Reform Working Party. It comprised ‘a group of
experts who will advise the Government on
options for stand-alone legislation to manage and
protect Aboriginal culture and heritage in NSW’
(OEH 2011: Minister’s foreword; OEH 2012c:
31). The working party initially proposed the
following reform timetable: (1) initial community
and stakeholder engagement and consultation
(three months); (2) collation of feedback and
development of an options paper (three months);
(3) second community and stakeholder
engagement and consultation on options paper
(three months); and (4) Working Party to provide
report and recommendations to Minister
(September 2012).
The first stage engagement and consultation
process (November-December 2011) comprised
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Journal of the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists, Volume 4 (Supplement): xx-xx
26 regional Aboriginal community workshops
(attended by 340 Aboriginal people) and five
roundtables for industry, government and
environmental and heritage interest groups (120
attendees) (OEH 2012c). Consultation focused
on: defining Aboriginal culture and heritage;
managing Aboriginal culture and heritage;
ownership of Aboriginal culture and heritage;
speaking for Country; land-use planning and
development processes; and natural resource
management processes. In advance of the
consultation
process,
a
comprehensive
background research report (Brown et al. 2011)
was prepared though, as discussed below, it was
never made publicly available.
Phase 2: A revised law reform process
In late 2011, as the initial consultation phase was
occurring, the NSW Liberal Government
announced a revised law reform process. The first
Reform Working Party was disbanded and a
second Working Party was constituted in May
2012 (Laing & Stanford 2015: 89; OEH 2013a:
1). In June/July 2012, 11 regional feedback
forums took place to communicate the findings of
the first stage consultation process and, in
response to Aboriginal community requests, to
deliver information on Aboriginal heritage
legislation (OEH 2012a, b).
The second Working Party developed and
provided to the NSW Government a report and
recommendations at the end of 2012. The report
was published as a discussion paper in September
2013 (OEH 2013a). In its published discussion
paper, the
Working Party made
23
recommendations that sought ‘a fair and equitable
balanced model for all stakeholders involved in
the
process’.
There
were
six
key
recommendations: new stand-alone ACH
legislation; a new administrative structure;
processes to consider Aboriginal cultural heritage
early in the planning processes; local decisions by
local people; streamlined conservation and
regulation
processes;
and
funding
for
conservation outcomes.
Phase 3: A model for new legislation
proposed
In October 2013, in response to the discussion
paper, as well as previous public feedback, the
NSW Government issued a proposed model for
stand-alone ACH legislation (OEH 2013b). The
model proposed an administrative structure based
on the existing LALC network as a basis for local
ACH decision making, including requirements
for LALCs to prepare and implement valuesbased ‘Community Land and Business Plans’ that
were to incorporate maps identifying areas of
high, low and no ACH value.
The model was the subject of a third consultation
process (November 2013 to March 2014).
Nineteen public workshop sessions were held
throughout NSW and additional feedback from
this process comprised 147 written submissions
and 67 completed questionnaires. 2 In general,
there was disagreement concerning the LALC
framework model, opposition to the preparation
of significance-based mapping products, and a
concern that mandatory timeframes were
unnecessarily short. Since the completion of that
consultation process there have been no public
announcements or information concerning ‘next
steps’ (Laing & Stanford 2015: 89). Except of
course for Minister Speakman’s furphy to ‘get
things right’.3
A critique: concept, consultation, and
anti-intellectualism
In this section, I touch on three critical issues in
the ACH law reform process. There are of course
many other issues in the complex arena of
Aboriginal heritage management, but I choose
these ones because I am able to draw on
knowledge and personal experience, as well as
published literature, in discussing them.
2
Available at:
<http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/achreform/ACHsubmission.ht
m>. [20 September 2016]
3
A furphy is Australian slang for a rumour, or an erroneous or
improbable story, but usually claimed to be absolute fact.
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Journal of the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists, Volume 4 (Supplement): xx-xx
Conceptualising the Aboriginal heritage
of NSW
When the NSW Parliament passed the National
Parks and Wildlife (Amendment) Act 1969 and
thereby afforded ‘blanket protection’ to all
Aboriginal material remains across NSW, the
legislators were likely unaware of how many
Aboriginal ‘sites’ actually existed in the state
(Brown et al. 2011: 12; Smith 2000: 114; K
Sullivan 1986). The number of ‘sites’ currently
registered on the NSW Aboriginal Heritage
Information Management System exceeds
60,000, a figure that would have seemed
unimaginable
to
parliamentarians
and
archaeologists in the 1960s.
The notion of ‘sites’ has long been pervasive in
archaeological theory and practice and, from the
1960s, sites as discrete assemblages of material
traces of past human presence entered into
Australian Aboriginal heritage legislation. By
contrast, the Aboriginal English concept of
‘Country’ has become increasingly recognised for
its
whole-of-landscape
meaning.
For
contemporary Australian Aboriginal people, the
concept of ‘caring for Country’ is a complex
notion related both to personal and group
belonging and to maintaining and looking after
the ecological and spiritual wellbeing of the land
and of oneself. Caring for Country in Aboriginal
cosmology is a phrase encompassing all parts of
the landscape and seascape, as well as people and
non-human species. Within the meaning of
Country, the idea of ‘sites’, where it exists, is but
a small part of a bigger cosmological whole. The
point I am making here is that ACH is Country
for most Aboriginal people and communities. It is
an Aboriginal perspective on heritage value
neither encompassed by NSW Aboriginal
heritage legislation nor adequately incorporated
into NSW’s heritage management system.
The history of valuing Indigenous stone artefacts
provides a useful illustration of changing ideas of
heritage and the dynamism of contemporary
Aboriginal heritage. Ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological research (e.g. McBryde 1978) has
shown how stone tools were widely ascribed both
intangible and functional meanings by Aboriginal
people at the time of European settlement.
Increasingly over the nineteenth and early to midtwentieth
centuries,
Aboriginal
cultural
knowledge concerning stone artefacts lessened
and changed as access to stone sources and the
use of stone artefacts diminished. By the 1970s,
when the field of commercial or developer-driven
archaeology was expanding in south-east
Australia, Aboriginal people engaged in the field
retained little (though still some) ‘traditional’
information on the use and meanings of stone
artefacts. This placed Aboriginal people in the
uncomfortable position of having the technical
aspects of stone artefacts, their heritage,
‘explained’ to them by non-Indigenous
archaeologists. Over the following decades this
situation both continued and changed markedly.
Initially Aboriginal people acquired the technical
language of archaeology to describe and discuss
stone artefacts (i.e., they learned to talk-the-talk)
and thus the ability to participate in the dominant
discourse of NSW ACH. Equally, Aboriginal
connection to stone objects took on contemporary
social meanings (i.e., artefacts became significant
as material proof and affective markers of the
presence of ancestors) and spiritual ties (i.e., able
to transmit ‘special feelings’ connected with
familial ancestors and ‘power’ associated with
find locales). (see Byrne 2013; Harrison 2004:
198-200)
In my experience, these new and powerful social
and spiritual meanings ascribed and experienced
by Aboriginal people are rarely recognised in
heritage practice (e.g., OEH 2013c; Queensland
Museum 2011), and were never acknowledged in
the NSW ACH law reform process. That is,
material traces of past Aboriginal presence, and
especially stone artefacts, have continued to be
viewed in the legislative reform process as
‘archaeological’ and thus distinct and separate in
their materiality (not only values) from
Aboriginal ownership (and valuing). By failing to
conceptualise the nature of NSW’s Aboriginal
heritage as Country enlivened by affective things,
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Journal of the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists, Volume 4 (Supplement): xx-xx
the ACH law reform process will continue to be
challenged in gaining Aboriginal community
support.
Design
and
implementation
consultation processes
of
The three phases of community participation
applied during the NSW ACH law reform process
included a series of face-to-face ‘consultation’
workshops, meetings and forums. These events,
enacted as part of the ACH law reform process,
were well intended (and moderately well
attended) but, from my experience, poorly
conceived, executed, documented and synthesised
(e.g. evident in OEH 2012c). My experience is
also reflected in similar concerns expressed by
the NSW Aboriginal Land Council (2014: 11-12).
In large part, I suggest, this is because the
consultation process and face-to-face events were
only ever framed as ‘consultation’.
Consultation in Sherry Arnstein’s ‘ladder of
citizen participation’ is a form of tokenism
(Arnstein 1969; Johnston & Buckley 2001). For
Arnstein,
Inviting citizens' opinions, like informing
them, can be a legitimate step toward their
full participation. But if consulting them is
not combined with other modes of
participation, this rung of the ladder is still a
sham since it offers no assurance that citizen
concerns and ideas will be taken into
account. The most frequent methods used for
consulting people are attitude surveys,
neighborhood meetings, and public hearings.
When powerholders restrict the input of
citizens' ideas solely to this level,
participation remains just a window-dressing
ritual. (Arnstein 1969:219)
Within its own document on Working with
Aboriginal People and Communities, the NSW
Government (2009: 31) makes a distinction
between a consultation process (‘used to seek
information, advice or an opinion, permission or
approval for a proposed action’) and a negotiation
process (‘used to confer with others in order to
reach a compromise or agreement’). At no stage
was the ACH law reform process articulated as
‘negotiation’, and consequently no authority was
conferred to, or real power shared with,
Aboriginal community members being consulted.
In this respect the process was top-down,
controlled by the Minister, senior government
bureaucrats and, to an unknown extent, the
members of the Aboriginal Culture and Heritage
Reform Working Party. The process stands in
contrast to notions of genuine engagement, as
defined by Janet Hunt,
Engagement requires a relationship built on
trust and integrity: it is a sustained
relationship between groups of people
working towards shared goals; on the
spectrum of engagement, a high level of
participation works better than lower levels
(such as consultation) where problems are
complex. (Hunt 2013: 1)
Finally, the level of consultation applied in the
law reform process, and anticipated by the NSW
Government proposed model, has been
questioned with regard to compliance with
Article 18 of The United Nations Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous People, to which
Australia is a signatory (Hunt 2014; NSW
Aboriginal Land Council 2014).
The role of research
As part of the governmental approach to the ACH
law reform process, a 250-page research paper
(Brown et al. 2011) was produced that described
and compared the situation of Indigenous heritage
legislation and management in different
Australian and overseas jurisdictions (New
Zealand and Canada). The paper’s purpose was to
serve as a resource document for the Aboriginal
Culture and Heritage Reform Working Party as
well as for community members seeking to gain a
comprehensive historical background to and key
trends in Aboriginal heritage management in
Australia. The paper was compiled over a threemonth period by five government-based
researchers in advance of the 2011 community
and stakeholder engagement and consultation
process. Various summaries of the report were
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Journal of the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists, Volume 4 (Supplement): xx-xx
subsequently prepared (OEH 2012a, b), though
the report was never made public. The exact
reasons are unclear, though at the time there was
considerable discussion concerning: (1) the
report’s acknowledgement of the communitybased approach to Indigenous heritage evident in
‘second-wave’ Queensland and Victorian
legislation as well as approaches adopted in New
Zealand and Canada, and (2) recognition of the
need to take account of the principles of Native
Title (again as in the Queensland and Victorian
legislation).
While the reasons for withholding the resource
document are uncertain, my experience then and
feelings now are of an over-riding antiintellectualism in the administration of the ACH
law reform process. There seemed to be an
obsessive desire to ‘keep it simple stupid’ (the
KISS principle) and a seemingly perverse
characterisation of all community members as
unable or unwilling to engage in informed debate.
In addition, many of the materials published on
the NSW Government webpages adopt a generic
rhetoric of ‘real protection’, ‘broader approach’,
‘stronger voice for Aboriginal people’, ‘better
integration’, ‘consistency of process’, ‘best
practice’, ‘Government efficiency’, etc, none of
which is underpinned by evidence-based critical
discussion. The effect of this discourse has been
to obscure and complicate effective community
engagement with practical and workable
arrangements concerning new Aboriginal heritage
legislation. I argue that without well-researched
materials that judiciously analyse approaches and
lessons from other jurisdictions, informed
discussion and debate is smothered when
attempting not to rock the political boat.
‘No future’?
At various points in the Aboriginal law reform
process, commentary has circulated arguing that
the archaeological regulatory system is functional
and consequently should be fundamentally
retained. In this view, reform is about bolstering
Aboriginal participation and ensuring recognition
of cultural values alongside ‘scientific’ or
archaeological value. And therein lies a position
that would perpetuate a situation that has existed
in NSW Aboriginal heritage legislation since
1974; that is, a notion of sharing authority
between archaeological and Aboriginal expertise.
In my view, it is not enough to bring Aboriginal
community values into new Aboriginal heritage
legislation. Rather, true reform can only be
achieved when the rhetoric of custodianship and
ownership is made real and Aboriginal people
recognised as the relevant experts and most
qualified to manage or curate objects and
Country. Such a situation is not incompatible
with archaeological investigation. For example,
work by Shelley Greer (2010) shows that
archaeologists open to the more-than-secular
meaning of shell middens, and landscape and
Country more generally, can work within a
framework in which local values and archaeology
are ‘interactive’. Following this example, power
is gained in undertaking archaeological work
when Aboriginal communities are empowered.
Perhaps it might be best to finish with reference
to the Sex Pistols, who famously screamed from
vinyl that the English monarchy has ‘no future’.
Unless things change in terms of political will
and an agreed legislative approach, nor it seems
does the seven-year long NSW Aboriginal
heritage law reform process.
Acknowledgements
I thank the editors of this volume for inviting me
to present at the 2015 Australian Archaeology
Association workshop on ‘Cultural Heritage
Management and Law in Australia’ and to
develop the presentation into a paper. I also
recognise and express my appreciation to
colleagues who have shaped and influenced my
thinking about the NSW law reform process,
including Denis Byrne, Caroline Ford, Emma
Dortins and Alex Roberts, though none have read
or contributed directly to drafts of this paper. I
thank Caroline Bird and Jim Rhoads for review
comments on a draft of the paper, which have
considerably improved the final version. Any
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Journal of the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists, Volume 4 (Supplement): xx-xx
errors of fact or vagaries of meaning remain my
own.
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/20120401system.pdf >. [20 September 2016].
Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) 2012b, Aboriginal
heritage legislation in NSW: comparing the NSW Aboriginal
heritage system with other Australian systems, Sydney South:
NSW
Government.
Available
from:
<http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/cultureheritage
/20120402comparison.pdf >. [20 September 2016].
Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) 2012c, Aboriginal
heritage legislation in NSW: phase 1 consultations – summary
of feedback, Sydney South: NSW Government. Available from:
<http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/cultureheritage
/20120403phase1feedback.pdf> [20 September 2016].
Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) 2013a, Reforming the
Aboriginal cultural heritage system in NSW: draft
recommendations to the NSW Government. A discussion paper,
NSW Government, Sydney South. Available from:
<http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/cultureheritage
/20130139achrefdiscussion.pdf> [20 September 2016].
Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) 2013b, Reforming the
Aboriginal cultural heritage system in NSW: a NSW
Government model in response to the ACH Reform Working
Party’s recommendations and public consultation, NSW
Government,
Sydney
South.
Available
from:
http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/cultureheritage/2
0130760achrefgov.pdf . [20 September 2016].
Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) 2013c, Stone tools.
Available
from:
<http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/nswcultureheritage/Stone
Tools.htm> [20 September 2016].
Queensland Museum 2011, Stone artefacts: fact sheet. Available
from:
<http//www.qm.qld.gov.au/~/media/Documents/Learning+reso
urces/QM/Resources/Fact+Sheets/fact-sheet-stoneartefacts.pdf>. [20 September 2016].
Smith L 2000, ‘A history of Aboriginal heritage legislation in southeastern Australia’ Australian Archaeology 50: 109-118.
Sullivan K 1986, ‘Negotiation, game theory and cultural resource
management’ Australian Archaeology 22: 36-44.
Sullivan S 1996, ‘Reflexions of 27 years’ Tempus 6: 1-11.
8|P a g e
Journal of the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists, Volume 4 (Supplement): xx-xx
1889
Robert Etheridge (1847-1920), palaeontologist and ethnologist at The Australian Museum (Sydney), calls for preservation of Aboriginal sites in
NSW. No reference is made to contemporary Aboriginal people or of any association between them and these remains.
1913
Crown Lands Consolidation Act of 1913 provides for the creation of special reserves for Aboriginal art sites in NSW. Few were created.
1939
Fred McCarthy (The Australian Museum) submits draft Aboriginal ‘relics’ legislation to NSW Parliament. No action taken.
1960s
The focus of Aboriginal heritage management is archaeological research and documentation of pre-contact archaeological sites.
1967
NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act 1967 enacted. No Aboriginal heritage provisions.
1968
Conference on Prehistoric Monuments and Antiquities in Canberra, which views Aboriginal cultural heritage as mainly the province of
archaeology.
1969
National Parks and Wildlife (Amendment) Act 1969. The beginning of legal protection for Aboriginal ‘relics and sites’ in NSW.
1970
Establishment of an Aboriginal Sites Unit within NPWS, which immediately begins building an Aboriginal Sites Register.
1972
Development-related archaeological surveys begin with the Moomba to Sydney natural gas pipeline project.
1973
Commencement of the NPWS Sites of Significance Survey (1973-1983) by Anthropologist Howard Creamer and a team of Aboriginal
researchers led by Ray Kelly.
1974
NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974. Provision for gazettal of Aboriginal Places: places of ‘special significance with respect to Aboriginal
culture’, including where no ‘relics’ are present.
1976
NPWS requires archaeologists to consult Aboriginal communities in regard to ‘consent to destroy’ applications. (S Sullivan 1996: 4)
1979
Australia ICOMOS Burra Charter adopted.
NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act (EPA) formalised the requirement that development proponents carry out investigation to
identify Aboriginal sites subject to impacts.
1983
NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983. Leads to the establishment of a network of Local Aboriginal Land Councils throughout NSW.
1992
Mabo decision. The High Court’s Mabo decision leads to the recognition of Native Title and a legal/administrative process for claiming it.
1995
The Australian and NSW governments begin a process of legislative reform to enable Aboriginal co-management of national parks.
2001
National Parks and Wildlife Amendment Act 2001. Includes the redefining of Aboriginal relics as Aboriginal objects.
2003
NSW Two Ways Together program. A 10-year program to improve the lives of Aboriginal people and their communities in the areas of health,
housing, education, culture and heritage, justice, economic development and families and young people.
2006
Aboriginal Natural Resources Agreement Kit. Acknowledges that Aboriginal peoples’ spirituality, culture, and identity are intertwined with the
‘natural’ landscape, and that Traditional Owners have responsibilities to care for the landscape.
2009
UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People endorsed by the Australian government.
2010
Amendments to the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974, which expand protection of ‘Aboriginal objects’ and declared Aboriginal Places by
broadening the definition of ‘harm’ under the Act and increase penalties for offences.
Amendment of the NSW Constitution to acknowledge and honour Aboriginal people as the state’s first people and nations.
NSW Labor government commits to the development of stand-alone legislation for Aboriginal cultural heritage.
Table 1. Aboriginal heritage in NSW: a timeline (1889-2010)
9|P a g e
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ISSN 2202-7890
Volume 4 (Supplement) 2016