Aboriginal Cultural Heritage meeting draws big Merredin crowd

Speaking to a packed audience of more than 400 people at an ACH Act consultation meeting in Merredin on Monday, Njaki Njaki Noongar man Michael Hayden said he had no doubt "plenty more" sites of Aboriginal cultural heritage would be discovered on farming land in the region which hadn't yet been accounted for by the government.

"We already know of a lot which aren't on the Aboriginal Heritage register and aren't being protected and with the advance of new technology, like Google Earth, we will be sure to find a whole lot more sites," Mr Hayden said.

"Our goal is to map out our people's water sources and also get the scientific understanding of their habitual environment from Curtin University and the ARC Training Centre for Healing Country so we can understand the value of them."

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Speaking on behalf of the Noongar Njaki Njaki people, he said their biggest concern about the ACH Act was its current structure, which would potentially allow Aboriginal regional corporations from other areas to determine sites of Aboriginal cultural heritage on another mob's land.

"There is a difference between knowledge holders and traditional owners - you don't have to be from an area to be a knowledge holder," Mr Hayden said.

"We want to look after our heritage without the influence of another Aboriginal group coming in and making those decisions."

As a result, he said the Eastern Wheatbelt Rangers, a group funded by the government in April to look after and maintain places of cultural significance to the Njaki Njaki Noongar people, would apply to become a Local Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Service (LACHS) for the eastern Wheatbelt region.

"We've already started the process of protecting and maintaining our sites - so becoming a LACHS would just add to the rangers responsibilities," Mr Hayden said.

While there are six regional Aboriginal corporations in the South West, there are 14 traditional owner groups under the South West Native Title Settlement Noongar Recognition Act.

Using the analogy of how local governments work, Mr Hayden said each traditional owner group had their own sense of autonomy and independence, as well as physical land boundaries.

"We know there is a lot of heritage on farmlands in the region - there is no doubt about that," Mr Hayden said.

"But we don't want to come and take your land... what we want to do is protect some of the oldest heritage in the world and we want your help to do that."

Some confusion continued to linger among audience members at the Merredin meeting about the legislation, particularly what tiers various farming activities would fall under as well as 'like for like' activities.

Opening the meeting, Labor MP for the Agricultural Region Darren West said it would be "business as usual" for the State's farmers and that the new legislation would "actually make life easier" for them.

"I can tell you most of what we do on farms comes under the 'like for like' provisions," Mr West told the audience.

"As a general rule, farmers work on top of the land...so as a farmer myself I don't have anything to fear from this Act and by the end of this meeting you'll realise you don't either.

"This isn't going to be delayed because we know that the department is ready to go and this is actually a better act than the last one.

"We've done the five years of work and it's time to get on with it."

Mr Seabrook said a petition to parliament he and Liberal Mining and Pastoral Region MLC Neil Thompson had started, which calls on the government to postpone the July 1 introduction of the new act, had attracted unusually strong support.

He said it was expected close to 30,000 signatures will have been collected by the time the petition closed at midnight on Tuesday for it to be presented in parliament today.