Greens WA spokesperson on Aboriginal issues, Robin Chapple MLC, today blasted the Barnett-Grylls government over its continuing disregard for Aboriginal heritage.
“Under probing from me in Parliament last week, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs admitted that there are currently a massive 6,234 lodged sites awaiting assessment by the Aboriginal Cultural Material Committee (ACMC).
“The Minister was unwilling to give a figure for the average time taken to complete an assessment, so I will make an estimate using available data.
“According to the Department’s latest annual report, the ACMC has been working for 40 years, and there are approximately 15,000 registered sites with another 15,000+ heritage “places” – so a charitable view would be 30,000 assessments over 40 years – equals about 800 assessments per year.
“At that rate, the admitted backlog of over 6,000 sites will take around 8 years to clear!
“A less charitable view would look at the workload in the context of an ACMC of 7 people – meeting 11 times a year, and also responsible for dealing with section 16 and 18 applications, their annual report showing that the ACMC considered 152 such applications during the year.
“If we allow that they can also consider site assessments at the same rate – the backlog now looks more like 40 years!
“Either way, this is a scandalous situation, where the backlog has been allowed to grow to such huge proportions – the Minister needs to come clean and say what he is going to do about it.
“I talk to mining companies all the time, and they are equally frustrated by the lack of certainty which results from not knowing what sites are in areas where they are looking to develop projects”, concluded Mr Chapple.
For more information please contact Robin Chapple on 0409 379 263 or 9486 8255
