WA condemned for failure to stop ?cultural genocide? as Aboriginal heritage law passes

Labor senator Pat Dodson has blasted the Western Australian government for failing its one opportunity to protect Aboriginal heritage and stop the "tyranny of cultural genocide" after the state's controversial new heritage bill was passed into law.

The new law, introduced after Rio Tinto destroyed a 46,000-year-old cultural site at Juukan Gorge, has drawn anger from Aboriginal traditional owners, shareholder groups and even federal MPs. After months of asking, the bill was finally released to the public on 16 November.

Critics had called on the WA government to halt its passage and conduct further consultation with traditional owners.

"It's a discredit to the legislators and particularly those who advise the legislators," Dodson said. "If you look back at the history of Western Australia, it hasn't been so advanced in this space for a very long time and this was the one opportunity it had to be a bit advanced, and it has failed."

Under the new law, traditional owners do not have veto rights over the destruction of their sacred sites. WA's Aboriginal affairs minister has the final say on all applications, and traditional owners have limited rights to judicial appeal.

"This is heritage that belongs to Aboriginal people. It's theirs, and they've been willing to share that heritage. What we've seen in this state is not just the nature of this bill, but there's been a whole tyranny of cultural genocide going on," Dodson said.

"People haven't had the capacity to defend their cultural heritage against the law and now that's been revealed in the reports of the commonwealth, you would think that legislators would take note. It's not business as usual. This has got to change."