Heritage Act - Submission

NYUNGAH CIRCLE OF ELDERS
c/o PO GUILDFORD WESTERN AUSTRALIA
T: 08 9377 3550, 08 9279 6706 F:08 9377 3559

The Last of the Nyungah Elders who are standing to Save and Protect our Ancient Religion and Culture and Sacred Beliefs in the Land and not take money to sell our Sacredness

SUBMISSION TO THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE
ON THE PROPOSED CHANGING OF THE FEDERAL ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER HERITAGE PROTECTION ACT

The Federal Government's Duty of Care

The proposed changes to the Federal Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act is an excuse for the Federal Government to abandon us. The Federal Government has a responsibility from the very beginning to protect us and our Religion and Culture and not let our Religion and Culture and ourselves the First People, the Original Inhabitants be damaged or destroyed.

The Federal Government has a duty of care towards us the Aboriginal People because you took control from us of all the Land including our Religious and Cultural Sites by force and not of our asking therefore you are duty-bound to protect our interests which includes our Religious and Cultural Beliefs in the Land which is our Sites and Areas of Importance and Significance. As it is, if you decide to push through these changes to the Act, the Parliament of Australia will be making rules over things they know nothing about and they don't even feel what we feel or believe what we believe.

Justice Evatt's Recommendations

Proposed changes to the Federal Heritage Act are contrary to Justice Evatt's Recommendations of her Inquiry into the Act. By the proposed changes to the Act, the Parliament of Australia will be taking away protection of our Religion and Culture.

Destruction of the Web of Dreamings for short-term gain

By changing the Federal Heritage Act as the Government of Australia is planning they are trying to get around the blackfella's resistance to desecration, destruction and damage of the Web of Dreamings of this Land which is called Australia now - our Religion and Culture in the Land: "Australia is like a Fishing Net" - the words of the late Lawman from the Kimberleys. We as Aboriginal people are all connected to the Land, to this Web from when Time began. Instead of learning to honour it and respect it and love it, they want to destroy something priceless belonging to us which is there for the good of the whole community - all for the sake of a few dollars or a few thousand or million - just for a few people and only for a couple of years! It's really kaatwarra.

Genocide

The Government's purpose in changing the Act is to make it legal for the white man and his Government to do what they want to do: destroy us and our Culture. Without our Culture and Beliefs we are Aboriginal People no more. It is useless spending money on Health when the core and the roots of ourselves and our health is our Culture and Religion. Indigenous Health cannot be improved if our Religious Beliefs are not protected. You cannot separate Health from Culture. This is understood for the people of Tibet and their Beliefs or the people of Arab countries and their Beliefs or for Hindu people and their Beliefs. Why does the white man not understand the same thing for us the Indigenous people and our Beliefs of this Land? The white Government just do what they want to do as it has done to us from when you first came here.

International Law

The Federal Government of Australia should not be allowed and has no right to abandon their responsibilities to the Indigenous people under international law and treaties and agreements that they have ratified: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the ILO Conventions on Tribal Peoples, the Genocide Convention, the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, and other agreements on human rights such as with the European Union

Australian Constitution

We thought we had Freedom of Religion under the Australian Constitution. The proposed changes to the Federal Heritage Act will deny us Freedom of Religion. The Commonwealth has no right to abandon their responsibilities to us and our freedom of religion.

Handing the power back to the States

If the Federal Government hands power concerning our Sacred Places back to the State Government we will have nowhere to appeal to if the State Government fails to protect our rights. The States have proved themselves irresponsible as far as Aboriginal people are concerned. The people of Australia decided in 1967 that the State Governments should not be left with the final say concerning Aboriginal people because of their shameful record and that the Federal Government should have the power to protect and assist Aboriginal people.

Grassroots People not consulted

Indigenous grassroots people who are the ones who will be affected, (not the Government employed people) don't get a chance to say anything and to be listened to by you. The Federal Government did not consult first with Religious

Believers, the grassroots people on what was wrong with the Federal Heritage Act before planning its changes. We arranged to speak to your Parliamentary Committee when you were in Perth last year on this same issue of changing the Federal Heritage Act, but when the time came we were denied a hearing and told we had not made an appointment which we had, and told we would have to wait till 5pm which we were not able to do. Most grassroots people were not even informed of this hearing which was a joke.

Our Records concerning our Beliefs

Our Law and Beliefs come from the Beginning of Time. We hold our knowledge and Beliefs but the white Government doesn't allow us access to our own records. Most of the people who work in libraries and Institutes with our information are white people. Most Aboriginal matters are in vaults and safes and libraries and Government Departments under lock and key of white people.

Minimal Standards

Protection of our Beliefs shouldn't be minimal with minimum standards that a State government has to abide by. There should be the highest standards from the Federal Government with One Law concerning our Religion and Culture which is our Roots, our Beginning, our Ancestors, our Knowledge, our Law, our Songlines, our Dreaming Stories, and our Title Deeds the same as the highest standards for a Cathedral or a Mosque or a Temple or a Shrine or a Chapel and the Beliefs that go with them.

Resources for Protection

We are not given resources in confronting threats to our Sacred Things such as Goonininup (Swan Brewery) and Rottnest Island where our Ancestors are buried and are unrecognised and unprotected. It is the same Australia-wide.

Mediation

Mediation under the changed Federal Heritage Act would be by the chosen Government-employed Aboriginal people, not by the grassroots people. We are our own people and we the grassroots people are the Believers in the Religion and Culture in the Land. The government-employed people are not the Holders of our Law and Beliefs nor are they the Lawpeople or Elders of our Religion.

Tourism

Overseas tourists want to understand and experience Aboriginal culture, but it will be destroyed if there is even less protection under the Federal heritage Act.

Ministerial Discretion

One of the worst things is giving Ministerial discretion to protect our Human Rights to our Religious Beliefs. The Minister will throw protection out and allow destruction, damage and desecration to our Sites if it suits him. Protection should be beyond Ministerial discretion - for example at Jabiluka they are destroying some Great Thing of Human Belief that is thousands of years old for the sake of 20 years of money.

Last Resort

The Fderal Act shouldn't be the last resort. Protection under the Act should be the first up, up front. We don't want our Religious and Cultural interests to be treated as a last resort. There should be blanket protection. All Sacred Women's sites should be protected and all Sacred Men's Sites and all Sites should be protected.

Aboriginal Involvement and Control of our Religion and Culture

There should be total Aboriginal involvement and control of our Right to Freedom of Religion in the Land. We are not selfish people. We want to share with you the white man and your Government but we do not accept your over-riding of us and ignoring us or forcing us to accept what you want us to be. We are Masters of our own Destiny, the First People of this Land. We have Human Rights to our Religion and Culture in the Land.

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We ask you the Parliament of Australia and each Member of the Parliament not to support the proposed changes to the Federal Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act.

Signed
Nyungah Elders:

Robert Bropho
Minnie Van Leeuwen
Carrie Harris
Lena Crabbe
Judy Jackson
Mingli Wanjurri Nungala
Gladys Yarran
Clarrie Isaacs

for Nyungah Circle of Elders 17.5.98