Page 3287 - Week 10 - Thursday, 25 September 2014
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The government responded to the review in March 2013 and simultaneously tabled its legislation. Unfortunately, after taking many years itself, the government did not allow realistic time for community feedback on the legislation, allowing only one month for feedback despite the bill including controversial proposals such as introducing a ministerial call-in power.
As a result, there was substantial negative community feedback. The Greens were not in a position to support it at that time, and the bill was ultimately not debated last year at all.
This year, when the major project facilitation legislation was being developed, I suggested that, given that the facilitation legislation would create a fast-tracking option for the government for specific projects, a call-in power was not necessary in the heritage legislation. The government agreed that this was the case, and over the past six months we have seen significant revision of the bill to essentially remove the call-in powers and related ministerial intervention clauses.
Turning to nomination processes, unfortunately the ACT has a very long backlog of heritage applications that need to be assessed, leaving many people feeling uncertain about the particular places or spaces that they have nominated. Sometimes nominations take a decade or more to be assessed. This really means that assessment of nominations needs to be prioritised according to impending development threats, rather than the Heritage Council generally having the time and space to consider sites outside the context of particular development proposals.
The review recommended establishing a better nomination management process and accompanying guidelines, which the Greens support. Given that this bill presents a number of changes, it is probably worth evaluating how these changes affect the processes over the next six months or so, and then assessing what tweaks could be made to further improve processes.
There is a national ministerial agreement to standardise heritage criteria in line with the national heritage convention of chairs of state heritage councils and directors of heritage, HERCON. I am pleased that this bill brings our ACT heritage legislation more in line with these HERCON criteria. These criteria have been agreed on nationally, but have been varied slightly in each jurisdiction to better apply locally in each instance, and this is the case with this bill today.
The Greens wholeheartedly support better recognition of, and respect for, the skills and knowledge of traditional custodians and representatives of other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in relation to conservation and heritage issues. The government has consulted with the Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, the United Ngunnawal Elders Council and the registered Aboriginal organisations on the development of the proposed bill.
I understand that while some of these stakeholders did not provide any submission or feedback, many considered the changes in relation to cultural heritage minor and not of negative impact, and in fact considered that they strengthened some of the
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