Indigenous heritage protection, native title and regional agreements

Abstract

Central to the argument of this paper is a critical examination of the potential to strike local and regional agreements in Victoria between Indigenous and other parties in a context of impending proposed legislative changes to Indigenous cultural heritage (Commonwealth Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984) and property rights (Native Title Amendment Bill 1997).

My intention is to demonstrate that although policy makers might consider legislation as a discrete phenomena, on the ground such distinctions collapse, to be replaced by questions about the source and reproduction of socioeconomic and political power within local communities, and that in settled Australia the impact of these matters is particularly intense. To this end, the paper highlights the terms in which a particular kind of public discourse has been constructed around the native title claim and efforts at site protection of the Yorta Yorta peoples of the Murray Goulburn region of north-eastern Victoria.

The paper examines the construction and dissemination of public information about the basis of the Yorta Yorta peoples' native title claim, and their use of the Commonwealth Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 as it applies to Victoria under Part IIA, for protection of important cultural sites within the Yorta Yorta native title claim area. Show more