Australia’s five-week law reversed after five weeks

Western Australia is scrapping a controversial law to protect Aboriginal heritage sites just five weeks after it came into force. The act was designed to prevent a repeat of the tragedy at Juukan Gorge, when rock shelters inhabited by humans over 46,000 years ago were legally destroyed by the mining firm Rio Tinto. The new law, which requires heritage surveys to be carried out on land earmarked for resource development, has backing from the mining giant but landowners, other miners and farmers called it “unworkable”. The WA government says it now prefers “simple and effective” amendments to the older Aboriginal Heritage Act of 1972. Aboriginal groups stress that won’t be enough to prevent further cultural erasures. Australians will vote in a referendum this year on plans to establish a Indigenous advisory body or “voice” in parliament. Even if the referendum passes, this latest backtrack suggests that voice will need to be loud to compete with industrial interests.

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