Northern Territory Heritage Legislation - Gareth Lewis and Naomi Howells

The Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists Inc. (AACAI) WA Chapter and the Anthropological Society of WA (ASWA) are pleased to present a sundowner talk by anthropologists Gareth Lewis and Naomi Howells, who will discuss the heritage legislative regime in the Northern Territory. Details as follows:

Date: Tuesday 21 September 2021
Time: 6pm
Where: The Left Bank, 15 Riverside Road, East Fremantle - upstairs at The River Bar

Entry Fees (includes food):
ASWA/AACAI Member: Free
Student: $5
General: $10

****UPDATE (this talk will be live-streamed/recorded, and a link will be forwarded to all those who book prior to the talk)

Title: 

‘Never Again?’ How the Northern Territory’s best practice heritage protection legislation could have prevented the destruction of Juukan Gorge in Western Australia

Abstract:

The State-sanctioned destruction of the Juukan Gorge site by Rio Tinto in May 2020 has highlighted the failings of WA’s antiquated 1972 Aboriginal Heritage Act (AHA). Yet the McGowan Government’s current Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill (ACHB) is facing an uphill battle in the teeth of opposition from professional bodies and Aboriginal groups.

Anthropologists Gareth Lewis and Naomi Howells are veterans of the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (AAPA), responsible for administering the NT Aboriginal Sacred Sites Act 1979. By affording Aboriginal custodians the right of free, prior and informed consent to determine whether works may occur on or within the vicinity of sacred sites, they argue that NT legislation provides a far superior model for Aboriginal sacred site protection than WA’s proposed ACHB and they will highlight the fundamental contrasts between both. They also argue that the AAPA Authority Certificate system actually provides far greater clarity and certainty for industry than either the current AHA or the clunky approvals mechanism outlined in the proposed ACHB.

Why, ask Lewis and Howells, is the McGowan Government offering Aboriginal people in WA a heritage regime that falls so far short of the system which has so long operated successfully in the NT?

Biographies:

Gareth Lewis is an NT-based anthropological consultant who has worked on heritage protection, land rights and native title issues as a consultant and staff anthropologist for the AAPA, Northern Land Council and Central Land Council since 1991. He has provided expert anthropological reports for the successful Pine Creek native title consent determination, as well as for the Kakadu Repeat, Peron Islands and Cobourg land claims. Gareth gave evidence in AAPA’s successful 2013 prosecution of OM Manganese for site desecration and has worked on other site damage investigations and on AAPA’s current prosecution of the Commonwealth Government for site damage in Kakadu National Park. He was recently awarded a guided writing placement at the ANU’s Centre for Native Title Anthropology.

Naomi Howells worked as a staff anthropologist for AAPA from 1993-1998 and then as a native title anthropologist in Central and Northern Queensland. Working most recently under the WA cultural heritage regime, she is currently campaigning for improved cultural heritage protection under the proposed Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill.