WA Premier Roger Cook and Aboriginal Affairs Minister Tony Buti will be directly involved in ongoing consultation to scrap a rewrite of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act.
The new Act had been a source of confusion and controversy as it required landowners to undertake detailed assessments before starting projects to check for the presence of cultural heritage.
The West Australian on Saturday revealed the Premier and Minister are poised to make the announcement within days on the future of the latest rewrite of the Act.
It came after urgent briefings with major resources companies, Indigenous groups, and within Government departments on Friday.
“Both the Premier and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, as we’ve outlined, are consulting with stakeholder groups. They’re very busy consulting,” Mrs Saffioti said on Sunday.
“They’re talking to a wide range of groups and that’s been happening for a while.
“We heard very loudly the feedback from the community (and) from stakeholders. That’s why we sought a further round of consultation.
“That has directly involved, of course, the Premier and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.
“As a result of discussing a number of options, but government itself has not made that decision.
“All options are on the table, and nothing’s been ruled in and out.
“But of course, a priority would be to make sure that Jukkan Gorge cannot occur again.”
Mr Cook or Mr Buti haven’t fronted media since the backflip was first revealed on Friday evening.
Leader of the Opposition Shane Love and WA Liberal leader Libby Mettam have called on the Premier front media to clarify the apparent backflip and the fallout for impacted businesses.
“This spectacular failure is due to Labor’s contempt for due process and their continual use of Parliament as a rubber stamp,” Mr Love said.
The new laws introduced a three-tiered approach for ground-disturbing activities and place a far greater onus on landowners to proactively ensure their properties did not contain cultural heritage prior to embarking on development.
Concerns have been raised about the time and cost associated with completing that due diligence process and the narrow scope of exemptions, with the Act capturing any property bigger than 1100sqm.
The rollout of the laws, which replaced the 1972 Act, was further hamstrung by the fact regulations explaining the intricate detail were not published until Easter — just three months before they came into effect.
An eleventh-hour “education campaign” aimed to combat widespread confusion was launched in the week prior to implementation, at an almost half a million dollars cost to taxpayers.
“Depending on the decision that goes forward, we’ll be outlining future expenditure and impact of the final decision,” Ms Saffioti said, when asked if that total investment had already been spent.
“But I’m not going to speculate on a decision that’s not yet made.”
Ms Saffioti denied that the State Labor Government’s bombshell backflip on the ‘botched’ laws came after a wave of pressure from their Federal counterparts, fuelled by concerns about the potential ramifications for the looming referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
Farmers had planned to rally outside Parliament House protesting the new Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act on Tuesday, the day MPs return from the five-week winter recess.