Editors --- "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Amendment Act 2006 (Cth) - Digest" [2007] AUIndigLawRw 17; (2007) 11(1) Australian Indigenous Law Review 124

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Amendment Act 2006 (Cth)

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Amendment Act 2006 (Cth)

Act No 152 of 2006

Assented to 7 December 2006

The purpose of the Act is to amend the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 (Cth) (‘1984 Act’) in order to provide greater certainty to international cultural loan arrangements by ensuring that the Act cannot prevent the return of objects imported temporarily to Australia with a certificate of exemption.

Whereas under the 1984 Act an order could be sought declaring Indigenous ownership of items temporarily returning to Australia under international loan agreements, the current amendments ensure that a section 12 certificate made under the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986 (Cth) cannot be overridden by any such declaration.

It would appear not in keeping with the spirit of heritage protection legislation to make amendments which ensure that exceptional and important artefacts – originally expropriated from Indigenous Australian communities – be returned under section 12 certificates to overseas galleries and museums claiming ‘ownership’. However, these new amendments demonstrate the primacy afforded to museums and exhibitions over the in situ sites of Indigenous significance.

The Act also repeals Part IIA and other provisions of the 1984 Act to enable the Victorian Government to administer Aboriginal heritage protection in Victoria directly through its own legislation, the Aboriginal Heritage Protection Act 2006 (Vic). The Victorian Act provides for the legislative and administrative schema required in the protection of ‘Aboriginal heritage’. However, that Act relegates Indigenous people to ‘advisory’ roles in relation to cultural heritage, leaving the major decision-making processed to the Minister. The Victorian Act also allows for the administration of permits and agreements, under section 143, to be conducted by the Secretary of the Department of Victorian Communities. It would appear that these changes therefore give substantially more power to the executive rather than Victorian Indigenous communities with regard to protecting Aboriginal cultural heritage.

This Act amends the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 (Cth) and the Aboriginal Land (Lake Condah and Framlingham Forest) Act 1987(Cth). The full text of both the original and amending acts are available online at:

<http://www.austlii.edu.au> .