Labor senator Dodson has said Western Australia's new heritage protection legislation will allow for more disasters like Juukan Gorge, and declared such destruction "cultural genocide".
"You are wiping out the evidentiary base that indicates the occupation and the use of these lands by the First Peoples of this country in a systematic manner and this law will continue to allow that," he told NITV News.
The legislation has drawn condemnation from Traditional Owners, academics and Native Title bodies, who have raised concerns about its effectiveness in protecting cultural heritage.
"It continues to enable those companies that have been approved with a section 18 to exercise those rights that they've had under that law, which means they can destroy sites with impunity.
The 46,000-year-old caves were destroyed by mining giant Rio Tinto in May 2020, sparking the reform of legislation. Source: PKKP AND ABORIGINAL CORPORATION
"A lot of our heritage has been systematically destroyed and that to me is tantamount to a form of cultural genocide," he said.
by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination following a complaint from Traditional Owners in Western Australia.
"The Draft Bill allegedly fails to respect, protect and fulfil the right to culture of Aboriginal people who strongly oppose it, due to the serious risk it poses to their cultural heritage," said a letter from the committee's vice chair Marc Bossuyt.
"(The Bill) will maintain the structural racism of the cultural heritage legal and policy scheme, which has already led to the destruction of Aboriginal cultural heritage in Western Australia."
In a statement to NITV News a spokespersons for the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment said "protection of Aboriginal cultural heritage in Western Australia is primarily the responsibility of the Western Australian Government" and that the federal government "has commenced a national engagement process on the modernisation of Indigenous heritage protection regimes".
A screenshot of a supplied video taken in 2015 shows the Juukan Gorge rock shelters in Western Australia. Source: PKKP AND PKKP ABORIGINAL CORPORATION
Senator Dodson said it has taken too long for the government to get to this stage, and First Nations people are being failed in the meantime.
"They've continued to delay reforms of the national cultural heritage protection law," he said.
"It's nearly two years now since this has occurred and they've done nothing except in the last week of parliament enter into an agreement with First Nations groups to begin a review about the cultural heritage protection laws."
