The Western Australia Chamber of Minerals and Energy (CME) has welcomed the release of the Native Title and Cultural Heritage Processes Review, which contains recommendations designed to streamline and improve consultation and agreement-making between Traditional Owners and project proponents.

CME CEO Aaron Morey says unclear and duplicative heritage requirements and rapidly rising consultation and survey costs have emerged as significant barriers to timely and efficient resources development.

“CME strongly believes Traditional Owners should play a central and active role in managing cultural heritage, but it has been clear for some time now that the current system is not working for anyone,” he states.

“Mining companies currently contend with nearly two dozen overlapping policies and regulations relating to First Nations consultation that span three tiers of government. That has placed an enormous burden on both proponents and Traditional Owners, leading to blowouts in approvals timeframes, consultation fatigue and confusion over responsibilities and requirements.

“This has allowed consultants to become the primary beneficiaries of the system with zero improvement to heritage outcomes,” Morey avers.

The report, authored by National Native Title Tribunal member Glen Kelly, contains 25 recommendations, including a cross-agency review of Aboriginal consultation measures to reduce duplication and establish consistency, a funding support programme for prescribed body corporates (PBCs) to assist with future act and heritage functions and the development and implementation of a code of conduct for consultants and advisers who work with the PBC sector.

CME has also welcomed the government commitment that Traditional Owners and industry will be consulted in the development of technical information, practice notes, guidelines and other material.

It is vital that this consultation be robust, with stakeholders afforded genuine opportunity to review and provide input into the early drafts of material, CME emphasises.

“It is critical that industry and Traditional Owners have a genuine opportunity to inform the development of new guidelines and standards to ensure they are workable for all parties,” Morey stresses.

“The recommendations must also be adequately funded. Alleviating resourcing constraints among some Traditional Owners groups is essential to address one of the biggest impediments to heritage processes,” he adds.

Morey calls for government agencies tasked with the implementation of the reforms and any associated new functions or responsibilities to be properly resourced.

“The resources sector already makes a significant contribution to State revenues through fees, taxes and royalties. A share of that contribution should be directed to ensuring the agencies and PBCs involved in these processes are properly resourced.”