|
Cairns Community Newspaper
16 October 2008
Dear Editor,
Heritage nominations in Australia do not and never have required the nominator to at any stage ever consult with the property owners or to gain the consent of the owner. This is a major failing in the existing heritage system.
Heritage organisations, their members, those making their living off expanded heritage listings and heritage hobbyists regularly make submissions to government inquiries insisting that the property owners views are and must remain an irrelevant issue, as is also the issue of any personal financial loss to the owner.
I refer you to the Creasy case in Western Australia where the family would have lost over $20 million on a heritage listing which was based on a wooden staircase and the fact that a lead singer of an obscure one hit wonder WA band lived there for a few years before be overdosed on drugs. The WA parliament finally saw sense and de-heritage listed the property after the family went through a decade of hell at the hands the heritage mafia in WA.
Basically the heritage nominators and heritage fanatics view about property owners agreement or financial losses and lack of timely consultation is "tough." They consistently resist any efforts to include the property owners in the heritage process and refuse to allow any consideration or account of owners views. Such heritage fanatics have made submission after submission to the 2006 Federal Government Productivity Commission inquiry into Preserving Historic Heritage as well as the 2008 NSW Heritage Act review arguing these exact points.
The NSW Society of Heritage Owners have always advocated owners being involved and consulted from the pre-heritage nomination period onwards, for owners consent being a requirement and for owner's financial situation to be formal factors requiring consideration. So we find it remarkable that a heritage organisation is now actually admitting we are right and they should not proceed with any heritage nomination without such processes being followed.
Now, all we need to do is assign the same respect and consideration to the many hundreds of thousands of non-Aboriginal heritage property owners throughout Australia.
Any owners interested in protecting their rights in the light of a mooted or actual heritage listing are invited to check out our website at www.sohonsw. com for more information about decades of heritage abuses by heritage fanatics.
G Smith
Vice President
Society of Heritage Owners NSW
Heritage bid dropped
Thomas Chamberlin
Friday, October 10, 2008
© The Cairns Post
INDIGENOUS leaders have rejoiced that the Wilderness Society dropped its bid to put Cape York on the World Heritage list at a global conservation conference.
The society yesterday apologised as indigenous groups in Cairns showed their outrage about not being consulted over the intended motion at the World Conservation Congress in Spain.
Executive director of Balkanu Cape York Development Corporation Gerhardt Pearson said the society's backflip was an end to "silly games, short cuts and disrespect".
He said the listing would have been about 75 per cent of the 137,000sq km area of the Cape York, which includes more than 3000 plant species, half of Australia's bird species and one third of the nation's mammal species.
"We're not against World Heritage listing, we are against World Heritage listing where Aboriginal people have not been involved and engaged in the proper planning and processes," he said.
"We've got a social calamity in the Cape; we have the highest unemployment rate amongst our people; we have the worst housing record; we have the worst health situation and a serious economic deficit in our communities; we've got a fight on our hands.
Cape York Land Council chairman Michael Ross said further consultation with indigenous people was needed before any future heritage listing motions.
"Talk to the people on the Cape … talk to the elders … there are many tribes up there," he said.
In apologising, Wilderness Society campaign manager Dr Tim Seelig said talks should now involve the Queensland and Federal Governments, conservation groups and indigenous leaders.
"Any misunderstanding about our intentions with the resolution is regretted as the Wilderness Society believes consultation and the consent of traditional owners on any World Heritage nomination is non-negotiable," Dr Seelig said.
"Any future World Heritage nomination can only happen, and will only happen, with the support of traditional owners."
| 
