No progress on Heritage Legislation after 11 years of promises

The Annual Report for the former Department of Environment, Parks, Heritage and the Arts shows Labor’s complete lack of progress on Aboriginal and Heritage Legislation despite 11 years of promises.

Noted in the ‘Key Achievements’ section for Aboriginal Heritage Tasmania is the so-called milestone commencement of drafting of a Bill for Aboriginal Heritage Legislation. This is the very legislation that back in 1998 David Llewellyn announced an “urgent” review of.

Back in 1998, David Llewellyn was quick to point out how “desperately in need of reform” the Aboriginal Relics Act was but apparently a decade is still not long enough for Labor.

For it to have taken Labor 11 years to even put pen to paper and commence a draft defies belief. It seems that Labor’s definition of “urgent” is completely out of step with what everyone else understands this word to mean.

Sadly, the same can be said for the long overdue heritage legislation that former Premier Jim Bacon announced a review of some 6 years ago.

The Report shows this Bill is currently being drafted and its introduction to Parliament is ‘anticipated’ for during the 2009-2010 financial year and expected proclamation is not until 2010-11!

With only 6 more sitting days left for this Parliament, I have no confidence in Labor’s capacity to deliver this legislation before the election is upon us and I have even less faith in ‘anticipated’ deadlines than I have in their alleged promises.

This report shows how completely out of touch the Government are and Labor’s absolute lack of commitment to these important and long overdue pieces of legislation. It makes a total mockery of their claims to care about Tasmanian Heritage.
Sue Napier MP Shadow Minister for Environment, Heritage and the Arts