Understorey: “Straight Up” Aboriginal Heritage (Not Gagged)

Last week Ngalia elder Kado Muir addressed the United Nations expert mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, speaking about Western Australia’s outdated Aboriginal Heritage laws, and the state government’s failure to redress the problems that allowed Juukan Gorge to be destroyed. Kado Muir’s voice joins the Kimberley Land Council, the WA Alliance of Native Title Representative Bodies and Service Providers, the Australian Archaelogical Association, and the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists, who are all concerned about what has been called a “façade of modernisation”.  Today on Understorey, Adrian Glamorgan brings you ANTAR’s John McBain, who adds to these many voices by calling for the McGowan government to act on our shared cultural and human rights obligations.  Will Aboriginal people be allowed to speak freely, “straight up,” and able to say no?

Photo: Juukan Gorge, by Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura Aboriginal Corporation (arr. A Glamorgan)