Well, the state and federal election circus has come and gone, and nothing has really changed—which means it’s time to dig up the issues that both governments managed to bury under a pile of clown acts that are far from funny.
One of the most glaring examples is the implosion of the Whadjuk Aboriginal Corporation—one of the 526 multi-million-dollar Indigenous Prescribed Body Corporates that operate across rural and regional Australia. These entities, large and small, are the special structures that have been set up by the Commonwealth to manage Indigenous Native Title interests, be it land or royalties. Some are well managed, but many operate on the verge of dysfunctional as they attract all kinds of shady characters eager to cash in on the Indigenous gravy train. One day, a federal government will have the courage to call a Royal Commission into the whole sorry mess and attempt to explain how, despite handling billions of dollars in royalties, they have contributed little to closing the gap.
Western Australians are very familiar with stories of graft and corruption when it comes to the rivers of gold that have been generated for a select few PBCs from mineral royalties, but the recent media surrounding Whadjuk is shaping up to impact the whole state.
Whadjuk is the same group handed the keys to Perth’s cultural heritage framework under Colin Barnett’s so-called nation-leading native title settlement for the South West. Projects worth billions were proposed, but after nearly a decade of inaction under McGowan and now Cook, they are frozen while the state waits for someone—anyone—to pick up the phone.
You couldn’t script it better. The Whadjuk Corporation, flush with funds from the $1.3 billion Noongar settlement, was tasked with administering that money for the next 30 years. Instead, it has followed the sad example of all too many of the PBCs tasked with handling mining royalties and descended into farce: duelling chairpersons, police escorts, mass resignations, and a grand total of one paid staff member left to handle cultural and heritage approvals for an area encompassing Rottnest, Perth Airport, and the Swan Coastal Plain.
At one point, four police officers had to remove one of the rival chairpersons from the premises. If this is what Aboriginal governance looks like in practice, heaven help anyone needing a timely permit.
This is exactly the kind of bureaucratic chaos that would have been inflicted on WA’s 7,000 farming businesses if Attorney-General John Buti, in his former role as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, had succeeded in enforcing the now-defunct Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2021 on the state. It took a grassroots revolt by WAFarmers and the PGA to wake up the mining and property development sectors to the threat this posed to their interests. Finally, at the last minute—after the legislation had been passed—Premier Roger Cook intervened to kill it off. Buti, a former academic turned culture warrior, thought it perfectly reasonable to demand that farmers join the miners in paying the local PBC (if they could be identified) tens of thousands in consultation fees before installing a fence or digging a trench.
Miners have been juggling this chaos for decades, grappling with the burdens of Keating’s Native Title Act and state heritage laws. They are forced to navigate cultural politics with hidden maps, moving sacred sites, and greedy lawyers—while paying for every meeting to determine whether someone recalls the Wuggle crossing a creek. At least they have the coin to join this circus, but when the state government extended it into freehold farmland, it was a step too far.
Luckily, we avoided going down the mining path, but the old Heritage Act can still be dragged out and applied if the Department decides it wants to flex its bureaucratic muscles to remind freehold landholders just how weak their property rights are.
As the Whadjuk saga demonstrates, embedding such a system into our legal framework only works if the administering Aboriginal corporations are capable. And too often, their governance ranges from shaky to surreal.
When the PBCs fall over and the miners, state government departments responsible for building roads, hospitals etc, local governments, and landholders are running around looking for someone to negotiate with, while the bureaucrats and lawmakers responsible for this whole failing system are nowhere to be found. Actually, Keating can be found surrounded by his French clocks in his multimillion-dollar mansion in Sydney, far from the Native Title mess he left us with.
The end result is that while most of us don’t see the circus in action, we are all being impacted. Less royalties into the state’s coffers, less company and income tax for the federal government, and key infrastructure projects are endlessly delayed. A case in point with the dysfunctionality of the Whadjuk Corporation has been Perth Airport’s $2.5 billion second parallel runway—grounded. Rottnest Island upgrades—paused. Various Perth Councils can’t get started to build playgrounds simply because the PBC is dysfunctional.
None of this should come as a surprise. The mining industry has long contended with heritage creep: maps that mysteriously expand, claims of secret sites, and the looming threat of cultural backlash. The only surprise is the government’s apparent shock at the mess it helped create.
And if you think the old 1973 Aboriginal Heritage Act can’t be exploited in similar ways, ask Tony Maddox of Toodyay. He’s facing more than $300,000 in legal bills after being charged for disturbing heritage without a permit—under the old Act. No traditional owners showed up in court, presumably because the Wuggle’s path through the Avon Valley is now “secret business.” So secret only rent-seeking lawyers and bureaucrats with secret maps can be trusted with it.
This is cultural lawfare in 2025. No new law is needed—just a bloated bureaucracy pushing old rules to new extremes, aided by an activist public service ready to strike when the next naive minister nods along.
And now, with Anthony Albanese returned federally, we wait and see if he hits back at the loss of his Voice Referendum and further entrenches heritage approvals into federal legislation. As for the WA State Government, the outcome of the Maddox case will determine if the Department is stopped in its tracks or given a green light to look into the literally thousands of crossings that have been placed across the various gazetted rivers and creeks across the South West of the state to see if they are impacting the Wuggle.
Cook has shown he gets it, but too many of his left-leaning colleagues are bleeding hearts and see no reason why farmers should not be paying to consult with the local Elders over moving a fence or building a shed. Neither is likely to confront the existing dysfunction plaguing Indigenous governance, particularly around heritage approvals. It’s politically sensitive, electorally risky, and policy poison.
That’s a grim outlook for a country already strangled by red and green tape. Add black tape—Indigenous bureaucracy built on contested governance, secret sites, and vanishing heritage monitors—and we get a nation in policy paralysis. Developers, farmers, and councils will wait indefinitely while politicians signal solemn respect.
We don’t need another decade of vague maps and shifting standards under the old Heritage Act. We need certainty. That means drawing a final, legislated boundary around what is and isn’t heritage.
If we’re serious, the state should put $100 million—hell, make it a billion—on the table and pay the remaining elders to properly map, register, and secure the last genuine heritage sites across the Wheatbelt, Great Southern and South West. Then compensate any landholders burdened by the Wuggle’s mythical migratory path.
But this process can’t remain open-ended. Aboriginal culture deserves preservation, but much of it—especially in WA’s south—is already lost. What remains must be managed through clear, finalised agreements—not a bureaucratic guessing game.
Maddox may return to court if he can raise funds for an appeal. But this fight is political, not legal. The Labor Party is too captured by its activist class to offer solutions. So the challenge now falls to the shell-shocked Liberals, Nationals, and every regional MP.
Will they stand up for legislative clarity in their future election policies? Or will they avoid the topic, fearing it might spook swing voters?
In the meantime, will the State Ministers responsible for the new airport, road and port projects, be reaching for their phones in an attempt to find someone to negotiate with. Ring, ring, ring, ring…
