ABORIGINAL HERITAGE BRANCH

374 Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (17 November 2008).

1. How has the administration of the Aboriginal Heritage Act been improved?

2. Were any more staff required to achieve this and if so how many and were any of these employees Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Minister for Environment and Conservation, Minister for Early Childhood Development, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister Assisting the Premier in Cabinet Business and Public Sector Management): Processes have been developed to ensure that the Act is administered in a rigorous and streamlined manner, to provide timely and certain outcomes to applicants.

With a view to assisting negotiations between developers and Aboriginal groups, the Aboriginal Heritage Branch has: encouraged discussions between the parties before applications are received; engaged with Aboriginal communities and local Aboriginal Heritage Groups to support their involvement in the management of their culture and heritage; facilitated increased cooperation between heritage and native title parties across SA; and improved the management of heritage records through the digitisation of 7,700 sites on the State Register of Aboriginal Sites and Objects. These sites can have a significant influence on land management and are important to both Aboriginal people and developers.

In conjunction with Flinders University, workshops are being held across South Australia with Aboriginal groups to improve their skills to record and manage their own sites and plans are well progressed for training in heritage site monitoring. These workshops will result in participants achieving objective standards of performance and will provide certainty to developers that these standards will be met.

The workforce in the Aboriginal Heritage Branch has increased six to thirteen employees. The percentage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff has varied over the period from a high of 50 per cent to the present approximate 23 per cent.