Draft Victorian Submission Plan Guidelines

In July and August 2024, VicGrid sought submissions on Draft Victorian Transmission Plan Guidelines (Draft Guidelines). The Draft Guidelines included:

• a study area showing what parts of Victoria VicGrid may investigate further for suitability to host potential future renewable energy zones.
• how VicGrid will determine how much energy is needed, and when.  
• how VicGrid will determine what transmission projects are needed to support new energy generation.
• how VicGrid will partner with First Peoples and engage with landholders, communities and industry.  

It is aniticpated that VicGrid will publish final Victorian Transmission Plan Guidelines in September 2024.

The following submission was made on the

Further informaton about the Draft Guidelines and 2025 Victorian Transmission Plan (2025 VTP) can be found here.

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1            Introduction

Storey & Ward Lawyers specialise in law relevant to Traditional Owner organisations, particularly Native Title, Land Rights, First Nations Cultural Heritage Law, and a range of other related legal and policy areas.

The increasing pressure on Traditional Owner corporations from industry, the broader community andgovernment reached a critical point in 2020 with both the destruction of sacred sites in the Pilbara and the ongoing impact of the pandemic.

Storey & Ward Lawyers was created then to support Traditional Owners assert their rights and fulfil their responsibilities within and despite colonising regulatory and statutory environments. The Storey & Ward Lawyers team have provided decades of expert advice and practical guidance to Traditional Owners. Continuing thiswork is underpinned by a lifelong commitment to equity and justice.

We currently work with the National Native Title Council (NNTC), First Nations Heritage ProtectionAlliance, Federation of Victorian Traditional Owner Corporations, Sea Country Alliance (SCA) and Dilin Duwa Centre for Indigenous Business Leadership amongst others.

With such a broad regulatory and legislative understanding of the policy and practical environment affecting Traditional Owners in the management of the land and cultural rights, this submission provides an informed perspective.

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2           Overview

The 2025 VTP will provide a new structure through which to develop and implement energy transformation for the future. As we strive to reach NetZero, the installation of new green energy generation centres across the landscape will be increasingly common.

It is essential that we learn from other regulatory environments struggling to address the green energy transition, such as those Offshore. Particularly, implementing regulatory systems in which recognition of Traditional Owner rights, opportunities for economic development and the principle of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC)have primacy.

Necessarily, this requires an examination of the collective ownership of cultural and land rights and what this means for consultation and agreement making with Traditional Owners.

Looking to both similar regulatory environments as well as processes provides a pathway to develop recommendations for the Draft Guidelines and 2025 VTP. This Submission will examine:

• the ways in which existing Traditional Owner agreement making processes, like those under the Future Acts Regime of the NativeTitle Act 1993 (C’th) (NT Act) can be implemented in the 2025 VTP;
• how supported Country Mapping can affect significant outcomes for Traditional Owners, government and project proponents; and
• how the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) and principles of FPIC can be realised in the 2025 VTP.
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3           The Natureof Collective Ownership of Cultural Rights

To appreciate the existing regulatory and legislative environment in place regarding land and cultural heritage rights, the nature of those rights must be examined.

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3.1         CollectiveRights

The fact that Traditional Owner rights arise and exist collectively, but can be enjoyed individually, is a well-established concept in Australian jurisprudence. The most authoritative statement in the issue is that of Brennan J in Mabo No 2¹ when his Honour states at [68]:

… so long as the people remain as an identifiable community, the members of whom are identified by one another as members of that community living under its laws and customs, the communal native title survives to be enjoyed by the members according to the rights and interests to which they are respectively entitled under the traditionally based laws and customs, as currently acknowledged and observed.(Emphasis added)

The point regarding rights under traditional law and custom arising from the collective identity but taking a form as both individual and collective rights is made quite explicit by hisHonour in the following paragraph:

[69] Thirdly, where an indigenous people (including a clan or group), as a community, are in possession or are entitled to possession of land under a proprietary native title, their possession may be protected or their entitlement to possession may be enforced by a representative action brought on behalf of the people or by a sub-group or individual who sues to protect or enforce rights or interests which are dependent on the communal native title. Those rights and interests are, so to speak, carved out of the communal native title. A sub-group or individual asserting a native title dependent on a communal native title has a sufficient interest to sue to enforce or protect the communal title. A communal native title enures for the benefit of the community as a whole and for the sub-groups and individuals within it who have particular rights and interests in the community's lands. (Footnotes omitted, emphasis added.)

To be clear it is not suggested here that Traditional Owners rights are necessarily wholly encompassed in rights recognised under native title jurisprudence. The recent decision in Santos NA Barossa Pty Ltd v Tipakalippa [2022] FCAFC 193 (regarding Traditional Owner interests in offshore waters in the north Australian gas fields) clearly demonstrates that native title rights are only one form of Traditional Owner rights that can be recognised under Australian law. Whatever legal form these rights take, they share the character of rights which enure “for the benefit of the community as a whole and for the sub-groups and individuals within it”.

The challenge then is to establish an appropriate accommodation of rights of these nature within the 2025 VTP.

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3.2        Traditional Owner Representative Institutions

As noted above, while the full suite of Traditional Owner rights and native title rights do not directly equate (at common law) they both share the central characteristic of having a dual collective and individual character. For this reason, it is appropriate and useful to have regard to native title structures in considering regulatory structural reform in the offshore regime.

Under the NT Act, engagement between proponents and native title holders (both as a collective and with respect to individuals) occurs through structures dictated by the NT Act itself. The first of these is the Prescribed Body Corporate (PBC) which is required to be established after a determination by the Federal Court as set out in NT Act ss 55 - 60. The PBC is incorporated under the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 (Cth) (CATSI Act) and its members are the native title holders whose function under the NT Act is to manage the determined native title rights on behalf of the common lawholders.

The legal efficacy of an agreement with the PBC to bind all native title holders or to satisfy consultation or notice provisions (provided the requisite procedures are adhered to by the PBC) is ensured by virtue of the provisions of the NT Act itself. It is this mechanism that ensures native title holders have legislative certainty and collective strength in their dealings with proponents. The structure also ensures that proponents have a clear and legally certain mechanism to engage with native title holders.

Outside of the NTA, the dual nature as both individual and collective rights of Traditional Owners to their land and sea country is clearly recognised in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)².

In UNDRIP land and sea country rights, are rights of a people. Individual rights can only exist as an element of the collective right. This principle is well recognised in international Law. UNDRIP clearly sets out Traditional Owner rights as collective rights in for example Articles 18 and 26. UNDRIP also provides (Article 18) that it is through representative institutions that collective rights are exercised.

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3.2.1      TORIs in Victoria

In Victoria there are currently four PBCs. There are also Traditional Owner corporations recognised under either (or both) the Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006 (Vic) (AH Act) and the Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010 (Vic) (Settlement Act). In total, there are twelve recognised Traditional Owner corporations in Victoria with statutory responsibilities covering close to 80% of the state’s land area. These twelve Traditional Owner corporations all have status as a Registered Aboriginal Party (RAP) under the AH Act. They may also be recognised under the NT Act or Settlement Act.

However, as discussed above, the rights of Traditional Owners both under UNDRIP as well as the rights potentially recognisable under domestic common law will exceed those rights that Traditional Owner Corporations have a formal statutory role in the management of.

The substance of the submission.

The central element of the proposal being advanced in this submission is that the twelve existing RAPs (and any subsequently appointed RAPs) are recognised under the 2025 VTP as the“representative institution” in respect of the full suite of Traditional Owner rights that arise under international law or that may be recognised in some form in Australian domestic law.

Under the proposal advanced in this submission any development proposal arising under the 2025 VTP would be required to be negotiated with, and ultimately only proceed with the agreement of the relevant RAP. The basis for this engagement with the RAP would be more than the immediate statutory responsibilities of the particular RAP (be they under AH Act, Settlement Act or NT Act). Rather the basis of the engagement would be the recognition of the full suite of Traditional Owner rights inherent in the fact of their Traditional Ownership.

Implementation of this proposal would achieve implementation of the UNDRIP principle of FPIC. It would also facilitate Victoria’s Traditional Owners being well placed to enjoy the economic and social benefits of the transition to NetZero that have been denied them in the previous history of the State’s economic development.

The need for the adoption of the proposal outlined above can be well illustrated by the experience of proposals to engage Traditional Owners in other area of the developing Transitional Economy.

One recent highly pertinent example lies in the development of Offshore Energy regulatory structures.

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4           Concerns with existing energy regulatory structures

The experience of the offshore regulatory environment is that existing frameworks are insufficient to protect Traditional Owner rights. The speed with which regulation is being drafted and development areas contemplated is forcing a reliance on pre-existing frameworks that are not fit for purpose.

In implementing the recommendations made in this Submission, the 2025 VTP can learn from these environments and not make the same mistakes.

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4.1         OffshoreWind Areas

The two Commonwealth declared offshore wind areas that will predate the release of the 2025 VTP provide some areas of concern. The NNTC submission on Proposed Northern Tasmania, BassStrait, TAS Declared Area for future offshore renewable energy projects³ speaks to these concerns.

The particular consideration of the submission is the application of the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Act 2021 (Cth) however the submission examines procedural consideration of the rights of Traditional Owners to speak for Country.

In relation to the finalisation of transmission projects following the five-stage development process defined in the Draft Guidelines, such projects should have similar considerations as those proposed for the declaration of an Area for Offshore Renewable Energy Project. Namely, that declarations should be made (or 2025 VTP projects approved) only subject to it having no significant impact on the affected Traditional Owners. This should be undertaken through a condition that the grant of any licence/approval within the declared area (or 2025 VTP project investigation area) should be subject to a requirement:

that the licence/project will have no significant impact upon the interests of affected Traditional Owners without the consent of the Traditional Owners to the grant of that licence/project.

The Draft Guidelines identify an ‘expectation’ that the future pipeline of energy transmission projects to be generally planned through the subsequent Victorian Transmission Plans. Whilst the Draft Guidelines cannot define commonwealth considerations, it is essential that in the Draft Guidelines themselves, provision is made to address the faults considered in the above submission.

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4.2        (Proposed) Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Amendment Regulations 2024

Similarly to the above, consideration of the management of Offshore Electricity Infrastructure has a relationship to both onshore considerations and the Draft Guidelines.

The SCA submission to the (Proposed) Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Amendment Regulations 2024⁴ is clear in its articulation of what is required in the granting of a license. As above, this relates to the approval of projects under the 2025 VTP.

Licenses/projects can only bea pproved contingent on adequately respecting Traditional Owner rights and interests if:

• engagement is with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations recognised under a law of the Commonwealth, state or territory as having responsibility for the management of Traditional Owner interests; and,
• with respect to area for which there is no organisation with such statutory responsibility a licence holder shall consult with those Aboriginal or Torres Strait people who the organisation performing the function of a Native Title Representative Body under the NTA identifies to the licence holder as requiring consultation.
• license/project management plans demonstrate that the licence holder/project owner has provided reasonable resources to relevant Traditional Owner organisations or individuals to support the processes of engagement and reached agreement regarding the proposed operations with any Traditional Owner organisations or individuals for which there is a requirement to engage with; or,
• if the licence holder cannot demonstrate such agreement that the regulator is satisfied that the licence holder can demonstrate the management plan accommodates the claims put forward by Traditional Owner organisations or individuals to the greatest extent reasonably practicable.

Additionally, ensuring protection of Traditional Owner social and economic rights and cultural heritage, as well as ensuring that Traditional Owner communities enjoy economic and social benefits deriving from the licence holder’s activities is a matter to which the regulator should have regard in the assessment of a project plan.

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4.3        Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

The 2025 VTP must, in its implementation, make reference to the requirement to ensure compliance with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) (EPBC). It is appropriate then to briefly identify those aspects of the EPBC that pertain to Traditional Owner rights and interests and may impact upon the Draft Guidelines.

The EPBC regulates any action that may have a significant impact on nationally and internationally important plants, animals, habitats and places.

The “environment” at s 528 of the EPBC is defined as including:

(a)       ecosystems and their constituent parts, including people and communities; and

(b)       natural and physical resources; and

(c)       the qualities and characteristics of locations, places and areas; and

(d)       heritage values of places; and

(e)       the social, economic and cultural aspects of a thing mentioned in paragraph (a), (b), (c) or (d).

Matters such as the existence of heritage values and places, social and cultural aspects of ecosystems locations and places, all form a component of the areas for investigation that need be regarded. Such an approach, it is suggested, is also in conformity with the principles of Ecologically Sustainable Development set out in s 3A of the EPBC.  First Nations cultural heritage is therefore a matter relevance to the assessment of a management plan.

This noted, this submission will not explore the consequence of this issue further. You will be aware that under amendments to the EPBC currently being developed it is proposed to introduce a First Nations Engagement Standard. Satisfaction of this Standard is proposed as one aspect of all environmental decision making under the EPBC.

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5           Existing Land Rights Frameworks

The NT Act Future Acts regime and TOS Act LUAs, provide for agreement processes that are embedded with FPIC and agreements made with TORIs. Essentially, they provide a framework that is tested, practicable and meets the expectation of both UNDRIP and government policy.

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5.1         Future Acts Regime

Although the NT Act provides for Good Faith Agreements, the implementation of FPIC must be through the early development of Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUAs) (explored further in the below Agreement Making). The opportunity exists to reform the NT Act and so provide for FPIC, thereby removing the structural barriers to genuine partnership, including arbitration provisions and the threat and use of compulsory acquisition powers.

Although the NT Act and its Future Act regime and ILUA processes provide a framework for recognition of First Nations rights through agreement making, support for First Nations peoples’ in dealing with energy development from both proponents and governments is essential. Agreement making and FPIC are only truly applied and of value when communities are supported to engage fully with these processes,and when they have the ability to translate legal rights into concrete outcomes.

Otherwise, research shows that the outcomes achieved by Traditional Owner groups (negotiating under the same legislative regime) varies significantly depending on factors such as capacity, financial and technical resources, and quality of governance.

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5.2        Agreement Making and Benefit Sharing

The NT Act processes are considered onerous by Traditional Owners, Governments and proponents, particularly from the perspectives of project timelines, collective consultation and decision making. Pertinent to Victoria is that whilst 75% of the state is covered by one of eleven RAPs, there are only four native title holding corporations.

Whilst working within the existing (native title) rights framework in Australia the ILUA mechanism provides an approach which,

• Satisfies international human rights expectations,
• Can be more expeditious and less onerous than the alternative adversarial native title Future Act model; and,
• Can accommodate the particular physical and economic characteristics of energy projects (capable of including the project site and associated infrastructure and transmission routes across Country).

An ILUA is a voluntary agreement between native title parties and others about the use and management of areas of land and/or waters. They can be made over areas where native title has been determined, a native title claim has been made and also in those areas for which no claim has been made. The flexibility of the ILUA in terms of area and type is a significant factor in the success of its application to this style of mining enterprise

As a binding contract between parties, ILUAs are a robust form of agreement when applied to any native title matter including the exercise of native title rights and interests, land management, future development, mining, cultural heritage and access to an area.

Whilst ILUAs and LUAs contain a well-regarded and tested model for project development and benefit sharing, they will not be applicable across all Victoria due to areas with no positive determinations. However, an ILUA type process should be mandatory under the 2025 VTP and Draft Guidelines for application in such places.

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6           Country Mapping and Data Sovereignty

Spatial planning and Country mapping can provide greater certainty to inform business planning and investment, and improved transparency in decision-making. To appropriately undertake such mapping, Traditional Owners must be supported through their TORI to have ownership of the process, the data and the way the mapping it is used.

On a cultural landscape level, it is critical that more work is undertaken to understand climate change informed by Traditional Owner’s knowledge. Such mapping of knowledge can be included in broader Country mapping but the process for implementation must be funded, must include consideration of data sovereignty and must be undertaken through TORIs.

In understanding the environment from a cultural perspective, regard must be had for Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP). Plants and animals play a significant role in a cultural landscape, providing more than trade and food outcomes but spiritual relationships through totems and songlines. It is the protection of their genetic materials and associated Traditional Environmental Knowledge (TEK) that is included within the protections of ICIP.

Mapping provides enormous opportunities for Traditional Owners to create digital repositories, enabling faster responses for proponents and a more integrated approach to planning activities. However, it is critical that such archives and associated mapping is designed, maintained, accessed and controlled by the Traditional Owners themselves. TORIs must be appropriately supported to develop these systems and archives for mapping, retain data sovereignty and are provided ICIP protections.

Initiatives such as these take the establishment of culturally safe and inclusive processes, requiring support and time as part of broader environmental and cultural marine plans. Work such as this must be undertaken prior to opening of areas for development and consideration of public consultation. Once areas and/or projects have been declared, Traditional Owners must be involved at all stages of design, construction and project life on a regulatory level. This must include the provision of cultural consent in accordance with rights afforded for FPIC under UNDRIP and provide nation building and economic development opportunities.

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7            UNDRIP and FPIC

7.1         Australian Implementation

With respect to international expectations, a necessary starting point is UNDRIP. The significance of this document is summarised in the following passage from the recent forward of the Joint Standing Committee Report into the Implementation of UNDRIP to Australia. The Committee stated:

Indigenous rights are inherent to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by virtue of their unique and enduring status as the First Peoples of Australia. The rights recognised in UNDRIP arose from the efforts of First Peoples around the world who worked within the United Nations structures over decades to formally articulate these rights.

Australia has been a signatory of UNDRIP since 2009. The United Nations calls upon all signatories to UNDRIP to uphold the inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples and to implement these within their political and institutional frameworks, while preserving the integrity and unity of the Nation State. Like many UN documents, the UNDRIP is non-binding, however signatories proclaim the UNDRIP to be a ‘standard of achievement to be pursued in a spirit of partnership and mutual respect’.

The UNDRIP articulates ‘the minimum standards of survival, dignity and well-being of Indigenous peoples of the world.’ Importantly, UNDRIP does not create any new or ‘special’ rights, which is a common misconception. Rather, it details and reflects existing rights from other international human rights instruments and applies them to the specific contexts and situations affecting Indigenous peoples.

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The High Court of Australia’s ruling in Mabo v Queensland No 2 confirmed that the concept of Australia’s being declared ‘terra nullius’ (land of no one) was untrue. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were here before British arrival and colonisation. UNDRIP offers the international standard for legacy issues arising from colonisation to find accommodation in the present.

In keeping with this statement, the Australian Government has accepted UNDRIP as a key component of the relevant policy framework when developing policy affecting First Nations peoples. This is apparent from the 2022 statement of Minister Plibersek in presenting to the Parliament the Government’s response to the Juukan Gorge Inquiry. The Minister states:

The Australian Government will do this within the framework of UNDRIP, particularly the principle of self-determination, and consistent with our commitments to the National Agreement on Closing the Gap and the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

UNDRIP has a particular relevanceto this discussion in two respects. First with respect to the concept of the Traditional Owner Representative Institution itself. The second point of relevance goes to the application of the FPIC principle and the potential for benefit sharing agreements that arise from it.

The relevant provisions in respect of both of these points are Articles 26 and 32. Under these provisions Indigenous Peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters that affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures.

• ‍Article 26
• Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use …

• ‍Article 32
• States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources….

The reference to FPIC in Article 32 is one basis upon which agreements with proponents that ensure benefits to Traditional Owners for the imposition on their rights and interests is based. Effective benefit sharing agreements support aspects of Government Policy beyond compliance with international law expectations.

As noted by Minister Plibersek in the passage above, the Australian Government has a long-standing commitment to ensuring achievement of the targets contained in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. Effective benefit sharing arrangements can assist in achievement of these targets in respect of many areas; employment, education, health and cultural development to name only some.

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7.2        Government Policy

An example of Government policy reflecting this approach can be seen in the NTA (under the ILUA/Right to Negotiate (RTN) structures). More recently it can also be seen in the Australian Government’s Critical Minerals Strategy 2023 – 30. Focus Area 3 of this Strategy is stated to be ‘First Nations Engagement and Benefit Sharing. This focus area is described (at p 30 of the Strategy Document) as:

Genuine engagement and collaboration with First Nations communities that promotes benefit sharing and respects the land and water rights and interests of First Nations people and communities.

A similar approach should be adopted in the context of implementation of the Draft Guidelines, in developing reforms to existing regulator structures to support these policy outcomes.

Indeed, the Australian Government recognises the potential role the Gas Industry can play in delivering benefits for First Nations people is identified in, for example, the recent Department of Industry, Science and Resources Future Gas Strategy Consultation Paper. As the submission from the NNTC to that Consultation process stated in its conclusion:

The gas production industry can provide a valuable basis to support Australia’s transition to a net zero economy. In doing so the industry can also provide an important vehicle for recognition of the rights of Traditional Owners and a foundation for the future economic prosperity and cultural integrity of Australia’s First Nations.

The proposal contained in this submission, once implemented, can assist in achieving these policy objectives.

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7.3        Representative and Inclusive Traditional Owner Corporations

Article 18 of UNDRIP provides for “the right to participate in decision making in matter which would affect their rights through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures…”.

Therefore, we see that a collectively held right to culture, and therefore ownership of that cultural knowledge, is ‘managed’ by a collectively determined representative. These are not individually held rights, although they are experienced by the individual, it is through collective decision making that they are exercised.

Creation of the system of recognised Traditional Owner Representative Institutions (TORIs) must be a central feature of the 2025 VTP and associated Draft Guidelines. The existence and recognition of TORIs is essential to give effect to the collective rights, including the right to self-determination, land rights and the right to protect and enjoy cultural heritage.

In Victoria, there are a range of statutory recognition of Traditional Owner groups. Recognition under the NTA, TOS Act and AH Act applies to Traditional Owner groups across 75% of the landmass of Victoria and may extend a small way into state waters.

The TORI system would provide statutory recognition for a range of existing Traditional Owner organisations created or recognised as above. Where there is no relevant TORI, a mechanism must be developed to provide advice on who the appropriate Traditional Owners are to engage with and provide consent or otherwise for the project.

Currently, structures for appropriate recognition of collective rights holding institutions like that described above, are being considered under commonwealth environmental and cultural heritage reforms. Particularly, in regard to a proposed First Nations Engagement Standard.

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8           Conclusion and Recommendations

The Submission has responded to the Draft Guidelines through an analysis of the nature of rights of Traditional Owners in law and in actuality. The Submission has made clear that the necessary identification of these rights as arising communally, but existing at both a communal and individual level, requires reform of the existing regulatory structures and not just adaptation in the processes associated with the existing structures.

In this respect the Submission has drawn parallels with the management of native title rights and interests under the NT Act. These rights share the characteristic of arising communally but existing at both a communal and individual level. The Submission proposes resolution of this shortcoming through adoption of processes similar to those employed for many decades in the NT Act.

The Submission also addresses the existing national energy environment, including concerns raised by the NNTC and SCA in offshore areas. The relationship between these marine and onshore environments regarding recognition of Traditional Owner rights is at times very similar and at others vastly different. For the purposes of this discussion however, we have explored the areas where the regulation of one environment can be drawn from in the other.

It is essential that complete project permissions are provided that include all Cultural Heritage, not as triggers as it would be under the AH Act, but as management considerations. Such consideration could be implemented through the development of Futurere Acts under the NT Act and LUAs under the TOS Act but, in areas without such determinations, the provisions of RAPs under the AH Act are not sufficient.

The Victorian Government has committed to implement the Closing the Gap Agreement, UNDRIP and to support the self-determined economic development of First Peoples. To advance these commitments, all TORIs must be recognised in the 2025 VTP and associated Draft Guidelines as being equitable, whether they’re statutory determinations are under the NT Act, TOS Act or AH Act. Practical manifestation of this would be in the provision for LUA and Future Act agreement models to be required in the project approval process.

The development of engagement principles and embedding of FPIC and ICIP are fundamentally underpinned by UNDRIP and the TORI model. Similarly, the model supports a body for consideration of Cultural Heritage not limited to terrestrial heritage that also considers application of TEK.

The concept of sufficient resourcing for Traditional Owners to continue to care for Country and meet their aspirations is critical. However, it should not be limited to resourcing and capacity for individual projects but be support for the TORIs who managethe cultural rights and economic development aspirations of Traditional Owners in their geographic areas.

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Footnotes

1. Mabo & Ors v Queensland & Ors(No 2) (1992) 175 CLR 1.
2. UnitedNations Declaration of the Rights on Indigenous Peoples GA/res/61/295 Ann.1 (Sept 13, 2007).
3. https://nntc.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/NNTC-Southern-Ocean-submission_Bass-Strait-20240131.pdf
4. https://nntc.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/SCA-sub-on-Offshore-Wind-Regs_20240507.pdf