A MOTION highlighting the hypocrisy of the State government's 1100 square metre rule for WA's Aboriginal Cultural Heritage (ACH) Act drew varying responses at a recent meeting on the new legislation.
The motion at a WAFarmers' meeting in Katanning last month called on the government to "make all of WA's landholders equal under the law" by removing the 1100sqm rule in its ACH Act.
Currently, only landholders of more than 1100sqm can be affected by the legislation that came into effect on July 1.
The group's chief executive Trevor Whittington posed the question to the 600 strong crowd: why isn't the legislation also being applied to blocks in the metropolitan area which are under 1100sqm if Aboriginal cultural heritage is a matter of significance to the State?
"Why does a block in the Swan Valley or Mosman Park not have to have a heritage survey to build a boat ramp on the Swan River - but then if you've got 1200sqm at Merredin and you want to put a shed out the back you might have to have a heritage survey?" Mr Whittington said.
After a few audience members spoke out against the motion, saying the position could potentially alienate a large group of the agricultural industry's supporters that live in WA's metropolitan areas, it was opposed by the 600 strong crowd.
The Nationals WA MP for Roe Peter Rundle said he suspected the rule had been formulated to keep Labor's city voters happy.
"I fear it has come into place as a political issue...but we need to get metropolitan people on board, so we don't want to alienate the metropolitan area by inflicting the 1100sqm rule on them," Mr Rundle said.
"We need to put some real effort into getting metropolitan people to understand the challenges that regional people are having."
Speaking to Farm Weekly after the meeting, WA opposition leader Shane Love said he also understood the sentiment behind the motion put forward by WAFarmers.
"I think that motion was really saying 'why are they picking on us,'" Mr Love said.
"But I don't think trying to inflict that legislation on another group of people is actually helpful."
While the legislation is not likely to have much impact on those who have already bought blocks less than 1100sqm and who are not looking to buy new properties, Mr Love said it would affect those living in the metropolitan region that might be looking to buy smaller properties on new blocks of land.
"The developers of those new blocks of land will have to go through that process, and there will be a cost which will be reflected in the price of blocks of land that are newly created from now on," Mr Love said.
"So this legislation does affect those smaller blocks, in so far as before they've created them and planned to subdivide and develop them - there will be a process and there will be a cost which will be added to the cost of every new homeowner in WA at some point, when the current stocks are already exhausted."
Gaining the support of those living in the State's metropolitan areas was a major theme at the WAFarmers' meeting, with the State's Liberal and National WA Party members saying the backing of their city counterparts would be necessary to invoke any real change at the State and Federal levels.
