Laws created to provide meaningful protection to culturally significant Aboriginal sites are an "abject failure", according to the woman behind a failed bid to stop a proposed NSW coal mine near Gunnedah destroying sacred areas.
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Gomeroi woman Veronica "Dolly" Talbott argued federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley made a legal error when deciding the potential economic and social benefits of the proposed Shenhua Watermark open-cut coal mine on the Liverpool Plains outweighed the heritage value of significant Aboriginal sites in its footprint.
Federal Court Justice Wendy Abraham dismissed the application on Wednesday and ordered Ms Talbott pay up to $1000 of the government's legal costs.
Under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, the federal environment minister can make a declaration to protect and preserve the area "from injury or desecration".
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The act gave Ms Ley "very broad" powers to consider matters she believed relevant to her decision and those could include countervailing matters, Justice Abraham said.
"As is plain from the operation of the Heritage Act, 'Parliament's desired end' is not that a declaration is to be made at all costs, without a consideration of countervailing matters and interests," she said.
Ms Talbott, whose challenge was backed by the Environmental Defenders Office, said the construction of the mine would prevent the Gomeroi people from reading country and sharing sacred places with their descendants.
"It remains vitally important to us to protect our sacred places, songline and burials of our ancestors, which is a sacred place to us, a place which holds our ancestors' footprints, their legacy to us," she said in a statement on Wednesday.
Ms Talbott said there was an urgent need to protect areas of significance to Aboriginal people, especially since Rio Tinto's legal destruction of the Juukan caves in the Pilbara in Western Australia.
If this mega-mine proceeds, our interlinked sacred places will be completely destroyed and obliterated from the landscape.
- Veronica "Dolly" Talbott
"The decision demonstrates the abject failure of the ATSIHP Act to provide meaningful protection for areas of particular significance to Aboriginal people," she said.
"If this mega-mine proceeds, our interlinked sacred places will be completely destroyed and obliterated from the landscape."
In a statement from her office, Ms Ley noted the ruling confirmed her decision was made in accordance with the provisions of the act.
The minister intended to start a national engagement process for modernising the protection of Indigenous cultural heritage, commencing with a roundtable meeting of state Indigenous and environment ministers, a spokesman told AAP.
The meeting will be chaired by Ms Ley and Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt.
Australian Associated Press
