If you want to know what practical difference The Voice to Parliament is going to have, then you only have to look across to Western Australia and the recently introduced Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Laws. Rather than addressing social disadvantage in remote Aboriginal communities, many feel this is turning into an escalation of money and power.

As this news report indicates, the plan to plant 5,500 shrubs and trees was cancelled when the newly formed Whadjuk Aboriginal Corporation demanded $2.5 million in exchange for its approval. That’s $454.54 for every tree! The decision has since been reversed after public outrage.

This comes on the back of another tree planting cancellation in Geraldton. As the city’s Mayor, Shane Van Styn, wrote in a Facebook post on July 8:

ABORIGINAL CULTURAL HERITAGE ACT STOPPED TODAY’S TREE PLANTING IN WONTHELLA

Today, attendees made their way to Wonthella Bush Reserve to plant trees in honour of the Late Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee.

Despite checking the site online prior, for any Aboriginal heritage, of which there was none, a respected local knowledge holder, shut down proceedings on the basis of ground disturbance and the new Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act and the ‘significance’ of the site to the family.

The site was last year ravaged by a deliberately lit fire and these efforts were a part of restoring the remnant bushland.

This is the first use of powers of entry and stoppage we are aware of under the Act, despite technically not being an official Aboriginal Inspector under the Act as no LACHS has yet been created to appoint them as such. So some confusion is now in play.

CGG complied with the directive to stop the tree planting and we apologise for the inconvenience.

The above two incidents are precisely the type of scenarios which Speccie Editor-in-Chief Rowan Dean warned would occur just one month ago on Sky News Australia. Dean presciently predicted:

This is your land? Not any longer! It always was, always will be Aboriginal land according to the activists. And this is what The Voice will deliver to mainstream Australia … come back to me in a couple of years’ time and you’ll say to me, ‘Oh…! Rowan did warn us about this.’ Don’t vote for The Voice!

Dean later went on to argue:

The absolute crux of the matter is that this is no longer your home, it’s no longer your house, it’s no longer your land. This law in Western Australia just got passed, nobody kicked up a fuss about it, we didn’t hear much about it, but suddenly – and this is the absolute heart of the matter – you either believe that property rights in this country belong to the individual who has paid for them or you believe that all land across the continent of Australia belongs to Indigenous Australians and that sovereignty was never ceded. 

…I hate to say it, but when Dominic Perrottet stuck the Aboriginal flag on top of the Harbour Bridge he was basically saying, ‘There you go, it’s basically not our land anymore.’ Now, it’s fine if you believe that, but stand up and say that clearly. But what Labor and the Left do is they’re doing it through deception, tricking you into thinking that you’re racist if you don’t vote for The Voice. No! If you vote for The Voice you’re handing sovereignty away. That is the end goal according to the Uluru Statement. 

While the Aboriginal Affairs Minister Tony Buti said that the cancellation was ‘incredibly disappointing’ and that the tree planting plans were not covered by the Act, this is precisely how laws can and will be weaponised – and monetised – against the wider community if The Voice is successful.

Rowan Dean is right in pointing out that the end goal of The Voice is the implementation of a treaty and subsequent reparations. And rather than this being a one-off payment, we should expect to have to pay royalties well into perpetuity. Because the issue is not so much of constitutional recognition, but of property rights. However, rather than taking years, Dean’s admonition has come true in a matter of weeks.