Aboriginal applicants have broken their silence after a successful heritage protection order prompted weeks of political and media speculation. Wiradyrui Traditional Owners Corporation have told the ABC their only motivation was to protect country and that the backlash has taken an enormous toll. It comes as an expert has slammed current aboriginal heritage legislation as deliberately divisive
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00:00The Wiradjuri people's connection to this place goes back thousands of years.
00:09There's 19 artefact scatters, 18 isolated finds, one open artefact site.
00:15Up until recently it was set to become a waste storage site for the Regis gold mining project.
00:21That was before the Federal Environment Minister issued a rare Section 10 order to protect
00:26the site.
00:27The water is sacred and life-giving, it's healing and it's got spiritual significance.
00:33It's used particularly for different types of ceremony.
00:38They say earlier attempts to have it listed on the register were rebuffed because it was
00:41considered a state-significant development.
00:45Well it says they believe what we say, but they can't do anything about it, which is
00:51really frustrating.
00:53Since the Minister's intervention the pushback has been fierce.
00:56We've been accused of lying, accused of profiteering from the application.
01:02We've had our members threatened and harassed.
01:04Regis says the intervention makes their project unviable and will hurt the local economy.
01:09The mining company insists it followed the correct process every step of the way, consulting
01:14with the local Aboriginal Land Council, which withdrew its opposition during the application.
01:20It declined to comment for this story, but the New South Wales Land Council has issued
01:24a statement saying it's deeply concerned with the debate and wants better systems in
01:29place that aren't used by governments to divide our peoples.
01:32Why is it that Aboriginal people have to have a consensus view on the heritage value of
01:39a place?
01:40Because they all have different connections to that place.
01:44Like many other Aboriginal people, we hold the belief that we are country and country
01:49is us.
01:50A connection that's being protected for now.