Policy Agenda

Southern West Yiradyuri people play a crucial role in protecting Southern West Yiradyuri cultural heritage. As Traditional Owners of our Country, we have a deep connection with the environment and are concerned about its protection from damaging activities like building and mining. At our 96 Gap Road property, the first Country the Corporation has held freehold in its own name, we have developed a Country Plan that places cultural and ecological values above commercial considerations, guiding how disturbed areas are set aside for infrastructure like our SW Yiradyuri Nursery while the surrounding Country is protected and actively rehabilitated. Directors, Elders and members walk this Country together as part of that work, not as an administrative exercise but as a cultural one. We are committed to collaborating with government to put policies in place that ensure our Country and Heritage is safeguarded for future generations, and are pursuing formal recognition of this work, including through the Indigenous Protected Area program, to see our conservation authority properly resourced and recognised.

Southern West Yiradyuri requires access to our traditional water rights. We must restore customary practices, protect our cultural values and uses, and support self-determination. We are actively engaging government through environmental and cultural flow programs that support Country, including existing programs already underway at places like Yarrada Lagoon across Southern West Yiradyuri Country. To pave the way to a Southern West Yiradyuri future underpinned by self-determination, Government must change how water is shared and managed across Yiradyuri Country.

Fire is a critical component of Southern West Yiradyuri ceremony. We use it to restore and heal Country, and share knowledge and the stories of our old people. Southern West Yiradyuri are committed to ensuring our rights and expertise in fire land management practice is recognised through government policy at all levels, and we are putting that expertise into practice through cultural burns across our 96 Gap Road property, supported by the fire management infrastructure we are building on site.

Southern West Yiradyuri people are working to influence policy areas that manage forests and parks and make sure government know how our members want forests managed in the future. We see a clear need for proper waste management and clean up of campsites and other areas across our forests, and are committed to ensuring this basic standard of care for Country is reflected in how forests and parks are managed.

As Australia moves towards a renewables future, it is important that compensation for any works undertaken, and profits made, on Southern West Yiradyuri Country is paramount. We have withdrawn from below-standard rate structures previously accepted across the sector, and now require fee-for-service conditions from every proponent seeking to work on our Country. We are working through equity positions with renewable energy companies operating on our Country, starting at 5%, and are pursuing further equity and negotiation coordination roles across the Southwest Renewable Energy Zone. Government and corporate policies need to reflect the impact of their activities on our Country, and there must be a greater net benefit to our people and Country, not just consultation without compensation.

The policies to require this already exist, what is missing is monitoring and enforcement of actual benefit flow to our communities. Community benefit schemes as currently run largely buy the cheapest possible agreement from community groups while investing nothing of substance back into the region for the long term. This extends to extractive procurement contracts and fly-in fly-out workforce arrangements that take value out of our Country rather than building capacity within it. To date, the Southwest Renewable Energy Zone has delivered our communities no genuine benefit beyond short term grants and mandated heritage work. Government must properly monitor and enforce the benefit sharing policies already in place, not simply rely on them existing on paper.

Southern West Yiradyuri people have a cultural obligation to look after Country. We understand that we currently have to work within the colonial laws of land management, but must ensure that our rights and obligations to Country are recognised and actioned, including our cultural authority over practices such as dingo management, grounded in Yiradyuri Law and the Kengal Dreaming. We are proving this in practice at 96 Gap Road, land purchased entirely with our own funds with no government support, where our Country Plan now guides how the property is cared for across generations. The Southern West Yiradyuri Clans Land, Water and Sky Country Aboriginal Corporation has been established to undertake this important work, and now also supports our registered native title claim, NC2025/004. While it is of utmost significance to maintain the integrity of our allodial rights, it is equally important to uphold our cherished and long-standing cultural traditions. It is crucial to acknowledge that as the original People of Southern West Yiradyuri Country, we have been successfully managing our precious Country since time immemorial, through the knowledge, skills and capacity that continue to guide us today. As Traditional Owners, it is our responsibility to safeguard our Culture and Country for future generations, and this can only be achieved through genuine partnership with governments, including formal pathways like Indigenous Protected Area declaration, that return our Country free from encumbrances and restrictions while resourcing us to manage it.

Often forgotten is the importance of Sky Country and our strong connection to the skyworld, both physical and spiritual. As more and more development happens across Australia, light pollution is damaging the environment and breaking down our ability to connect culturally to our Sky Country. An example is the disruption to the buugang ceremony, the bogong moth migration to the Alps, which sees millions of buugang not make it due to being caught up in city lights on their journey. We have a responsibility to protect this important ceremony, which has taken place for thousands of years and is a significant part of our cultural practice.