Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Protection Co-design Workshop

Event postponement - Regrettably, due to the ongoing uncertainty related to COVID-19 and the potential impact on hosting the upcoming ‘Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Protection Co-Design Workshop’, the organisers have resolved to postpone this important event, from its original January dates.

It is hoped that by delaying the workshop we will be able to better ensure participant (and community) health and safety. In line with this, we are now exploring options for delivering the event in a hybrid format – e.g. both in-person and online – which will also increase accessibility and participation.

On behalf of the event partners, we appreciate your understanding and patience while the new details are still being settled.

The tentative revised dates are 7 and 8 April. Please keep an eye out for further updates.

In the meantime, should you have any questions, please contact Dionne Lamb at YMAC on (P: 08 9268 7000; E: [email protected]).

Please note, it is important for those interested in participating in the workshop that you register your attendance via this event page. Registration will assist the event organisers in monitoring numbers in relation to venue capacity limitations, COVID requirements, and equitable representation from different regions and sectors.

Workshop details:

Traditional Owners from across Western Australia are inviting representatives from government and industry, as well as other heritage professionals and co-design experts, to join them at this workshop to commence the development of a genuine co-design framework relating to the ongoing management and protection of their cultural heritage under the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Amendment Bill 2021 (WA) (ACHB). The McGowan Government is on record committing to a co-design process in relation to the codes and regulations associated with the ACH Bill. In response, Traditional Owners wish to lead this process in terms of establishing a co-design framework and how this should be implemented. This framework, in turn, will inform the associated statutory guidelines and regulations to be developed, as well as how the mandated five-year review process regarding the operation and effectiveness of the ACHB (per section 309) should be undertaken.

A key aspect of the workshop will be to first establish an agreed-upon understanding of what ‘co-design’ is (and what it is not). Drawing from best practice approaches undertaken elsewhere, however, we already know that ‘consultation’ does not equate to ‘co-design’, and that legitimate co-design processes require continual collaboration and improvement and ensuring the right stakeholders are involved. The main purpose of co-design is to generate meaningful dialogues among all stakeholders, and to give the people who are most affected by the problems that we seek to solve, a primary role in solving them. Co-design is not simply about designing innovative services, products or policies, it is about prioritising the stories of those people that those services, products or policies will serve – at every stage of the design process. Hence, this workshop will be only the first step in a far longer-term endeavour.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Parmelia Hilton Perth, 14 Mill Street, Perth, Australia