Native title year in review 2025-2026

What you need to know

• The number of applications under sections 9 and 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 (Cth) (ATSIHP Act) has increased significantly in the last 12 months, reversing a slowdown in applications gazetted since 2021.
• Applications for protection under the ATSIHP Act enable the Federal Minister for the Environment (or in certain circumstances, authorised officers) to make a declaration for the protection and preservation of significant Aboriginal areas and objects from a threat of "injury or desecration". A successful application can stop a project or activity from proceeding.
• The Federal Government remains publicly committed to reforming this legislation, though progress continues to be slow.

What you need to do

• Be aware that a protection application under the ATSIHP Act is a powerful means by which First Nations People can express dissatisfaction with the adequacy of cultural heritage protection provided under State or Territory legislation or otherwise seek to prevent the carrying out of a project or activity.
• Recognise that these applications can take some years to resolve and require significant effort from proponents to properly engage with the process.

Protection applications back on the rise

In our Native Title Year in Review 2024-2025 article, "Commonwealth cultural heritage protection applications: still top of mind for First Nations Groups", we reported that only one new protection application under the ATSIHP Act had been publicly notified in the previous 12 months. Twelve months on, that trend has markedly reversed.

Since then, 12 new section 10 applications have been notified, spanning five jurisdictions, with lodgements now outpacing resolutions. We summarise each below, by state.

Applications notified in the last 12 months

Queensland

• Selwyn Range (near Cloncurry): A Yalarrnga (Yullana) Traditional Owner has made a section 10 application to protect the area known as Selwyn Range, near Cloncurry. The applicant claims the area is associated with Sacred Lost Boys Dreaming, and includes ceremonial sites, a male initiation site, and sacred paintings. The applicant attributes the threat to ongoing mining activities in the area.
• Monastery Creek, Kolar Creek and Monument (near Cloncurry): A Yalarrnga (Yullana) Traditional Owner made a section 10 application to protect the area known as Monastery Creek, Kolar Creek and Monument, approximately 100 km south of Cloncurry. The applicant claims the area contains ceremonial sites, increase sites, a fertility site, bora grounds, songlines, Dreaming stories and a massacre site. The applicant attributes the threat to proposed mine expansion activities.
• Barrambin (Victoria Park): Indigenous parties (see the gazette notices for the first, second and third applications) have each made separate section 10 applications to protect the area known as Barrambin (Victoria Park) in Queensland. The applicants claim the area holds cultural, spiritual and ancestral significance to First Nations People and is under threat from a stadium development.
• Magazine Hill: An applicant has made a section 10 application on behalf of the Waanyi Elders Council Pty Ltd to protect the area known as Magazine Hill, near Mount Isa. The applicant claims the area contains a wide range of culturally significant sites, including burials, paintings, quarries, artefact scatters, stone arrangements, scarred trees, and other cultural features. The applicant attributes the threat to mining and mining exploration.

Western Australia

• Wadjemup (Rottnest Island): A Nyungar Traditional Owner has made a section 10 application to protect the island and surrounding waters of Wadjemup, west of Fremantle. The applicant claims the area is significant due to the Quod (the former Aboriginal prison), the Boys Reformatory, artefact scatters, and infrastructure built by Aboriginal ancestors. The applicant attributes the threat to a proposed tourism redevelopment.
• Matilda Bay: A Noongar custodian of the Whadjuk/Boorloo lands has made a section 10 application to protect the area known as Matilda Bay, Crawley (near Perth), including the waters and adjoining banks. The applicant claims the area includes traditional birthing grounds, women's business areas, marriage ceremony sites, and forms part of the Waugal creation story. The applicant attributes the threat to a proposed expansion of ferry infrastructure.
• Portion of the Hamersley Range Region: The Yindjibarndi Ngurra Aboriginal Corporation and the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation have jointly made a section 10 application to protect a portion of the Hamersley Range, near Tom Price. The applicants claim the area contains traditional areas with sacred resources, increase sites, ochre quarries, and caves/rock shelters. The applicants attribute the threat to ongoing mining practices.

Victoria

• Lake Boort: An applicant has made a section 10 application on behalf of the Yung Balug Peoples of the Dja Dja Wurrung First Nations to protect the area known as Lake Boort, near Boort, Victoria. The applicant claims the area contains burials, scarred trees, middens and cooking mounds. The applicant attributes the threat to the 2026 duck hunting season, including damage to cultural heritage sites by duck hunters.

New South Wales

• Wallum Development Site: An applicant has made a section 10 application on behalf of a Minyungbul Mulanjali person of the Bundjalung Nation to protect the Wallum development site at Brunswick Heads, New South Wales. The applicant claims the area is significant due to its role in the creation story of the Three Brothers, as a meeting place and camp site, and for the presence of spiritually significant trees and stones. The applicant attributes the threat to a proposed residential development.

South Australia

• Koonalda Cave: A Mirning Elder has made a section 10 application on behalf of the Mirning people to protect Koonalda Cave on the Nullarbor Plain, South Australia. The applicant claims the area is a sacred place containing spiritually significant artwork linked to Mirning ancestors and the Whale Dreaming, and some of the earliest known cave art in the world. The applicant attributes the threat to vandalism, unauthorised entry, the exclusion of Traditional Elders from decision-making, and the installation of tourist infrastructure over a sacred site without consent.

Applications already decided

Publicly available information from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) confirms that, since August 2025:

• the Minister declined to make declarations in response to three separate section 9 applications seeking to halt a stadium development at Barrambin (Victoria Park), Queensland;
• the Minister declined to make a declaration in response to a section 9 application concerning Wahluu / Mount Panorama in Bathurst, NSW; and
• an authorised officer declined to make a declaration under section 18 in response to an application concerning the Orange Regional Sporting Precinct.

Under the ATSIHP Act, only section 10 applications require public notification, and even then, that notification does not occur immediately upon receipt of an application. Declarations themselves must be publicly notified, but a decision not to make a section 9 or 10 declaration only needs to be notified to the applicant, not the public. As a result, there may be additional applications currently under Ministerial (or, in the case of section 18 emergency applications, Departmental) consideration, and decisions declining to make a declaration, that have not been publicly disclosed.

Murujuga declaration

On 12 September 2025, the Hon Murray Watt MP, Minister for the Environment and Water, made the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection (Murujuga) declaration 2025. It is the only declaration made since 13 August 2024, when the Hon Tanya Plibersek MP, then Minister for the Environment and Water, declared an area forming part of the McPhillamys Gold Project site a significant Aboriginal area to be preserved and protected from injury or desecration.

Last year, we also reported that the McPhillamys proponent had commenced Federal Court proceedings seeking judicial review of that declaration. The Federal Court heard the case over three days in December 2025.

The two declarations differ in several notable respects, set out in the table below.

As is evident from the table above, the Murujuga declaration adds features that did not appear in the earlier McPhillamys declaration, which may suggest that Minister Watt had regard to the grounds of challenge run by the McPhillamys proponent in the Federal Court proceedings when making the Murujuga Declaration.

Legislative reform still lags

We discuss progress on cultural heritage reform in our article "Aboriginal cultural heritage reform around Australia in 2025-2026". As we noted in last year's update, the long-awaited modernisation of Commonwealth cultural heritage protection legislation still has a long way to go, and, 12 months on, that assessment continues to hold true.

While cultural heritage reform remains awaited, the ATSIHP Act continues to provide First Nations People with a powerful means of seeking protection from threatened injury or desecration, where such First Nations People consider that adequate protection is not otherwise provided at a State or Territory level or to otherwise prevent the carrying out of a project or activity.

Want to know more?

• Commonwealth cultural heritage protection applications: still top of mind for First Nations Groups (9 September 2025)
• Aboriginal cultural heritage reform around Australia in 2025-2026 (26 October 2026)
• Update on Federal cultural heritage protection applications (6 June 2024)

Authors: Tony Denholder, Partner; Guy Dwyer, Partner and Lydia O'Neill, Lawyer.