Here Come the Woke Cultural Police to Investigate Your Farm! By James Reed
The Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council wants the power to allow indigenous cultural investigators to enter private property in Victoria without the owner's or renter's permission. Their aim is to investigate possible violations of indigenous cultural sites or heritage or land. The example offered is if some sacred things, like the remains of a person were in a shed. Rita Panahi, conservative Sky News commentator summed this proposal up well: “This is the left march and it's always the same people, whether it's global warming, whether it's race issues - BLM (Black Lives Matter) marches or invasion day, or whether now you're seeing people taking to the street for the Palestinian cause - it is the same people in almost all the cases. And it's the same group of people pushing this anti-West agenda, this push to say we're not legitimate, this is an evil country.”
The establishment of a cultural police is contrary to everything Australia is and stands for, and as Panahi says, is like something seen in Iran, so the proposal needs to be soundly protested against by us Victorians.
“A plan to allow Indigenous cultural investigators to enter private property in Victoria without the owner's or renter's permission has been slammed.
The Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council warned that its staff investigating alleged cultural heritage breaches needed more power to do their job.
The Council, which is under the wing of Victoria's Department of Premier and Cabinet, used an example of the remains of an Indigenous person that might be in a shed but not retrieved because the occupier's approval was needed for entry.
This move outraged Sky News host James Morrow, who referred to it as the 'culture police', 'Orwellian', 'statism' and 'anti-freedom'.
His co-hosts Rita Panahi and Rowan Dean were in furious agreement with him and took the opportunity to lash out at any type of progressive politics in Australia, including Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney.
'These culture police would have the right to enter people's private property such as farms and houses in Victoria, without the owner's permission to check to see if there has been violations of Indigenous cultural sites or heritage or land,' Morrow said.
The US-raised broadcaster told his co-hosts that the 'culture police' was just the latest attack on regular Aussies.
The peak federal Government body responsible for Aboriginal affairs - the National Indigenous Australians Agency - is conducting investigations into 15 cases of potential fraud in grants they handed out.
'People always look at these sorts of things in isolation, Covid, the Voice... it's all this thread of statism and it's this thread of control and it's a thread of anti-freedom and a thread of really cracking down on ordinary Australians who just want to live their lives, and tell them how they are supposed to live,' he said.
Rita Panahi, who was born in the US and then raised in Iran before coming to Australia with her family as a refugee, also saw the Victorian move as part of a broader agenda.
'This is the left march and it's always the same people, whether it's global warming, whether it's race issues - BLM (Black Lives Matter) marches or invasion day, or whether now you're seeing people taking to the street for the Palestinian cause - it is the same people in almost all the cases.
'And it's the same group of people pushing this anti-West agenda, this push to say we're not legitimate, this is an evil country.'
Panahi said she feared the proposal due to her own experiences in Iran.
'When you say something like "culture police", I get chills. I came from a country where there's a morality police, and they go checking to see if women are wearing their hijabs properly.
'And if they're not, they get beaten up and taken to jail, sometimes they get killed. When you're talking about anything like this, alarm bells start ringing and they should start ringing for everybody.'
The third host of the show, Rowan Dean, joked he'd hoped the culture police would 'be down to the Archibald (art prize) and a few modern art centres and basically removing anything that was done or painted since the 1970s onwards.
'But this is really sinister stuff, of course it's come out of Victorian Labor culture police, wandering around and checking whether you've somehow done something wrong to Aboriginal culture.'
Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council for comment.
The revelations comes after it was revealed a rock climber had been threatened with a fine of more than $300,000 for allegedly breaching cultural heritage laws.
The visitor was left stunned after receiving a letter following their visit to the Grampians National Park, in Victoria, on October 18.
Victoria's First Peoples-State Relations unit is reportedly monitoring climbers and other visitors after rock climbing in the area was banned in 2019.
The ban was introduced in a bid to protect Indigenous heritage - including rock art that is so worn down it can only be viewed through special X-ray glasses.
A rock climber's home was visited twice by a First Peoples unit investigator who claimed a vehicle registered in their name was connected with cultural heritage breaches.
Investigator Adam Green, who works within the Department of Premier and Cabinet, left a letter at the climber's property after visiting twice.
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