1. Purpose and background

The Guidelines will help everyone involved in Victoria’s CHMP system navigate their way to better cultural heritage management practice and economic benefits for the private sector and for Victoria.

Since 2007, when the Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006 (Vic) (the Act) came into force, priorities, methods and knowledge have continued to evolve as the system has grown. Our understanding of the best methods for minimising harm in 2025 is not the same as it was in 2007. Years of field experience by participants across the system has informed which methods for minimising harm we believe to be most effective.

While significant reforms were implemented in 2016, practices have emerged, such as expansive subsurface testing and salvage demands, which are not always consistent with the intended objectives of the system and which impact its social licence. It is appropriate now to provide guidance supporting greater consistency of approach and process.

In 2024 the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) reviewed the CHMP system and recommended a CHMP sector forum to discuss and agree on improvements. In 2025 CHMP sector participants and decision makers came together at this forum to discuss the potential for new ‘CHMP Guidelines’, setting out shared expectations and guardrails that increase consistency and certainty across what is a constantly evolving field of understanding. The sector came together at a second forum in March 2026, and people provided written submissions with ideas for reform. These Guidelines emerged from those discussions, submissions and other individual and collective exchanges between all sector participants, and from DPC experience as the regulator of the system. DPC has not directly addressed everyone’s suggestions, but participants should see many of their ideas reflected and where not, see reasons why.

The Guidelines’ aim is to help everyone engage with the system efficiently, effectively and fairly. They focus on technical CHMP development and preparation, interactions and conduct. While focused on areas of the state where RAPs have been appointed, they are also intended to operate in non-RAP areas where DPC exercises statutory powers in relation to CHMPs.

Finally, appendices explain some of the newer processes, underlying philosophies and legal justifications, and what should be expected in greater detail.

How do these guidelines improve heritage protection?

This is, of course, the fundamental reason for the Act and its processes [see Purposes and Objectives provisions of the Act, esp. sections 1(a); 3(a), (d)]. The Guidelines seek to improve heritage protection both directly and indirectly.

Directly, these Guidelines seek to:

• elevate RAP engagement earlier in the CHMP process than currently
• focus the most work, time and cost on protecting heritage of high relative significance
• for the first time explicitly ask that intangible heritage values be considered in the CHMP
• allow for the consideration and documentation of the sensitivity of activity areas
• request survey, excavation and salvage strategies be explicitly agreed and documented
• propose Indigenous data agreements to protect sensitive cultural information
• promote CHMP conditions proportionate to cultural heritage significance
• promote less salvage and more targeted excavation, limiting disturbance to heritage.

The Guidelines seek to strengthen the support and legitimacy of the CHMP system among all stakeholders and the general public. By focusing on heritage of high relative significance and improving documentation throughout the system, more trust will be built between the users of the system and there will be a greater appreciation of cultural heritage from everyone. The Guidelines seek to strengthen the importance and role of self-determination in decision-making through measures designed to increase the confidence and support for the CHMP process by all those involved.

The Victorian CHMP system has been in place since 2006 delivering nation leading arrangements for the protection and management of Aboriginal cultural heritage. After 20 years of operation there are opportunities to strengthen the system to ensure it remains robust, effective and well supported for the next 20 years.

Links between specific proposals and the Act’s Objectives are indicated in the text where relevant.

How do these guidelines improve timeliness and efficiency of assessment?

The Act has the objective to promote timely and efficient assessments of activities which could harm Aboriginal heritage [see esp. section 3(g)]. As the only objective of the Act specifically about heritage assessment, this is also an explicit primary objective of the CHMP process.

These Guidelines address the timeliness and efficiency of the CHMP system by:

• promoting the early alert of any significant cultural and intangible heritage matters via activity area statements of sensitivity, so they do not become a late and costly consideration or a reason for court action or appeals to the Commonwealth
• requiring written agreements for standard and complex assessments and salvage to increase certainty and maximise discussion, cooperation and agreement before fieldwork commences
• requiring explicit and documented reasons for excavating and salvage to ensure best practice
• noting that the subsurface testing of low-density surface material is not necessary unless reasons are presented and documented on why sub surface material of particular significance is expected
• requiring CHMP conditions be linked directly to the significance of places, ensuring conditions are proportionate to the cultural value of the places involved
• requiring inductions to be tailored and separated into cultural and site-specific workshops and being clear that when no heritage is found an induction should not be required
• establishing explicit decision points and offering assistance or dispute resolution for each
• emphasising salvage as a last resort condition.