Tony Maddox: Toodyay real estate agent found guilty of Aboriginal Heritage Act breach

A Toodyay real estate agent has been found guilty of breaching WA’s Aboriginal Heritage Act after an agonising year-long wait for the verdict.

Tony Maddox, 72, was charged by the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage in 2023, accused of damaging or altering a part of the Avon River without first seeking ministerial consent.

The river, whose Aboriginal name is Gugulja, holds deep cultural importance for the local Noongar people because Dreamtime stories say it is traveled by the Wagyl, a river serpent.

Maddox bolstered a crossing over Boyagerring Brook, which runs through his farm north-east of Perth, that provides access to his house.

He concreted the top surface, pumped bore water and removed silt to create a large artificial lake that he says has become an animal sanctuary.

The business owner fought the charge surrounded by a phalanx of supporters at a two-day trial in Perth Magistrates Court in February last year, represented by barrister and former attorney-general Christian Porter.

He argued that the work was necessary because the previous crossing, comprised of sand and rocks when he bought the land in 2014, kept eroding during the rainy season.

Maddox further argued that he could not have been reasonably expected to have known the Act applied to the brook — with Mr Porter questioning whether the Avon River’s Aboriginal heritage-registered status extended to tributaries.

The department’s former registrar of Aboriginal sites, Tanya Butler, conceded in her testimony that an online database showing the boundaries of significant sites could sometimes be inaccurate.

That meant Maddox could have fallen foul of the laws even if he had checked.

Magistrate Andrew Matthews handed down his reserved decision on Monday, fining Maddox $2000 and granting him a spent conviction. He was also slugged court costs of $5000, on top of his own legal fee exceeding $100,000.

The maximum penalty is nine months in jail as well as a $20,000 fine.

He was charged under the original 1972 Act, which the State Government reverted to in 2023 after a colossal update — a response to Rio Tinto’s destruction of Juukan Gorge caves in the Pilbara — sparked outrage from landowners who struggled to understand the complex and onerous new rules.

However, an amendment was added to the Section 18 process empowering traditional owners to appeal a ministerial decision to allow a mining company to destroy cultural heritage.

A recent conviction under the now 53-year-old Act was Eco Landworks over a firebreak clearing as part of a council-contracted job at Kinsale Park in Mindarie.

The company was fined $12,500 plus costs of $5264.30 for two counts of disturbing ground without consent and $50 for one count of digging a hole without written consent.