I downloaded a copy of the basic Victorian Heritage Act 1995, and found that it is 194 pages long, with 99.9% unintelligible legal gobbledygook, that we ordinary folk will have trouble understanding. To make matters worse there is a separate act for aboriginal sites.
Most of it appears to target shipwrecks and defined land based sites/buildings, etc, but there is one very baffling section that appears to be an area of possible concern as the rules apply to "non-registered archaeological sites". Now fortunately this applies to what are "Registered Objects", but I couldn't find what is a registered object, or how it is defined, apart from lots of long review and approval verbage. How in the heck is Joe Bloe to understand what this means.
Extract of Archaeological Relic and Archaeological Site definitions below, are extracted from the document.
"archaeological relic"
means
(a) any archaeological deposit; or
(b) any artefact, remains or material evidence associated with an archaeological deposit which
(c) relates to the non-Aboriginal settlement or visitation of the area or any part of the area which now comprises Victoria; and
(d) is 50 or more years old but does not include the remains of a ship or an article associated with a ship;
"archaeological site"
means an area in which archaeological relics are situated
Now I am sure that you all understand LOL
So until advised otherwise, I am just going to try and steer clear of what are defined as an archaeological or historic site in the readily available information. And I will not be interpreting something that is more than 50 years old as an archaeological relic.
Rob.