First, there was a ban on climbing Ayers Rock, gasp – what did he call it… where are the name police when you need them, or the indoctrinated millennials, I am referring to the rock you know as Uluru, and believe it or not, once upon a time your parents were allowed to climb it.

Now the hunt is on to ban the Kimberley’s Horizontal Falls experience, no doubt accompanied by a name change to the Garaan-ngaddim Non-Experience.

According to the media, the bureaucrats have been working hard with local elders to end what has become one of the great tourist attractions in Australia – the boat run through the falls.

The word is the government plans to stop boats and seaplanes from crossing Horizontal Falls on the grounds that the traditional owners are worried about the impact on their cultural heritage and the bureaucrats are worried about safety.

Why did they not do this years ago when the seaplanes first arrived, or is it something to do with wanting a cut of the waterfalls of cash, innovative tourism operators have built around the falls?

I understand the traditional owners have recently been told by their lawyers that they can use provisions under their Indigenous Land Use Agreement with the State Government via clauses related to management of the local Marine Park to determine who gets a licence to access the falls and who is locked out.

For those not in the know, Land Use Agreements are part of Native Title rights that offer indigenous owners the right to shut the gate on Crown land.

This move to use a marine or terrestrial park management clause certainly doesn’t bode well for any tour operators working in state waters in the future, or for that matter any other iconic tourist site.

What’s next, a ban on climbing on Wave Rock and renaming it Waagal Nirnt? Actually, I’m afraid those discussions have already started with the Minister who brought you the Cultural Heritage Bill last year.  Remember they never give up, as there is always more to give.

According to the Indigenous Tourist Operators Association, all the state’s global bucket list attractions are now on the hit list to be closed or have access restrictions applied in the name of cultural protection and safety.

Safety, ah safety, the gift that keeps giving, to give the government veto rights over everything and everything. Whatever happened to expecting people to make their own risk decisions?

If you combine the powerful laws linked to Worksafe and the Environment, plus those related to Aboriginal Affairs, we might as well give them the key to your house and backyard. Expect to see padlocks from one end of the state to the other.

The Western Australia of old, where camping, fishing, shooting, and four-wheel driving were part of our culture, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

Gone will be camping trips to the magnificent Mt Augustus in the Gascoyne-Murchison region (Burringurrah), a rock twice the size of Uluru, simply because it is now considered dangerous, as a couple of German tourists recently died there.

Wittnoom Gorge (Nambigunha) was on the safety radar years ago so don’t even think about it. Nature’s Window Kalbarri (Wurdimarlu) is definitely dangerous, Cable Beach (Billingurru) has the odd crocodile and the local indigenous keep wanting to close or tax the famous sunset camel tours.

We are seeing Aboriginal heritage being increasingly weaponised by green activists who have embedded themselves into Prescribed Body Corporates to support ranger programs and the like, in order to control the agenda, which is to drive average Aussies off their own country.

We have seen this with Ayers Rock, sorry Uluru, as it’s now become the preserve of the ultra-rich with few hands-on experiences to touch or climb the rock available for mum, dad, and the kids with a camper van. Roll up and fork out $500 and you can go on an indigenous-guided walking tour; not prepared to pay for something you can download on you tube? Then it’s stand back and look from a distance.

Don’t want to be ripped off to look at rocks so you decide to go fishing for free, no, sorry the design of marine parks in the north is changing, with cultural zones enabling fishing experiences for the rich who can afford to take an Aboriginal guide with them, but the average punter who has a small tinny is slowly being excluded.

The indigenous insiders have veto rights and access to new forms of rent, while the teal-coloured rich who can afford to pay for exclusive access to these now cultural icons get access.  Mind you they are happy to see the great unwashed in their four-wheel drives and campers standing behind the new border fences that are slowly going up, while they stay in eco resorts within the sacred sites.

Where will this end? Well, not until Mount Stirling (Muleen) is locked up, Kokerbin Rock, Bruce Rock, Australia’s third-largest monolith, has a fence around it, The Gap, Albany (Torgadirrup), requires an indigenous tour guide, the Pinnacles (Nambun) is closed, and the Bungle Bungles (Purnululu) are removed from the map, only to be seen from the air via Air Indigenous Experience.

Are we heading back to the dark ages in Europe when the local lord charged you to cross his land and only the wealthy could hunt and fish on it? You bet we are.

It’s only a matter of time before Rottnest and the Abrolhos are claimed, and a cultural heritage tax added to the cost of your next visit.

My advice is don’t wait for retirement or the next winter or summer holidays; go climb it, swim it, photograph it, enjoy it while you can.

At least you will be able to show your grandkids what it was like to holiday in Western Australia in the good old days when you could actually experience the great outdoors without paying an arm and a leg for the experience.

If you think this land access grab has gone far enough, then the one thing you can do is add your name to a petition sponsored by former Broome Shire President Harold Tracey and Member for Mining and Pastoral Neil Thomson (Liberal), who are seeking to keep Horizontal Falls open.

Petitions do work! Neil Thomson MLC sponsored the now-famous heritage petition that garnered 30,000 signatures in less than two weeks, and this was a major factor in seeing the Government taking the unprecedented step of repealing its own legislation.

It’s called people power, and we need to use it to send a clear message that the Crown is not our master dishing out access rights to the new indigenous elite but our servant keeping the state open for business for all.

We need more Neil Thompsons in state parliament who call it out when they see it.

We still live in a democracy, despite the trend to elitism covered by wokeism. And ultimately, if the people speak, the Government caves. It’s time to speak!

The petition can be found here.