Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Bill 2006 and to support the amendment moved by the member for Lingiari which is in the following terms:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: “whilst welcoming many measures contained in the Bill including the mining and exploration provisions, the House is of the opinion that some other provisions of this Bill:

(1)

undermine the integrity of the Principal Act by eroding the rights of traditional owners and the independence of land councils;

(2)

are a recipe for uncertainty for development on Aboriginal land;

(3)

should be withdrawn and redrafted to provide a more balanced approach that ensures:

(a)

the informed consent of traditional owners to major changes;

(b)

that traditional owners as land owners are not unfairly constrained in optimising their financial and other benefits under the 99 year lease;

(c)

the better promotion and facilitation of economic development on Aboriginal land including home ownership opportunities for Aboriginal people;

(d)

the protection of traditional owners’ rights to control access and development on their own land; and

(e)

the maintenance of the independence and viability of land councils to defend and pursue the interests of traditional owners and other Aboriginal people living on Aboriginal land”.

That amendment encompasses most of the objections that I have to this legislation, although it does not cover all of them.

At the outset of my contribution, I point out that I, together with other members of this House, was involved in an inquiry by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, for which the report was called Unlocking the future: the report of the inquiry into the Reeves Review of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. That report was tabled in August 1999. I notice that it is referred to in the explanatory memorandum to this bill. The honourable member for Lingiari, who is at the table, was a member of that committee. The significant thing about that committee is that the Native Title Act was all the rage at the time, with many arguments about it, and the issue of land rights was well and truly on the agenda. A committee of this House, chaired by the Hon. Lou Lieberman MP, as he then was, with a majority of government members, managed to produce a unanimous report to this parliament, and right up front was recommendation 1, on page 8, which says:

The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (‘the Act’) not be amended without:

• traditional Aboriginal owners in the Northern Territory first understanding the nature and purpose of any amendments and as a group giving their consent; and
• any Aboriginal communities or groups that may be affected having been consulted and given adequate opportunity to express their views.

I repeat that it was a unanimous report with a government majority, and the bill before the House today does not meet that basic test of proper consultation and informed consent of traditional Aboriginal owners in the Northern Territory.

The bill that is before us was added to by this government as against the bill that was proposed some months ago, and I believe it is all done in the hysterical climate that is being generated by the current Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, who is a bit hairy chested and out there in a big way. He obviously sees this as an issue in which he can impress some of his colleagues and maybe pick up some votes in a future deputy leadership ballot. That is in his mind. It has been reported on in the press. This minister has a big mouth. The problem is that some of the people he talks to report back. I do not have a problem with him having an ego. I have a problem with him breaking all the proper protocols and sensitivities on an act of parliament that was first proposed by the Whitlam government but enacted by the Fraser government and that has served Aboriginal people well. In effect, paragraph 8 of the explanatory memorandum gives it away. Under ‘Objectives’, it says:

The principal objectives are to improve access to Aboriginal land for development, especially mining.

The National Indigenous Times of 15 June 2006 dissected the bill that is before the House. There is an analysis by Chris Graham, who says:

Briefly, the government is seeking to wipe out the independence of the NT land councils—to gain control of them. The land councils’ financial resources will now come under the direction of Mal Brough. He will decide the level of funding they receive (if they receive funding at all).

The Minister is also proposing to give himself the power to delegate land council functions to other bodies—bodies he has created and funded.

What does this mean in practical terms? It means that the land councils are dead. They will no longer do the bidding of traditional owners—they must do the bidding of the government, or they will be abolished.

So what is the intent of the Howard government amendments? They are designed to increase white access to the resource rich lands of the Northern Territory.

The government basically states that in its objectives on page 3 of the explanatory memorandum. From my experience of dealing with the four land councils in the Northern Territory—and I think the member for Lingiari can attest to this—the Central Land Council in particular and the Northern Land Council have served their communities well. What worries me about what the government is doing is that it is attempting to undermine those particular land councils, to break them up. In my view, that will not result in better outcomes for Indigenous people in the Northern Territory.

The government openly says that the bill is about devolving decision making. In my experience, and I think the member for Lingiari would attest to this, resources are stretched with the current land councils. That is because, in the 10 years of this government, they have really been squeezed and they are suffering the death of a thousand cuts. If you further devolve the decision making of the Northern Land Council and the Central Land Council, you are not going to get a better outcome, in my view, for Indigenous people or, indeed, for miners. You need properly resourced land councils. The smaller the land councils the fewer the resources—it becomes a personnel problem—and I think there is a real difficulty in proper decision making taking place.

As I said, I think the National Indigenous Times has done the most comprehensive analysis of the spin of the government, and I commend it to honourable members. Here is an example of the spin. Mr Brough said:

The reforms to the Land Rights Act will help create future opportunities for Aboriginal people. These amendments allow for 99 year leases which will make it easier for Indigenous people to own a home or establish a business in Aboriginal townships.

The facts are that the government amendments will actually ensure that traditional owners will forgo their ownership of land and the associated rights to control entry onto their land. That really is what this bill is all about. Here is some more spin that I think is worth quoting:

The amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 will allow changes to land tenure in Aboriginal townships, streamline processes for land development and raise performance and improve accountability of Land Councils and royalty bodies.

The facts are that the reforms will vastly reduce the independence of land councils and a range of activities. The only increased accountability would be to the federal minister, not to Aboriginal constituents. The amendments will also create major governance problems, with small, underresourced land councils forced to negotiate with large government bureaucracies and cashed up mining companies.

Since the government gained control of both Houses of this parliament we have seen its ideology coming through. It is attacking and cherry-picking those areas on which it has had a long-held view. The land rights act, for this Prime Minister, is one of those pieces of legislation. This is not good public policy in which the government is engaging. We need to respect the rights of our Indigenous Australians. We need to respect their right to say no and to have them properly resourced so that there is informed consent in relation to their decision making. What we should not have is a situation where the land councils have a gun held to their heads by this government and this minister basically saying, ‘If you don’t approve development we’re going to put you out of business.’

That is the thrust of what this legislation is about. That is why the land councils have a problem with this legislation. There was a press release on 1 June 2006 in which the land council expressed serious concerns regarding certain amendments. Mr Fry said:

Many of the amendments improve workability and are welcome, since they will remove red tape and speed up processes for mining and other developments.

Let’s cut to the chase here: many Indigenous people do want mining because they see it as their only way to advance themselves and their communities. They are not anti development; they just want a say over the development on their land. Mr Fry also said:

The proposal that Land Councils be forced to delegate land use functions to small corporations, and prioritise scarce resources to them, is unworkable and inefficient and will promote dispute and jeopardise development outcomes.

He is able to point to successful outcomes such as ‘the Alice Springs to Darwin railway, mining, pipelines, the foreshadowed Commonwealth radioactive waste facility’—which they support—‘or the ENI Blacktip gas processing plant near Wadeye’, which was signed off in May. These outcomes will be ‘seriously jeopardised if a myriad of underfunded, inefficient, small corporations are responsible for performing professional functions’. That is the real problem here: what the government is proposing is inefficient, unworkable organisations with scarce resources taking over development. So I commend the second reading amendment to members and I say to this government: you are going down the wrong track. You are blaming the victims. You are actually not producing decent legislation or decent policy. In part some of this bill will hinder development and create problems, and we will be revisiting this issue down the track.

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