Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Yes, the minister did acknowledge when he introduced the bill into this place that after a discussion with people he had agreed to remove this cap. We welcome that concession, notwithstanding the fact that we think the whole regime for leasing is flawed and inappropriate under the current circumstances and that there are better options. We also believe that the cap as it was initially proposed was potentially anticompetitive and possibly racially discriminatory. I am not sure what advice you received on that.

I also welcome the removal of the restriction that prevented traditional owners from negotiating pecuniary benefits other than rent which, as I understand it, will be the impact of the amendment to remove subsections 19, 6 and 7 and replace them with the new subsection. We believe that that is an appropriate course to follow in the circumstances where the government is determined to pursue these leasing arrangements. The model that is proposed is seriously flawed. I do not want to repeat the arguments that were made here previously and in the Senate, but I would like to ask what the purpose was for the proposed change to section 64(4) to omit ‘rent’ and to substitute ‘amounts’. The second item on the schedule for amendment is to omit the word ‘rent’ and to substitute ‘amounts’ for payments out of 64(4).

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