House debates

Tuesday, 12 June 2007

Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Township Leasing) Bill 2007

Second Reading

8:37 pm

Photo of Jenny MacklinJenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

I want to start with some lyrics from a beautiful song by Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody called From Little Things Big Things Grow:

And Vincent sat down with big politicians

This affair they told him is a matter of state

Let us sort it out, your people are hungry

Vincent said no thanks, we know how to wait

It is important to remember just how hard and for how long Indigenous people have fought for land rights. The struggle has been underpinned by absolute determination and dignity. That determination should not be underestimated by anybody in this parliament. The song documents the struggle of Vincent Lingiari and his people, but the lyrics resonate strongly today as Indigenous landowners are being pressured to accept land reforms with little negotiation on the model for reform. The Alice Springs town camps were offered $60 million in housing and infrastructure to agree to land reform. They responded, ‘No thanks, we know how to wait.’

Today I am speaking on the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Township Leasing) Bill 2007, which follows the government’s amendments that were pushed through parliament last year amidst a great deal of controversy. One of the most contentious amendments in last year’s legislation included a 99-year township leasing proposal. This now provides that traditional owners can grant a 99-year headlease over a township located on their land. The headlease would be held by a territory or Commonwealth approved entity that would then grant subleases in accordance with the conditions set out in the headlease. By making it simpler and faster to obtain a sublease, this entity model aimed to reduce transaction costs for businesses and services on Aboriginal land and encourage economic development. But it also removed direct control by traditional owners over development on township land.

This bill seeks to create an Office of Executive Director of Township Leasing to enter into and administer township leases on Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory. The bill specifies the functions and resources of the executive director and provides that the executive director be appointed by the Governor-General. The cost of the office will be met from up to $15 million to be provided over five years for the township leasing scheme. The necessary funds will be sourced from the Aboriginals Benefit Account, which is essentially Aboriginal money derived from mining royalties. Since the changes went through parliament last year, the Northern Territory government has allowed detailed community debate about the proposals. The Northern Territory government’s position has always been that Indigenous people should have the time to understand and discuss the model and to negotiate what form the entity should take. The Commonwealth on the other hand is not interested in negotiating on the form of the model. Through the bill before us today, the government seeks to create its own ‘approved entity’ to fill the gap until one is established by the Northern Territory. It is not clear what will happen if a model developed by the Northern Territory government is incompatible with the statutory model. Could we have duplicate, incompatible schemes operating in the Northern Territory?

Last year Labor opposed the 99-year leasing proposal because the model had not been negotiated with traditional owners. Today we oppose the creation of this statutory office, to be funded out of Aboriginal money, for the same reason. The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 was the first and strongest legal recognition of the profound connection that Indigenous people have to their country. It recognised the communal nature of landownership in traditional Aboriginal law and culture through a form of freehold title. The act, back in 1976, represented the most significant set of rights won by Aboriginal people after two centuries of European settlement. It returned about 50 per cent of the land area of the Northern Territory to its traditional owners.

The government now is seeking to radically reshape that land rights regime. It fundamentally seeks to alter the principle of communal landownership which is at the heart of the land rights regime. The government has taken this step without proper negotiation with traditional owners and without their consent. It is hard to imagine that any other group of Australians would have their property rights treated in this way. Before the changes were passed last year it was already possible for a lands trust to give a 99-year lease over a township to a particular body under the act. What has been common practice in the past, though, is the granting of individual subleases over parcels of land within townships.

The minister argued last year that amendments were necessary to provide a clear pathway, or prescribed model, for traditional owners to adopt. The Tiwi Land Council has said that, by issuing smaller leases over individual blocks rather than a headlease over the entire township, you stand to diminish the value of township. However, it has also been asked why it would not be appropriate to have an Aboriginal land corporation hold the 99-year lease, as opposed to a government entity. Indeed, when the traditional owners of Wadeye put a proposal to the government for an Aboriginal corporation to hold the headlease, they were swiftly rebuffed. They told the minister:

The concept of a Town Corporation controlled by the traditional owners, the Diminin people, is a critical aspect of the lease.

The government is arguing that land rights have not delivered economic outcomes, and is therefore seeking to construct a Hobson’s choice for Indigenous people. Choose between your rights to land and your rights to economic development. I do not believe that it is beyond the wit of traditional owners and the government to devise land tenure arrangements which streamline transaction costs without fundamentally undermining Indigenous ownership and control of their land. Our approach—and this is our approach across the portfolio—is to review the evidence and assess each idea on its merits. We do not believe in taking an ideological approach to these very important issues.

What we do want is an informed, open and transparent debate about the details of 99-year leases over townships. What we do want is for traditional owners to be able to negotiate a deal that is fair, underlines their aspirations and anticipates their concerns for future generations. What we do not want is decisions being made in a rushed or politically charged environment. We do not want land tenure reform being made a condition of funding for basic services. And we do not want there to be any doubt that the consent offered by traditional owners is anything but free and informed. Unfortunately, the approach of Minister Brough has not inspired such confidence or trust. In fact, it has spawned the opposite.

One of the main arguments that the government have put forward in support of the 99-year lease changes is that they want to increase homeownership. Of course, Labor supports improving opportunities for homeownership, so let us look at the government’s progress. The Indigenous Home Ownership Program has been operating for a number of years and has assisted many Indigenous people in urban and regional areas through discounted interest rates. Since July 2006, over 500 loans have been approved. There is a 12-month waiting list for this program due to housing affordability being a major problem in urban and regional areas.

However, the largest injection of new money into Indigenous homeownership has been for remote Indigenous land. In the 2006 budget, the government committed $107.2 million for a homeownership program on Indigenous land. That program was predicated on there being a 99-year lease over the land. As no 99-year leases have been negotiated, no loans have yet been delivered. So now the minister is staring down the barrel of an election without one Indigenous homeowner on Indigenous land under his 2006 budget measure. The four new homes in the Wadeye outstations of Nama and Wadapuli were funded not from this budget measure but from public housing money, because they will not sit on a 99-year lease.

As a result, nearly $100 million of much-needed money for Indigenous housing remains unspent. It is feared that a great deal of this program funding will be tied up due to negotiations over land tenure reform for quite a long while to come. About $23 million from the $107.2 million allocated for homeownership on Indigenous land is money for Indigenous Business Australia to ‘create incentives and manage land tenure changes’. About $500,000 has been allocated to the Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination for ‘negotiations’. That money, allocated for negotiating tenure changes, could have built another 60 homes in remote Indigenous communities.

There has been a lot of political rhetoric about the great Australian dream in the outback. But let us look at the economics. The department has described the program as targeting people who want to buy a house on Indigenous land in an environment where maybe the market is stagnant or there is no real appreciation in value possible.

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