Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

I want to strongly commend the remarks of my colleague the member for Banks and acknowledge his long-term commitment and contribution to Indigenous people both by service in this House and also more broadly through his advocacy in the Australian community, and reinforce his closing remarks about the need for this government to come to the negotiating table with Indigenous people on the basis that they will be listened to and that their rights and interests will be acknowledged. Labor oppose the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Township Leasing) Bill 2007. We continue to have significant concerns over the 99-year leasing model that is proposed under section 19 of the act. In the course of this entire debate we have certainly been saying to the government that they need to pause and take stock of the approach that they are currently in the middle of and recognise that there are significant interests, particularly in relation to traditional owners and to the Aboriginal communities affected, which need to be given better and due consideration.

In the budget this year the government brought down a number of initiatives for Indigenous people, some of which were well received. But there was one that I want to make particular mention of and that was the provision of funding for housing. The CHIP review has found a shortfall cost for maintenance alone of some $705 million a year and an underspend. In fact not only are there insufficient funds to deal with the shortfall and the lack of Aboriginal housing but, in addition, the amounts of money that have been identified have not been properly allocated. This is the context in which we debate these amendments in the House today. All Indigenous housing money needs to be particularly focused on the fact that the housing shortfall and crisis in remote and urban areas—but certainly in remote areas—have become more chronic as each year passes, and it is of great regret that the Commonwealth State Housing Agreement funding has not been increased in order to meet that responsibility.

So in that context we see proposals from the government to amend the Aboriginal land rights act and in particular to provide for a 99-year leasing model ostensibly to deal with the issues that have arisen concerning both the quality and availability of housing and also the questions of economic development in communities. Labor recognise and acknowledge that there are significant issues attaching to ongoing sustainable economic development in Indigenous communities, particularly remote communities. That has been said on many occasions in this House. But we do not accept the model that has been put forward by the government and, in particular, this amendment bill that has come into the House today.

When the House considered the first tranche of amendments to the Aboriginal land rights act in June of this year we were guillotined in the House. We certainly said at that time that we recognised that there was a need for reform and improvement. But I note that the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Unlocking the future report considered questions of necessary consent and notices that ought to be given when amendments to legislation—which are so important to Aboriginal people and particularly to traditional owners—are being brought forward by the government. In particular the committee identified two absolutely crucial and critical considerations: firstly, that the traditional owners’ understanding of the nature and the purpose of amendments and their giving of consent are absolute prerequisites and, secondly, that any Aboriginal communities or groups that may be affected need to be properly and adequately consulted and given sufficient opportunities to express their views prior to any final determination being made.

The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 was amended in the House to facilitate 99-year leases. It was our view that these amendments represented some of the most significant changes to the act since its original enactment some 30 years ago. We noted at that time—and I spoke about it in the House—the significant contribution of both the Whitlam and the Fraser governments in getting the original land rights legislation up and running. In particular, I then noted the hurried and rushed way in which the government was approaching the amendments at that time. The debate was guillotined and a Senate committee was given one day to conduct a hearing, which even government members agreed was inadequate. This was really a complete betrayal of the principles of the act, which require adequate and comprehensive consultation, and did not allow the parliament significant opportunity to properly assess the implications of those amendments.

I note that the Reeves report and the reviews that were undertaken at the time continually threw up an objection which pertains to the amendment that we have in front of us. For Indigenous people in communities, particularly traditional owners who exercise great responsibilities over land and where issues of economic development and of occupation and ownership of land are highly critical and sometimes highly divisive, it is essential that there be adequate and proper consultation and that any proposed measures are not rushed through. In fact, the complete opposite has happened in the history of the amendments to this act and it is happening here again today as we debate this bill in the House.

The matter that we have to consider regarding these amendments concerns the Commonwealth establishing for itself an entity that would issue subleases. This is to cover the possibility that the Northern Territory will not establish a township leasing entity in this period of time as a consequence of concerns that have been raised in the Northern Territory parliament, particularly by Indigenous members of parliament, about the first proposed lease that is being considered at this time—that is, the lease at Nguiu on the Tiwi Islands.

The reason members of the Northern Territory parliament, opposition members in this place, Indigenous people in communities and others are raising concerns is the wide-ranging scope of this potential amendment and the powers that a headlessee will actually exercise in relation to leases over land in the Northern Territory, land which is of extraordinary cultural value and potential economic value to Aboriginal people. The fact of the matter is that very little detail is being provided by the government about the operation of headleases. In this case, a number of concerns have been raised, some by legal commentators and others by committees that have examined the issue and certainly by members speaking in the House. They are real concerns that go to the substance of the proposal that the government has by way of this amendment.

It is simply not acceptable not to provide thorough and adequate information in relation to how the headlease and the leasing entity will actually operate. Information is very sketchy at this point in time about what is being proposed. Where are the accountability mechanisms? What sort of structure is going to be contemplated? What kind of power and what duties will the leasing entity be required to exercise? These and a number of other very serious matters have not been addressed by the government as it seeks to push this amendment through the House. Clearly, there is no parliamentary oversight for any later action that the leasing entity might undertake.

The reason there is significant opposition from Indigenous people and from Indigenous politicians in the Northern Territory to this amendment is that, under its current terms, it is clear that the granting of a lease to sublessees opens up the possibility for non-traditional owners to occupy traditional lands without the already existing customary consent that would normally attach to such an exercise. This is a profound and deep point that goes to the core of our objections to the legislation—namely, that in prescribing the capacity for a leasing entity, and in the case of the Tiwi proposal for the whole of the township in question, the potential for there to be a complete crossing over of the existing traditional and, in some cases, legal responsibilities that are exercised by TOs with any subsequent decision that the leasing entity might make will create a series of problems that have not been considered or fully explored in the House, and they need to be.

That certainly explains, to some extent, our criticism of the new leasing scheme. In particular, the scheme seems to be rushed and, really, what the minister has been arguing over the last 18 months to two years is that, if communities do not agree with schemes of this kind as they are proposed then they will not be in receipt of the necessary infrastructure and resources that they really desire in their communities to enable them to deal with issues of education and housing.

For example, landowners at Galiwinku will not get 50 new houses unless they sign up to a 99-year lease of their land in a town where chronic overcrowding is a major issue—a town where the former lead singer of the Warumpi Band made his name and tragically most recently passed away. Similarly, up to this point in time we have seen Wadeye under pressure from the government if they want to receive $9.5 million in housing that was allocated to them as part of the COAG trial, a trial that was distinctly unsuccessful, despite all the media attention on Wadeye at the time. There was a clear case that the Wadeye community had an alternative proposal that they wanted to put to the minister, and still there was the suggestion that one of the most overcrowded and rapidly growing communities in Australia would not receive moneys that they were effectively entitled to unless they did what the government wanted them to do. Again, on the Tiwi Islands there was the suggestion that a new high school would be forthcoming if Tiwi Islanders and TOs signed up to this particular agreement.

It needs to be noted, in particular, that under this bill, which establishes an Office of Executive Director of Township Leasing for some five years, and where the funding for the functions comes from the Aboriginals Benefit Account—and here there are some serious issues of concern, given that ABA moneys are generated from royalties from mining on Aboriginal land and now, in effect, TOs will be required to subsidise their ongoing land tenancy arrangements—there is no legislative requirement for the executive director to undertake ongoing consultation or negotiation with traditional owners and land councils once the lease is granted. And these are leases that go for some 99 years, an extremely long period of time to be contemplated by communities which quite often, because of their current situations, are under considerable pressure on a day-to-day, week-to-week and month-to-month basis.

In relation to the Nguiu people and the negotiations for the Tiwi Island lease, on 9 May the minister announced that a historic agreement had been reached with the Mantiyupwi people for the lease of the town of Nguiu on the Tiwi Islands. But, in actual fact, it was not a specific, legally binding agreement; it was merely a memorandum of understanding. From this time onwards, despite a consultation process undertaken by the government and others, there have been consistent and increasing criticisms from the local community on the basis of them not having a full understanding of what is entailed in the proposal that the government has put. Tiwi local government president, Lawrence Costa, said:

I would have liked there to be more workshops and more communication ...

Tom Calma, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, has expressed real concerns regarding the level of information that was provided to people on the Tiwi Islands. Marion Scrymgour, a member of the Legislative Assembly in the Northern Territory parliament, has raised a raft of serious conditions that I think need to be noted by the government, particularly in relation to what is being proposed on Tiwi. Here there is a question in relation to whether or not the entity itself that will be set up to start issuing these leases and subleases is the right structure to enable the people of the Tiwi Islands to fulfil some level of economic independence and to have a say about what will go on in their own town.

The government has always said that the scheme is voluntary and yet consistently we have seen suggestions made by the minister that funding for schools—funding for a high school in one case—will not be forthcoming unless the community signs up. But here the most critical thing is that there are a number of people on Tiwi who, at this time, are clearly not in a position to fulfil the criteria identified in the report by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Unlocking the future, with regard to the level of consultation and the provision of adequate information to enable them to know clearly and fully what it is they are being asked to consent to. I quote a local woman, Teracita Puruntatameri, who said:

We’re being rushed into signing the lease ... I think we’re being hurried by some people.

This is a serious matter before the parliament. It is clearly a serious matter when members of the community feel that, in one way or another, they are being pushed by a government into something that they do not fully understand and do not fully contemplate. The question here is a simple one: why doesn’t the government simply wait? Why doesn’t the government simply postpone its insistence on establishing an entity of this kind when there is still serious community disquiet—when there are still clearly feelings not only in the community but also amongst leading politicians in the Northern Territory that there ought to be more information and that the way in which this entity is being imposed upon people needs to be reconsidered properly?

I have to say that, at this stage, there is the prospect of communities being placed in a situation where they feel they have no option other than to consider entering into an arrangement which would grant significant and additional powers to an entity—powers of a kind which in the longer term will bear down very strongly not only on their economic fortunes and the sorts of decisions they might want to make in determining what happens to their land in the future but, additionally, on the sort of cultural decision making which is an extremely important and necessary part of life and living in Aboriginal communities. It may be the case that the community here has not been as well served by its land council as it ought. That may well be the case but, at the end of the day, it is the government who is proposing this amendment in order to meet a short-term political problem, not a long-term policy problem, which clearly requires additional consent and consideration by those people who are affected.

This comes after a number of years of an approach by the Howard government, and now by Minister Brough, which is simply failing to bear fruit. What we see is that, in some instances, communities such as Tangentyere in Alice Springs decide that they will reject the offer that is on the table and then of course it gets taken away from them. The very clear message which would go out to Indigenous communities right around the Northern Territory is that you either do it the government’s way—you take the resources that are on offer—or you do not do it at all, and that is not acceptable in the conduct of Indigenous affairs in this country. We have to, at all times, I think, ensure that it is an equal partnership between government and communities, particularly, in this instance, in the Tiwi Islands, where there are large levels of community disquiet and concern about what is being proposed. It is time for the government to take one step back and not consider advancing this proposal at this point in time.

If we look at the COAG trials, we can see that they have basically failed. If we look at the way in which this legislation has been rammed through the House, we can see that the potential for open and clear discussions about the faults or merits of the legislation has been denied. If we look at the concerns that people have on the ground, on the Tiwi Islands, concerns that have been echoed by Aboriginal leaders like Tom Calma and Mick Dodson, we can see that this is a recipe not for the empowerment of Aboriginal people but for the disempowerment of their interests. This bill should be opposed. (Time expired)

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