Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to present the Wild Rivers (Environmental Management) Bill 2010 because this bill strikes two important blows. It strikes a blow for Aboriginal rights and it strikes a blow for the importance of economic advancement for the Aboriginal people of Australia.

This private member’s bill is designed to correct the defects in the current Queensland Wild Rivers Act. I want to stress that this private member’s bill certainly does not scrap environmental protection. That is the last thing that I would want to do. What it does do, though, is enshrine the absolute necessity of consent by Aboriginal people for a Queensland wild rivers declaration to apply over their land and it does stress the absolute importance of economic development for the future of Aboriginal people. We do not want Aboriginal people living in remote areas to be confined forever to welfare villages. We want the Aboriginal people of remote areas to have access to all the benefits of Australian citizens. But part of the benefit of living in Australia is that you normally have reasonable rights to economically develop your land, and these reasonable rights have been in effect taken away by the current Queensland legislation. This is why this bill is important.

I want to say how proud I am to be bringing this bill before the House on behalf of the Aboriginal people of remote Queensland and I want to say how pleased I am that the coalition parties in this parliament are supporting this piece of legislation. It is not so long ago that people would not have expected the coalition parties to be supporting the rights of Indigenous people in this way, but one of the ways in which the coalition I lead have changed is that we believe in the rights of Aboriginal people and we particularly believe in their right to take their place at the forefront of our national life.

Let me read what the former Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, the member for Griffith, said on the day of the celebrated national apology in this parliament. He said:

… unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong.

I of course congratulate the former Prime Minister on his act of statesmanship and leadership on that day, but I want to say that it ill behoves this parliament not to support this legislation, which is designed precisely to ensure that reconciliation is more than a simple gesture; that the fine words of this parliament on that day in February 2008 are backed up with concrete legislative action to give the Aboriginal people of this country the rights that they need.

I should also remind the parliament of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to which the government subscribed in April last year, which provides for, amongst other things, the right of Indigenous peoples to own, use, develop and control their lands. These are worthy sentiments to which the government sitting opposite has subscribed, yet these are precisely the sentiments which are frustrated by the Queensland legislation that my act is designed to correct.

It is often said that the wild rivers legislation has not in fact stopped any particular developments.

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