Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Unlike the member for Kennedy, I will be supporting the Native Title Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2010. A couple of weeks ago I stood in this place and I spoke about a couple of other initiatives that I believe go a long way to addressing the disadvantage currently being experienced by Indigenous communities around Australia. I referred to the Clontarf Foundation and the work that that foundation is doing and I referred to the One Laptop per Child initiative and the good work that that organisation is doing in trying to ensure that the 400,000 or so young people of this country aged between four and 15 living in remote and regional Australia have access to a laptop.

This bill also, in my view, supports and enhances the opportunities for Indigenous people to make a better life from whatever opportunities they have. The bill is important because essentially it speeds up the construction of public housing and other infrastructure on land in Indigenous communities. I heard the member for Kennedy raise concerns that this bill will take land away from Indigenous people. I do not entirely accept his conclusions. The building of houses on Indigenous land does not necessarily take the land away from them. On the contrary, it is my view that it provides them with the housing that they so desperately need.

The bill will facilitate the construction of housing on Indigenous land that is subject to native title or may be so in the future. If it is subject to native title then the land quite rightly comes under the administration of the land management council of the area. The Native Title Act came under this bill in order to build the housing which in turn will be made available to the very Indigenous communities who have rights to that land. The Mabo case in 1992 gave credibility to the rights of Indigenous people over that land. This government has respected that decision ever since. This bill addresses concerns raised by state governments that uncertainty in relation to native title could be a barrier in delivering much-needed housing and other services. I make that point in the full knowledge that in only recent days in this House the government has been criticised for not being able to deliver this housing much as soon as it would have otherwise liked to. It is for reasons such as that that this housing has not been able to be delivered.

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