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

This bill creates a new process for the provision of housing and specific community services on Indigenous land. These specific community services include education, health and community service facilities and the staff associated with providing those services. The bill seeks to strike a balance between the urgent delivery of much-needed housing to Indigenous communities and the need for native title rights and interests to be protected. I believe the bill does exactly that.

The framework in this bill allows a meaningful engagement with all key stakeholders about this vital housing and community infrastructure. Importantly, the bill allows native title parties themselves to determine the level of engagement they feel is appropriate for each individual project. I understand that may not be to the acceptance level of some members of this place, such as perhaps the member for Kennedy, but that is what the bill does. The federal Attorney-General will be able to prescribe how consultations with native title parties should occur, including, if required, setting detailed requirements such as face-to-face meetings or the use of interpreters. Reports on these consultations will need to be provided to the Attorney-General and can be made public, therefore providing for public scrutiny of this new consultation process.

The bill also contains a sunset clause, meaning that this new process will expire after 10 years. This 10-year period is in line with the duration of the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing between the Commonwealth and the states and territories. Under that agreement, the federal government has committed $5.5 billion to Indigenous housing, about which I will speak more in just a moment.

The Labor Party is the party of Indigenous rights and native title in Australia. It was a Labor government in 1975 under Gough Whitlam which famously handed over the land of Wave Hill Station to Vincent Lingiari and the Gurindji people. This was the beginning of legal recognition of Indigenous land rights in Australia. It was a Labor government under Paul Keating that in 1993 passed the Native Title Act in response to the High Court’s Mabo decision. And it was a Labor government under Kevin Rudd that in February 2008 apologised to the stolen generations and began a process of ‘closing the gap’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Housing is one of the areas where there has been significant work in ‘closing the gap’. I accept that there is much more to do. I do not for a moment pretend that we are nearing the completion of our objectives in that respect. But there has been significant progress made. In fact, that progress has been outlined in the annual reports by the Prime Minister each year since the apology.

See this speech in context