Tony Crook (O'Connor, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to discuss federal-state relations with respect to native title compensation and the Prime Minister's recent response to this issue. By way of background, for over a decade there has been an arrangement whereby the federal government has compensated the states for the bulk of their native title compensation. This has been evidenced in correspondence between former Prime Minister Paul Keating and the then Western Australian Premier, Richard Court. In this 1994 correspondence Prime Minister Keating discussed the arrangement to fund 75 per cent of the compensation costs arising from native title. In this letter Prime Minister Keating even confirms the Commonwealth's commitment to bear the lion's share of the burden. In 1998, the arrangement was subsequently confirmed in correspondence between former Prime Minister John Howard and then Western Australian Premier Richard Court. In this letter the Prime Minister confirms the offer to pay the government 75 per cent of native title compensation, and it adds:

I think it is fundamental to the Commonwealth's approach to native title issues generally that native title is not an obstacle to economic development.

I seek leave to table copies of the letter from Premier Richard Court, Prime Minister Keating, on 3 February 1994, along with a letter from Premier Richard Court to Prime Minister John Howard, dated 22 August 1998.

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