Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is timely that we today discuss this issue because tomorrow night at the State Library of New South Wales, the Mitchell Library, there will be a public lecture in the Metcalfe Auditorium about an Indigenous Australian who, way back in the 1920s, after a period in Italy and other parts of the European continent, went to Britain alone in support of Indigenous rights in this country, and there has been a recent publication about that.

Of the sustained opposition to this change, Mick Gooda, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, commented:

It is a narrative that reveals a fundamental lack of understanding about the importance of land and country to our very soul. And it's a message that demonises those standing firm rather than acknowledging their need to do so.

His hope, he said:

… is that we all realise the role we can play in changing the narrative and that mutual respect must underline the story.

In 1993 the Native Title Act brought to Australia recognition of the nation's traditional owners in response to the High Court decision made on 3 June 1992 that Eddie Koiki Mabo's 10-year fight for recognition as custodian of the Meriam people's lands gave lie to the legal notion of terra nullius. Of course, we have seen dramatisations of his fight on our television sets over the last month or so, and there has been a plethora of recognition events.

To those familiar with the concept of recognition of traditional ownership of land, the actions of other countries belied notions that the nation would be taken over by heathens, that houses would be plundered and that the agriculture and resource industries would grind to a halt. That is certainly the rhetoric that accompanied the Mabo decision and the government action to put it into effect. It is worth noting that as early as the 1820s the United States of America had signed a formal agreements with Indian traditional owners, that in the 1840s the Waitangi Treaty was signed by over 500 Maori chiefs and the British crown and that in the 1870s the Canadian government and the First Nations of the Canadian prairies sought to establish agreements to ratify native rights and provide compensation to the First Nations. These actions, taken over 100 years previously, formed the genesis of legal recognition of the land rights and sea rights of Indigenous Australians.

In the 20 years since the Mabo judgment, we have seen the highs of 1992 and the lows of the Yorta Yorta's situation along the New South Wales-Victoria border. The decision on the latter ruled that 'traditional links had been washed away by the tides of history'. Since this time we have witnessed a changing landscape in the recognition of Indigenous people's rights and customs. The traditional connections between Indigenous people and the land, the sun, the sea and the sky are very difficult for many Australians to understand. However, we have progressed to coexistence from the rhetoric of the extinguishment of rights. Indeed, although financial and other compensation is small relative to their profits, the resource sector has in the main turned full circle and acknowledged rights in cooperation with stakeholders. The sector has been reaching agreements providing economic resources, employment and education benefits to those in need. Most importantly, the process now gives traditional owners a place at the table to decide the future of their lands. For too long historic claims that will help reconciliation in Australia have been litigated to death. This trench warfare has cost millions of dollars, which have been squandered on legal and consultancy fees. Actions designed by state governments and large corporations determined to drag out negotiations until the National Native Title Tribunal was forced to mediate were enhanced by the Howard government's 10-point Wik plan, which included forcing parties to negotiate, essentially with a gun at their head—take it or leave it.

Fortunately, these attitudes are changing. State governments recognise the need to ratify agreements to facilitate development and allow for much needed investment in infrastructure. Likewise, the decision to mediate via the High Court is welcome. The return to the Yorta Yorta case by the former Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls and the resolution of the outstanding issues surrounding the case symbolise the change of attitudes by the states and, slowly, the legal profession. The former managing director of CRA, which is now Rio Tinto, is quoted as saying:

'I think there was a point … when business started saying to government, 'Catch up! We're out here doing business … and your attitudes are actually inhibiting us from moving forward', …

In New South Wales alone, at the end of the last financial year, there were 26 registered claimant applications, and another three were registered this year. I will briefly touch on one of those claims as an indication of the long-term benefits of the claims in assisting the education on reconciliation of the broader Australian community. The recent registration of claim by the Gomeroi people, who are broadly situated between Singleton, Moree and Walgett, ensures their place at the table for negotiations with developers, governments and resource companies. The research compiled by the New South Wales native title service provider NTSCORP is deserving of a thesis in itself. This research included: the compilation of over 60,000 family trees, the largest known genealogy of Indigenous Australians ever undertaken; over 1,000 interviews; researching archived newspapers and school, farm and police records since 1830; the purchase of hundreds of birth, marriage and death certificates at $30 a pop from the state government; meetings conducted throughout the state; and negotiations with key stakeholders. This research, which was led by Dr Ken Lum and his team, was recently subject to analysis by Debra Jopson in the Sydney Morning Herald. It acknowledges that people who live over a radius of 100,000 square kilometres have a shared past, rituals, kinship and—importantly—identity. It also recognises that Aboriginal history and interactions in southern parts of Australia have the same gravity and meaning as those of their northern brothers and sisters. Early settlement, massacres and enforced separation from families killed neither their spirit nor their connection with the land from where they come. In passing, I commemorate the people who every year have remembrance events around the Appin Massacre in my electorate.

This claim by the Gomeroi people gives hope to those in other parts of New South Wales who are working towards recognition. It was recently announced by the Attorney-General that the federal government will provide increased funding and anthropological grants to research on native title claims. This is welcome news. We need to ensure that researchers are able to provide solid evidence of kinship, cultural activities and connections to the country. It is crucial not only for claiming land title but also for our country's own story.

Research measures include clarification that capital gains tax and income tax payments will not apply to native land title agreements and improvements to increase the flexibility of Indigenous land use. This will ensure that the work which Eddie Mabo started over a chat and a sandwich on a bench with Henry Reynolds will not have been in vain.

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