Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

To the member: it is our anticipation that the reduction in funding that I have talked about, in the way in which it is being delivered, will not equate to respondents disengaging from the native title processes—that respondents will still be able to engage in the native title processes. We are talking about processes that are now well established. We are talking about many respondents that are commercially viable entities, and we are therefore talking about those commercially viable entities being able to deal with native title activities through their ordinary business costs. That is why changes in funding, the decisions about funding, have been made. Of course, we are happy to keep the member updated about the progress of this. We obviously would not want to see a clogging up, to use his terminology, of the way in which native title processes work, but that is not our anticipation from this measure.

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