Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise in support of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Jabiru) Bill 2020 and the amendments moved by the member for Barton in the federal parliament today. To begin, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of Jabiru, the Mirarr people. It is their vision to transform Jabiru from a mining town to a centre for tourism and service provision within the world-renowned Kakadu National Park that this bill seeks to support.

With the closure of the nearby Ranger uranium mine by January 2021 and the expiry of the existing Jabiru leasing arrangements in June 2021, the Mirarr people have developed a master plan, setting out their vision for Jabiru as:

A world leading ecologically sustainable, economically and socially vibrant community where traditional Aboriginal culture, all people and the natural environment flourishes.

This bill will transfer the ownership of the Jabiru township to the Mirarr people, following the closure of that nearby uranium mine. It will return the township to Aboriginal control—as it should be. The granting of this lease will be fundamental, realising the Mirarr peoples' vision for a post-mining future of this town. It has been a long time coming. The member for Barton's amendment to this bill today, which recognises the importance of self-determination for Aboriginal people, reminds us of just why this change in leasing arrangements now is so critical. The member for Barton has rightly highlighted the impact of the recently introduced restrictions on the Aboriginal flag as being both unacceptable and disrespectful to First Nations people.

Tragically, Aboriginal people are finding themselves unable to use this important cultural symbol because the licensing rights now belong to a private company, WAM Clothing. This is a private, for-profit company founded by a Queensland businessman, Ben Wooster, who is one of two non-Indigenous owners. Mr Wooster's previous business venture was Birubi Art, which last year made history for all the wrong reasons. Now defunct, Birubi Art was found to be misleading consumers and was fined a record $2.3 million for selling thousands of Indonesian-made items as so-called genuine and authentic Aboriginal art. Regretfully, WAM is now strongly enforcing its legal rights by registering 'cease and desist' orders for those who use the Aboriginal flag.

The Australian Aboriginal flag was designed by the Luritja artist Harold Thomas, in 1971. For Newcastle, the Aboriginal flag has always held a special place in our city, flying high above our city hall for more than four decades now. Indeed, Newcastle made history in 1977 as the first town or city in Australia to fly the Aboriginal flag on a civic building, thanks to the vision and tenacity of the trailblazing Labor lord mayor Joy Cummings. In 1995 the Aboriginal flag was recognised by the Australian government as an official flag of Australia, and the Governor-General's proclamation declared it 'to be the flag of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and to be known as the Australian Aboriginal flag'.

The idea that something so deeply symbolic as an official flag of Australia could be sold or licensed to a private company is profoundly troubling. No other flag of Australia is licensed to a private, for-profit company—a company that, as I've said, is clearly determined to stop the very same people this flag represents from using the Aboriginal flag whenever they want without cost or the need for consent. The recent events that have denied Aboriginal people the right to use their flag are heartbreaking. In 2018 WAM Clothing purchased the exclusive worldwide copyright licence for reproducing the Aboriginal flag for use on clothing, and WAM hasn't been shy about enforcing its legal power, prohibiting Aboriginal people and Aboriginal-owned organisations from any use of the Aboriginal flag on clothing from May 2019 onwards. Queensland's Indigenous Wellbeing Centre, a charitable organisation, was shamefully forced to pay $2,200 in compensation when it used the Aboriginal flag on T-shirts that it then gave away to patients free of charge as an incentive to encourage Aboriginal people to come to the clinic for preventative health checks.

The well-known red, yellow and black flag is steeped in history. It has come to represent the strength, resilience and resistance of First Nations people in Australia. It was first used in a 1971 march for National Aborigines Day, in Adelaide. Soon after, it was taken to Canberra, where it has flown at the Tent Embassy in front of Old Parliament House ever since. The Aboriginal flag was born out of resistance and struggle. It remains a powerful symbol of unity, pride and identity. It defies common sense, not to mention basic morality, that a non-Indigenous business owned and managed by a man with such a shocking record and blatant disregard for Indigenous cultural heritage can own this important national symbol and, essentially, charge Aboriginal people to use it.

This second reading amendment calls on the government to do everything in its power to free the Aboriginal flag so that it can be used by all Australians, while also respecting and protecting the rights of the flag's original designer, Harold Thomas. I couldn't agree more. Flags are important cultural artefacts. They are powerful symbols that can mean many things to many people. They can represent our shared, albeit contested, histories. They help us to understand ourselves and they unite people under a common banner. They shouldn't be owned by anyone, much less a private, for-profit company. The Aboriginal flag is an iconic national symbol that should always be about people and pride, not profit. Twenty-five years ago, this parliament recognised the Aboriginal flag as an official flag of Australia. It should not be beyond us now to free the flag so that First Nations peoples and communities can use the flag whenever they want without cost and without the need for consent. It's now up to the Morrison government to act and to heed the calls of the almost 150,000 Australians who have now signed the online petition to free the Aboriginal flag and restore this important national symbol to public ownership.

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