Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

In speaking to this, the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Economic Empowerment) Bill 2021, I want to acknowledge the First Nations traditional owners of this country and pay respects to elders past, present and emerging. I want to make a few brief comments about this bill and the substantial carriage of this bill on behalf of the Greens. It will be taken up in the Senate by Senator Lidia Thorpe, our First Nations spokesperson and a strong and proud Gunnai Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman.

One of the key principles that has to be applied to this bill, and indeed to any piece of legislation in this parliament, which has been reinforced and strengthened as a key pillar of Greens policy, is that everything has to be driven by genuine self-determination of our First Nations people. For too long, as many people in this place have said, there have been decisions made about First Nations people, almost always to their detriment, because this country has a history of oppression and racism that we still have not had the courage to be honest enough to face.

One of the things that we've got to start doing, especially when we're dealing with land rights legislation, like this legislation, is understanding that genuine self-determination must be at the heart of everything we do. We need to begin by telling the truth about the history of violence and dispossession that lies at the heart of this country that we call Australia. It's only when we've begun telling and acknowledging the truth that we can move forward to genuine reconciliation and then strike a treaty, or treaties, with our First Nations people. We need that process. We need that process because otherwise we're never going to be able to move forward as a country. We've got a lot of challenges that we've got to deal with, including dealing with the climate crisis. One of the things that we are hearing very clearly and that we need to understand as a country is that to have true justice in this country, to have true climate justice, we need First Nations justice. In dealing with a land rights bill, which is what this is—especially the most complex set of changes to the land rights act since it first came into force—we need to have self-determination and we need to be driven by a response that listens to First Nations communities and First Nations peoples and the incredible diversity of opinion that exists there, rather than just presuming that there's one single voice. It's a community. It's diverse communities. Of course there are going to be differences of views.

One of the things that is concerning about this bill is that it hasn't been through a committee process and it's not clear why. Consider that this government, during its whole term, has not done that much to progress the cause of treaty, truth and justice for First Nations peoples. In fact, the government has arguably taken it backwards and slowed down progress towards that. When the government introduces a comprehensive bill to amend land rights legislation, First Nations communities have a right to be heard, and one of the ways that that could happen is through a committee process.

This parliament has a good history of using the committee processes to find out if there are unintended problems with bills and if amendments are required. That's something that we should be doing here. Senator Thorpe will make more fully in the Senate the point that there are differences of views, including about some of the provisions in this bill. Maybe they could be dealt with through a proper, comprehensive consultation process, but they need to be addressed if reforms are going to have support, because we can't just mouth 'self-determination' and 'consultation'; we've actually got to put them into practice.

Now, this bill does a number of significant things. There's the establishment of the Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation. There's the streamlining of exploration and mining provisions in the Land Rights Act, something that many First Nations communities feel like they are not heard on and want to be heard on. There's the changing of land administration provisions and there's the aligning of the Aboriginal benefits accounts with the Commonwealth financial framework. One of the things that has become crystal clear to so many people over the last period of this parliament, especially as this week we look at the report that'll be handed down with regard to the Juukan Gorge and we see the systemic and systematic destruction of First Nations heritage and culture by big mining corporations, is that, when it comes to changes to nomination and approval processes but also, in particular, to exploration and mining provisions in the Land Rights Act, we need to make sure everyone gets their say. And so the question here is whether or not this bill should go to a committee process. That's the simple point that is being made: this bill deserves to go through a committee process.

As I said, Senator Thorpe will be making further contributions about this in the Senate, including that we may need to move amendments to this to deal with issues that are raised, but, especially given this government's history, it is not objectionable to ask for the processes of the parliament to be followed. Just because someone raises concerns—they've got the right to do that.

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