Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave--on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition I move:

That this bill be read a second time.

I rise to strongly support the Wild Rivers (Environmental Management) Bill 2011 introduced into this House by the Leader of the Opposition on 12 September 2011.

The existing wild rivers legislation was put in place by the Queensland state Labor government in 2005. The existing laws gave the state government the power to declare any river a 'wild river', which allows the government to enforce a whole range of restrictions and regulations on what you can and cannot do on any land within certain ranges of that river or watercourse.

These Queensland government laws have negatively impacted on locals in Cape York, particularly Indigenous people. It is rather ironic that after decades and decades of campaigning by Indigenous people to recover some of their country at a time when they are becoming one of the major landholders within Cape York they are faced with the challenge of being able to do very little with the land because of the restrictions put in place by this legislation. It is no doubt that it is an agenda begin driven by the Wilderness Society and by an obliging and compliant state Labor government. Many of the opportunities for these people who have campaigned for so long to get their own country back are being put at threat by this legislation.

It seems like great rhetoric when you hear those on the other side always talking about recognition of land management by our Indigenous people for 40,000-odd years, but when there is an opportunity for Indigenous people to get out there and do something on their own country they are immediately stifled by this type of legislation. So much for closing the gap!

The Wild Rivers (Environmental Management) Bill 2011 has been presented by the Leader of the Opposition to give freedom back to landowners in Cape York, particularly the traditional owners, and to give them an opportunity to be consulted on decisions that are being made on their own land. This is something that needs to be seriously considered. This bill is effectively being introduced for a fourth time into this place.

The original Wild Rivers (Environmental Management) Bill 2010 was introduced into the House of Representatives by the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, on 8 February 2010 as a private member's bill. A bill with identical wording was then introduced into the Senate as a private senator's bill, the Wild Rivers (Environmental Management) Bill 2010 [No. 2], on 23 February 2010 by Senator the Hon. Nigel Scullion. The latter bill passed the Senate and was introduced into the House of Representatives on June 2010. Unfortunately, both bills lapsed when parliament was dissolved prior to the 2010 election.

After the 2010 federal election the bill was again reintroduced on 15 November 2010. In an attempt to frustrate parliamentary process, the Labor-Greens alliance moved to have this bill referred to a parliamentary committee which was designed to do nothing but stall and halt the progress of the legislation until Labor had the Greens and the Greens got the balance of power in the Senate. Unfortunately, that bill lapsed.

Last week the Leader of the Opposition introduced this bill to reiterate its importance to the economic development of Cape York Aboriginal people in particular and to recognise their stewardship over their own country and give them the opportunity to have a say and make decisions in relation to the long-term future of that country. Sadly, the Labor-Greens alliance has, again, referred this latest bill to another committee in a further attempt to totally delay and frustrate the parliamentary process.

There are some additions in this bill and I think these are quite appropriate, given some of the mischief that has been espoused by the other side. One is the new definitions of Aboriginal land, owner and register under clause 3, and the definition of 'native title' is deleted.

There is a new clause 4(3)(b), which provides a guarantee that the Commonwealth government should provide employment to persons who lose employment as a result of the enactment of the wild rivers. This one is particularly important given that, in an attempt to bribe some groups within the community, the state government has spent a lot of money in training up wild rivers rangers and there is a concern that these rangers, if the wild rivers legislation is thrown out or amended, may lose their jobs. This gives them a very strong guarantee that this is not the case. The reality is in Cape York, while the Wilderness Society and the Greens and the government obsess over this wild rivers legislation, the majority of national parks up there are underresourced, they have no management plans whatsoever and many of them are not even manned. So there is tremendous opportunity for wild rivers rangers to be able to go onto country that has been handed back. Rather than tokenism about handing back national parks to traditional owners, it provides a great opportunity for these traditional owners to play a very significant role in the management and be the face of these national parks as rangers and have that appropriate training.

Another difference in this bill is that it omits the term 'traditional owners' and substitutes 'owner', and 'native title land' is omitted and substituted with 'Aboriginal land'. Owners are required to agree in writing. A new clause 6 relates to obtaining agreement of native title holders, which should have been there right from the beginning. Amended clause 8 provides for regulations to be made. Clause 8(2)(c) provides for regulations concerning the continued employment of Aboriginal people if their employment should be lost.

I reiterate that these laws have seriously and negatively impacted on local Cape York people, particularly our Indigenous people. Recently, Mr Gerhardt Pearson of the Balkanu Cape York Development Corporation:

… strongly expressed concerns about the potential impact of wild rivers declarations on economic development opportunities for indigenous people on Cape York. Some critical issues in relation to legislation include the onerous and unnecessary process for development approvals in wild river areas.

A very good example of this was outlined in an episode of the Law Report on the ABC on 5 October 2010. It was a story in relation to the community of Lockhart River, which is on the eastern cape.

There are currently massive levels of unemployment up there, as there are in many remote communities. The biggest private sector employer is a biofuels company called Evergreen and it employs about 10 people. So we certainly need more private sector development in supporting the communities in this area. For this one to be out there actively working with the community, to drive the creation of jobs, can only be a good thing, but wild rivers is certainly not allowing this to happen. In fact, they have been very restricted in any opportunities for expansion. The government puts its hand on its chest and says, 'We are providing opportunities through the employment of rangers.' There was a very relevant comment made there at Lockhart River that having two rangers really does not make a great deal of economic sense, insofar as they would rather have a biodiesel plantation that would not just take the two rangers but also provide economic opportunities for at least another 100 people in that region. It would certainly be a hell of a lot more beneficial for the community.

It is interesting to note, in fact, that the Lockhart River airstrip would not even have been able to be built if the wild rivers legislation was in place at the time, because it is within a high-preservation area, as declared on any land within 1,000 metres of any designated river.

Staying in that eastern area, the Hopevale community has been desperately trying to establish a banana plantation. Now, they are not a wild rivers designated area, but they have gone through all of the hoops, all the different government bureaucracies, in trying to get approval to establish the plantation over the last three years—this is an opportunity for something like 200 jobs in the region, a great opportunity. They have a small area that they have set aside now. They have about 300 trees, and they have been training community members enthusiastically to build on this plantation. It has taken three years so far to get to this stage, where they have only 300 trees and are doing the training, because of all the restrictions put in place by existing government agencies. The imposition of wild rivers legislation on that area would complicate the process to the point that, even at three years, they are almost looking at walking away; it is only their own commitment and determination that allow them to stay there. But, if there were another level of bureaucracy over the top of that, it would make it absolutely impossible for them to do anything.

They have also had another situation that was quite high profile, at Pisolite Hills, the bauxite mine up near old Mapoon—great opportunities for the community, with the prospect of creating about 1,700 jobs over the 15-year life of the project. They were building a full village not far from the old Mapoon community, which was then going to be handed over as a lodge for tourism for the community. They were guaranteed all sorts of jobs as well. That has now basically been scuttled by the wild rivers legislation and through the influence of the Wilderness Society. On top of that, we are now looking at this federal government working overtime with the state government and, again, with the Wilderness Society to look at blanket World Heritage listing for the entire Cape York region. Of course, combined with wild rivers and all the other legislation, that will guarantee that they lock it up to such a point that the only opportunity you are going to find for our Indigenous people in Cape York would be to stand there bare bummed in a lily pond, on one foot, with a spear, being photo fodder for tourists. That is the sort of opportunity that this mob on the other side are looking to create for Indigenous people in Cape York. It is absolutely appalling. These people have struggled for so long to get their country back. They have every right, after that struggle, to sit down and contemplate what they have, to plan a future for themselves. They do not have to be curios for the benefit of the Wilderness Society.

I see my friend and colleague Mr Katter here and I would just like to recognise that Mr Katter as a minister gave the first cattle property lease, at Christmas Creek, to Eddie Holroyd, our good friend who just passed, who had a great amount of pride in that. If wild rivers legislation had been around, that would never have been able to happen. These people have very strong views on what they want to do, and they need time to assess what they have and to do their planning. It may not necessarily be of benefit to them, but it will be for their kids and grandkids, and for us to deny them that opportunity is absolutely appalling.

We on this side believe in the protection and sustainable development of our environment. But I think it has to be done in a cooperative and collaborative way that gives the Indigenous population the genuine opportunity to have a say, and the right to manage and operate their own land. And that is what this bill does. It is about giving economic destiny back into the hands of the traditional owners, the Indigenous people. It about giving them hope and aspiration and opportunity so that they can give better lives to their people, to their children, to stimulate their communities and to be able to make their own determinations. They certainly have the capacity to do that. Unfortunately, with the stranglehold that the Greens have over the Labor Party—and, particularly in Cape York, the Wilderness Society and the ACF—there is little chance of this happening under this current mob. (Time expired)

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When the member for Warringah first introduced the Wild Rivers (Environmental Management) Bill 2011, he said that he was working for the economic advancement of Aboriginal people, that economic development is important to the future of Aboriginal people and that access to the benefits of all Australians is the right of Aboriginal people. In this view, he is not alone. Many of us on both sides of the House have worked hard on the issue of Indigenous economic development.

The member for Leichhardt has done a great deal in his own electorate, but I need to correct a couple of statements he made in his speech. He said that clauses 4(3)(b) and 6 were new; that is not in fact the case. Those clauses were in the 2010 bill.

As a member of that House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics I visited Far North Queensland in late November 2010 and early March of this year. Our inquiry was broadly into Indigenous economic development, not just the wild rivers issue. We heard from over 50 people in the public hearings and took 39 submissions. We visited Brisbane, Cairns, Weipa, Bamaga and the Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation in Far North Queensland. What quickly became apparent to all of us on the committee was that Indigenous economic development in Cape York is a complex and an important issue.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Seriously? Do you realise you have never spoken—

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kennedy!

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is vital to get the economic development framework right. We on this side of the House are strongly committed to improving the opportunities and the life outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We deliver an annual Closing the Gap report. We have to continue to consider the full picture when it comes to Indigenous economic development. One part of that picture is mining. That has been brought to the fore over recent years. In the last decade, the price of alumina—one of the key minerals in the Cape—has risen by more than 50 per cent. It is important that we remember the role that mining plays in economic development. The national picture for mining is that it contributes 5.6 per cent of our GDP but employs only 1.3 per cent of the total labour force. The same picture shows up in the Cape. The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures from the 2006 census show that there were 19 Indigenous people in the Cape who were employed in mining. That is 0.7 per cent of Indigenous employment in Cape York. We should be open to the possibility that mining has a bigger picture to play in the employment base for Cape York. We should always be looking to possibilities, but we should be clear-headed and guided by the facts that we can see in the most recent census data. Mining is an important part of our economy, and is helping produce record terms of trade, but it produces fewer jobs than its share of the national economy.

I agree with Noel Pearson who says that education has to be at the heart of Indigenous policy, that education has a critical role to play in overcoming inequality and disadvantage. The role of education in economic development was reinforced to me when I visited Cape York last year and this year. As part of the committee's hearings I had a conversation with Ms Yunkaporta about Noel Pearson's Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy, which is an initiative championed by the Minister for Families, Housing, Communities and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin. The program offered by the academy has four components focusing on class, club, culture and community. As Noel Pearson recently wrote, the Class program immerses students in numeracy and literacy using the Direct Instructions programs. Students need to achieve a mastery of 90 per cent at their level before they can move on. Tests are done every five to 10 lessons and both the students' and teachers' performances are carefully monitored.

Club ensures that kids do not miss out on those future opportunities, providing extracurricular activities that many children in non-Indigenous communities already enjoy—including the hope to one day include foreign languages and Shakespeare classes. Culture helps children learn the local Aboriginal languages and their culture and traditions. In-school activities are supported by the Community program. School attendance and readiness for school are carefully monitored. A food program provides meals during the day—

Mr Katter interjecting—

I hear the member for Kennedy laughing, but education is an important part of Indigenous economic development. For those of us on this side of the House, Indigenous education is no laughing matter. This program provides meals during the day and families are helped to manage funds to cover educational expenses. Pearson states in his essay Radical hope:

Man cannot live by bread alone, but he does need bread, and in the modern world the broader economy is where he'll earn it.

That is why education is so important for the economic development of Cape York and the economic development of our nation.

Boosting the quantity and quality of education in Australia will flow on to improve the level of innovation in the economy. It will allow for more rapid diffusion of new technological changes. The boost to living standards that we get from improving our education system will rival any of the big economic reforms in Australia's history. It will rival floating the dollar, bringing down the tariff walls, enterprise bargaining or competition policy. Education then flows on to new jobs in Cape York. You can see the opportunity for that if you drive from Bamaga north to the very tip of Australia where you will see the ecotourism lodge which is, alas, now something of a wreck, but which offers great potential to be a new ecotourism centre for Australia. The white sands are breathtaking. The area has great potential to be a tourism destination. Not everyone in Cape York will be employed in the tourism industry, but it is a critical part of Indigenous economic development—the broader issue into which our committee inquired.

The causes of disadvantage in Cape York and the Gulf are complex, and we need long-term, considered approaches. We need to provide real opportunities, real jobs and sustainable development. I believe addressing disadvantage and creating opportunity through education are perhaps the most important thing we can do. The government respects the views of Aboriginal leaders in the Cape York area—

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, you don't.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and will continue to actively engage with them—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kennedy may miss out on his opportunity to speak if he is not careful.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in developing solutions for a sustainable and effective model of economic development and one that allows Indigenous people in Cape York to work towards and build the 'radical hope' of the future—a radical hope in which education provides the skills, economic opportunities and the ability to create and innovate new ideas and industries. As part of the government's commitment to economic development for Indigenous Australians we have agreed with the Queensland government to establish a new service for people in Cape York and the Gulf of Carpentaria, which will guide Indigenous applicants to develop new business and economic development proposals and assist them to effectively utilise the processes under the Wild Rivers legislation.

The importance of education, economic development and the future for the Cape was best put to me by Phyllis Yunkaporta, a witness appearing before the committee. She told the committee:

The education system, as I knew it before, has been of low standard. The curriculum in the past, as it is in all cape Aboriginal communities, has been of very low standard. By the time our children go out to mainstream schools they are hardly there—a child in grade 8 still has the understanding of a child in grade 1. Speaking for Aurukun, I was one of the persons who were invited to the States last October; I went to New York and Los Angeles visiting African-American schools. What we have brought back to Aurukun is a new kind of teaching method and we are having that implemented in the school. Of course it took time. At the beginning it pretty much had been, in my words, chaos before that. Since having this new program come in, if you come to the classrooms in Aurukun the kids are fully focused. This new method of teaching has got them going. The teacher is full-on with the tasks given and you cannot believe it when you enter those classrooms—it is as if some of those kids are play-acting. They are not; they are just full-on, focused. I guess in time we have to have expectations for our children to be educated in a way where they have to balance both worlds—the Western world and the traditional way. Of course we want them to hang onto the traditional way because that is where they are going to be identifying themselves for the future. And with them having to venture out into mainstream, we want them to compete. It is a competitive world out there. We want our black little kids to start taking on the world. That is the aim of all this.

Ms Yunkaporta's views highlighted to me—and to many of us on the committee—the importance of a holistic picture with Indigenous economic development. It is absolutely critical that we recognise there is not a single industry that is going to be part of the cape's success. Cape York Indigenous communities need the building blocks of education and the sustainability of strong jobs. And they need effective leadership that is willing to argue strongly for the interests of people on the cape.

If anybody went on this inquiry believing that there were simple solutions to economic development in Cape York, they should have come away disabused of that notion; they should have come away recognising that Indigenous development on the cape has many futures ahead of it.

I will return to the point I made at the start of this speech, where I referred to some statements that the member for Leichhardt made. The member for Leichhardt referred to clause 6 of the legislation. Clause 6 remains unchanged from the previous version of this bill. It details a process for obtaining agreement for native title holders. The heading of that clause refers to 'native title holders', which is not defined in the bill. It is unclear whether the details for obtaining agreement of native title holders could also include owners as defined in the bill or just the native title holder of the land. As a result, this is potentially a cause of uncertainty as to how agreements, which are a central component of the bill, would be practically achieved. This uncertainty is one of many uncertainties in the bill.

As we saw in the committee's inquiry, there are many Indigenous stakeholders in Cape York, and Indigenous stakeholders operate on different levels. Some groups will claim to speak for larger populations, but, as our inquiries went on, it would sometimes turn out that people were not comfortable with others speaking on their behalf. So the absence of a definition of 'native title holders' is one of the concerns that I have about the bill before the House.

I think it is critical that this debate focus on the big picture, on Indigenous economic development and not pretend—because it would be wrong to do so—that the only factor affecting Indigenous economic development in Cape York is the Queensland wild rivers legislation. It is not. It is a small part of a much larger picture. I would like to close by paying tribute once more to the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Mr Noel Pearson for the work they have done together in improving Indigenous education in Cape York. If anything is to be the key foundation stone for Indigenous economic development it is getting school education right. I pay tribute to both of those people for the careful thought they have put into securing that outcome.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased that Dr Leigh spoke before me because I am going to take his speech and distribute it to all of the Aboriginal councillors, first Australian councillors, in my electorate. It demonstrates magnificently towering ignorance and complete nonunderstanding and nonsympathy.

I seldom do this, but I cannot help but mention that all of the advisors to the ALP sitting over there are all what we call 'migaloos', every single one of them. I met 32 senior officers of the department dealing with first Australian affairs, and two of them—only two—were nonmigaloos. So we have the white fellas looking after us again, telling us, as the last gentleman told us, that we all need an education. Let me inform you, Sonny, that I worked in mining; I was a miner before I came into politics. That was one of the three things I did before I came to this place. I tell you what, I did not have a shred of education to tell me how to mine. He thinks it is funny; he is laughing.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not laughing.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kennedy cannot verbal someone.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The industries of North Queensland are cattle and mining. I worked in the mining industry and I would say 90 per cent of the people at the lead smelter—and that is a sophisticated operation compared with actual mining where you sort of drive a truck and a two-boom jumbo—I would say that three would have had tertiary education out of about 200. So much for education digging us out of the hole.

Maybe there have been some university graduates riding horses—in fact, the bloke who won the university medal actually does ride a horse, the highest pass ever recorded, and he is a good mate of mine. But he would agree with me that 99.98 per cent of the people riding horses and running the cattle industry have probably not even completed 12th grade. So you are going to tell us that we will all get an education and that will dig us out of the hole? Do you realise the towering ignorance of what you have just said? I would leave the chamber too if I were you.

Tourism is the third aspect. I know a lot of people in tourism. As the honourable member over here said, yes, we will get a bit of tourism out of throwing spears and boomerangs and those sorts of things. But when I went to school they never taught me how to throw a boomerang or a spear. It is not part of the educational curriculum. You might argue that it should be. He then said, 'We're moving forward.' Moving forward? We are back to the bad old days. We have one set of laws for blackfella Australians and another set of laws for whitefella Australians. Apparently it is quite safe for whitefellas to have pornography and alcohol, but it is very unsafe for the blackfellas. They cannot handle it. We had laws which delivered the ownership of every one of the community areas—and I look to my colleague the member for Leichhardt here—to the duly-elected local council with the machinery to devolve that to private ownership, with a title deed just the same as everyone else on planet Earth has. This gentleman over here said that we had gone forward. I will tell you how much we have gone backwards. In 1989, if you lived on Doomadgee or Mornington Island or Palm Island or Aurukun, your council—duly elected by you—owned that area, with no frills, no complications but just absolute freehold title. Now they do not. Now all of those areas are legally owned by appointees at the discretion of the minister—not even the governor and council but a minister of the Queensland government. So the Queensland government now owns the four or five million hectares of North Queensland that were supposedly owned by the first Australians. What a criminal theft! Those are Noel Pearson's words, actually, but he beat me to it; I would have liked to have used that phrase first. It was a criminal theft by the state government of Queensland, and we are trying to get the money together now to yard them and sue them for the theft of that land.

That is not the end of the story. They are not content to take the land back, and they now have a trust arrangement whereby an appointee of the minister is the trustee, the legal owner, and the beneficial owners are the first Australian people. That is a trust. A trust is used for little children who are not capable of running their own affairs. When they grow up and get to age 21, the trust vanishes. As this gentleman said, we need time. How much time do you need, you whitefellas? You have had 200 years; how much time do you need? He has had 200 years and he said he needs time. The children are being taken away. We in this place had the arch hypocrisy. I really felt like spitting or walking out of here or doing something to bring attention to the fact that here we were apologising for the theft of the children. The children in New South Wales and Queensland are being thieved now at twice the rate that they were thieved in the old days. Have we gone forward as far as ownership of land goes? No, we have had the land completely thieved off of us. We have gone backwards as far as anyone can go.

I need to return to the land, because Tommy Geia, a great Australian on Palm Island, got me aside last weekend and he said that every single person in an Aboriginal reserve community had to sign a document saying that they have to agree to pay all the rents—or rates, if you like, because if you are going to live in a house you have to pay some money to somebody. It is not going to be paid to the local council anymore; it is going to be paid to the whitefella administrators in the state government in Cairns and Townsville and Brisbane. So what do we need a council for? We are going to close them down, aren't we? We are going to amalgamate them, as the recommendations of the ALP state government have put forward. We will amalgamate them, which simply means closing them down. And the honourable member for Leichhardt will tell you that up in the Torres Strait it is a farce. Self-management now is a farce. We delivered to those people the self-management on every one of those islands. They had their own self-management. Even little tiny islands like Stephens and little tiny communities like Seisia were given self-management. They were given complete control over their own affairs. They had a lot more power than local government. They had power of the local police, for example. We gave these people the power, and the power has been completely taken off them in the Torres Strait. They are now run by a centralised bureaucracy, manned in the main by whitefellas on Thursday Island. That is how much we have moved forward, my friend.

I return to the ownership of the land. If the federal government is to build a house for you, you have to hand the land over to the state government; otherwise the federal government will not build a house for you. The only way we will build a house for you is if we thieve your land off you. I ask you, please, because you are nodding at me, to check it out. That is the agreement. All of the councils decided unanimously to oppose it—except one dingo mob who were hiding outside because they were taking their running from a whitefella CEO. Except for that dingo mob, I think it was 26 who voted unanimously to reject the proposition. Of course they rejected it! If you people would honour your promise, then the number of houses in Doomadgee, for example, would double—if we take you at your word and you are going to build 2,000 or 3,000 houses throughout Australia. But with the new Doomadgee, half the town will now be owned by the state government outright, completely, for 40 years. And you people agreed to it. You imposed that condition upon these people.

I will give you a sharp contrast with past Labor governments. When I rang up Gerry Hand, when I was minister, and I said, 'This is what we want to do,' he said, 'Mate, that sounds like a real good idea.' (Time expired)

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for Parramatta.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd dearly love another 30 minutes.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kennedy will listen in silence, as everyone did during his speech, or I will remove him.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the members for Kennedy and Leichhardt for their contributions. There can be no doubt in this House or the broader community of their absolute commitment to improving the lives and independence of our Indigenous community. I note that neither of them spoke very much at all on the actual bill that is before us today, and I would like to go back to that.

They highlighted the many complexities in Cape York. I visited with the economics committee last year and found a fabulous, difficult—

Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have lived there for 20 years.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge that you have a greater knowledge of the area than me—wondrous, harsh, almost impossible place with people with various histories. Some have lived on their land with links back tens of thousands of years and many others were removed from their lands and are finding their way back. There are complexities in the understandings within the Indigenous population about who had the right to speak for them and who did not—many complexities that impact on the viability of the bill that we have before us today.

This is the third version of the wild rivers bill. There have been two Senate inquiries and a House of Representatives inquiry into the previous versions of Mr Abbott's bill. All those inquiries found the bill to be unworkable and stated that it did not address any of the real barriers to economic development in Indigenous communities in Queensland.

Now we have a third version with some further amendments. There are still old sections in the bill that raise many issues about definitions of owner and consent, but there also some new clauses which add to the complex and problematic nature of the bill and require careful scrutiny. For that reason, I believe that the changes should be referred to a House committee inquiry to analyse their construction and potential effect.

The government is strongly committed to improving the life outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and takes Indigenous economic development seriously. The causes of disadvantage in Cape York and the gulf are complex and solving the issues that the community faces will need long-term, considered approaches, which provide real opportunities, real jobs and allow for environmentally sustainable development.

The member for Leichhardt talked about one of the communities up there trying to build a banana plantation and that it had taken three years so far. Again, I would like to point out that that community is not covered by wild rivers. Even without wild rivers legislation, it has been incredibly difficult for many communities to move forward and, arguably, one cannot make a claim that the introduction of wild rivers legislation in 2005 has somehow led to a lack of economic development. There are of course decades—in fact centuries—of a lack of development in Cape York. There were wild rivers 2005 acts on top of a whole range of laws in Queensland, including the Sustainable Planning Act 2009, the Vegetation Management Act 1999 and the Water Act 2000. When we visited Cape York last year, we heard from many people who referred to a whole range of issues that prevent development, not simply wild rivers. In fact, we met communities up there that were supportive of the Wild Rivers Act in the form that it has now.

We also heard of the many, many issues and difficulties that people in Cape York have. It is a tropical monsoonal climate characterised by long warm to hot dry seasons and short, humid, intensive wet seasons. That monsoonal season is a major constraining factor on Cape York as it impacts on travel and many economic and social activities. It isolates most properties and communities for four to five months of the year.

For agriculture, Balkanu Cape York Development Corporation advised the board that broad-scale irrigation is limited as there are very few areas of arable soil on Cape York that are suitable for large-scale irrigation. Where such land is available, the water supply is not likely to be sufficient to support irrigated crops. Much of the west of the cape is very flat and unsuitable for dams and in the east the water flows to the Great Barrier Reef side, so dams are not really an option. It is an incredibly beautiful, harsh environment where roads are boggy and unpassable for much of the year, and one could argue that issues of freight and transport infrastructure are as much of a barrier to the development of Cape York as any other area.

The government respects the views of Aboriginal leaders in the Cape York area and will continue to actively engage with them in developing solutions. As part of the government's commitment to economic development for Indigenous Australians, we have agreed with the Queensland government to establish a new service for people in Cape York and the Gulf of Carpentaria, which will guide Indigenous applicants to develop new business and economic development proposals and assist them to effectively utilise the processes under the wild rivers legislation. We heard from many witnesses during our visit to Cape York last year about the difficulty that they had in navigating their way through a whole raft of legislation that govern development applications in the cape.

There are several differences between the 2011 bill and the 2010 bill, and I am going to concentrate on some of those. The key differences essentially are: a new subclause, 5(2), stating that agreement with native title holders is taken to be agreement with the owner, but the owner is defined very broadly in the bill. It is not clear how agreement will be obtained from owners of other types of land included in the bill or how agreement from other types of owners would relate to agreement from native title holders.

Insertion of a new clause, 6A, which specifies that dispute resolution is to be resolved by a certain section of the Native Title Act 1993 or by regulations, also creates some confusion. The section referred to in the Native Title Act 1993 does not set out a dispute resolution process; rather, it sets out the dispute resolution functions of native title representative bodies. How the section referred to in the Native Title Act 1993 will work in the context of the bill is difficult to interpret. It is not clear how disputes between native title holders and other owners governed under the new process would work.

Changes to the transitional provision in clause 7B extend the period of time from six months to 12 months for declarations to apply if this bill were passed. It provides more time for agreement to be reached before existing declarations are overturned. However, if owners do not agree within the extended time frame, existing declarations will still be overturned whether there is agreement or not. Such a complex and significant area of law must not be dealt with in an ad hoc way, particularly as the three clauses I have referred to so far are interpreted within the context of Indigenous—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 12 pm, the time allocated for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.