Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The recent decision of the government to cease to fund landholders participating in negotiations to reach voluntary Indigenous land use agreements is a one-sided, thoughtless and ultimately counterproductive move by the government. I have been unable to ascertain the savings to the budget associated with this particular measure, but I can assure the government that the news has been met with a sense of bewilderment in regional Australia.

Landholders have been told for many years that it was in their, the claimants' and the nation's interest to be proactive in reaching Indigenous land use agreements. In the case of this group, it now seems that the government is only prepared to use a big stick to force them to the negotiation table. The national interest has been well served by keeping these issues out of the courts. Legal proceedings are extremely expensive and now it is highly likely that, as a result of the government's decision, more of these claims will end up in just that place. My office is filled with a steady stream of calls from landholders wondering whether they should keep funding their lawyers or whether they should just withdraw from negotiations. Well may they ask. Certainly, I have found it very difficult to get a clear answer from anyone in the legal profession on the issue. My instinct tells me that they could hardly be worse off by withdrawing; however, I have been cautioned against giving this advice. But who could blame them? After all, the landholders are being asked to negotiate in good faith, in the national interest, at their own expense.

Local councils have been drawn into the issue as well, and there are a number on Eyre Peninsula in the mid and upper north of South Australia that still have native title claims pending. This means costs from 1 January will now be met by the long-suffering ratepayers. Councils vary in size from cities like Whyalla and Port Augusta down to some of the smallest in the state with populations of less than 1,000. A number of the affected councils met last week and declared the decision inequitable, particularly as it relates to the councils in question. They declared that the decision has caused significant impacts because of the bureaucratic nature of the new funding arrangements where separate applications are required to be lodged for each aspect of a claim, with the cost of preparing the submission being significant and no guarantees that the funding will be forthcoming; that the native title claims have been resolved in many areas covered by councils with some degree of financial capacity, and this does not apply in even the areas that now have cities as councils; and that one set of rules for an agreed claim, and the resultant ILUA, may not necessarily apply for another claim which is yet to be resolved in the subsequent required ILUA.

The existing complication is that, in many cases, there are overlapping and multiple claims coming from different groups. It can be a lawyer's picnic. The ILUAs can be difficult for the biggest and best resourced bodies in the land, and I am very pleased that the Special Minister of State is here to hear this. Take, for instance, the defence department, which has been seeking an ILUA over the lands that they have compulsorily acquired from a group of pastoralists between Whyalla and Port Augusta for the expansion of the Cultana Army training base. They have been negotiating for years, and to this date I am not sure that they have reached an agreement. The issues surrounding the acquisitions and the ILUA at best leave a nasty taste in the mouth and at worst are simply an abrogation of justice. I have spoken on this issue before and almost certainly will do again, as I am currently waiting for the courts to hand down a decision in the case of one of the properties. The point is that the government has funded the defence department and the claimants but is no longer willing to fund landholders subject to claims even though they know from firsthand experience just how arduous and torturous the process is.

Australia is supposed to be a country of the fair go, but any sense of fairness has been thrown out the door. Unfortunately, it is difficult not to see this as just another chapter in Labor's class war, as they attack those that they see as wealthy, not having any understanding of the difficulties and sacrifices that these families make to convert what much of the world would consider to be desert into productive and sustainable properties. They deserve respect and fair consideration, and they are not getting it from the government.