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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Like many people in this place, I'm fairly sick of buying my grandchildren—although, for a lot of you, it would be your children—woomeras that won't throw a spear, boomerangs that won't come back and bullroarers that don't roar. So, firstly, we would like to give our tourists, whether they are Australian tourists or overseas tourists, a bit of genuineness in the product that we sell.

Infinitely more importantly, First Australians—and I often identify, so I will here: we First Australians—might argue that the land was taken from us by the settlers and the people that came from overseas, and they might well say, 'Well, you're the most land-rich people on Earth, you blackfellas; you're the most land-rich people on Earth,' which, I suppose, if you look at the map, you'd say we were. But there is just a little problem here: we're not allowed to use any of that land. We can't get a title deed off any federal or state government in Australia. It's not hard to do; I issued 800 in 2½ years when I was minister. But that's far from addressing the problem. And there have been no title deeds in Queensland issued, effectively, it's a fair thing to say, since 1990, when the much-maligned Bjelke-Petersen government collapsed. So we can't get any income from that source.

But, as it turns out, we've been remarkably good at some of the most magnificent art, and it's a school of art. When the impressionists came in, there was a group of artists, and when people began to appreciate the great beauty of what they were doing, their art became very, very valuable indeed, and that style of art went throughout the world. In this case, we have styles of painting, whether dot paintings or Namatjira-style landscape art, which are very, very culturally identifiable as First Australian artwork. Well, that has been copied in China, in India and in Indonesia and replicated a million times and then sent into Australia and sold as genuine, authentic First Australian art. Well, of course it's not genuine and authentic; it's simply a copy.

When this matter first arose and was brought to our attention, a senior staffer in my office went down to three outlets for tourist souvenirs in Cairns, and 23 of the items—in fact, almost every single item, but there were 23 separate items in those stores—were imported from Indonesia, China or India. So here we go: 'Australian Indigenous art' is being produced in, and marketed and sold from, foreign countries—once again, sending all the jobs overseas.

So what this bill will achieve is that no longer will those jobs go overseas—they will remain here in Australia—and Indigenous art will remain the property of the First Peoples. Whether one wants to talk about whether land was taken off the original people or whether it wasn't, one thing is for certain: if this bill goes through, they will no longer take our art and our culture away from us, and I think every single Australian would agree with that proposition.

We pay our thanks, our gratitude and our appreciation to the minister for setting up an inquiry. But, in this place—for example, on water development—all we get is inquiries. Nothing ever happens. On the issue of CO2, all we get is inquiries; nothing seems to ever happen in this place. So we want action on this, and I thank very much my colleague on the crossbenches for her support in this matter and her very great commitment to what is a cause of fairness for our First Australian peoples.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to second this motion, and I reserve my right to speak.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting.