Gladys Liu (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Economic Empowerment) Bill 2021. The bill aims to empower Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory by activating the economic potential of their land. As the Minister for Indigenous Australians, the Hon. Ken Wyatt, has noted, this is the most far-reaching set of reforms to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act since it was enacted in 1976. The first significant step taken by the bill is the establishment of the Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation. The corporation will be funded from the Aboriginals Benefit Account, which was set up under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act to receive and distribute funds equivalent to the royalties generated from mining on Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory. With the Aboriginals Benefit Account reaching a value of over $1.3 billion due to the mining boom, the Morrison government is unlocking its potential, with this bill proposing to use its funds for strategic investment in Aboriginal businesses and commercial projects to grow wealth, create jobs and support sustainable Aboriginal economies in the Northern Territory for the benefit of future generations. Once established, the Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation will carry out this investment and payment function. It will receive an initial $500 million endowment and $60 million per year for the first three years of its operation, and subsequent yearly funding from the ABA. The new corporation will use this funding to invest in Aboriginal businesses and commercial projects like aquaculture, agriculture and tourism enterprises, and to support community projects like art centres and youth centres.

The bill also streamlines exploration and mining provisions in the land rights act. Current processes can be unnecessarily time-consuming and costly for all stakeholders, so these proposed changes are directed towards fixing problems identified in an independent review published in 2013. They create much needed clarity and will build confidence for industry and investors. But, critically, they also ensure that the rights of traditional owners are maintained. Finally, the bill proposes a package of land administration amendments which strengthen Aboriginal control over decision-making and address operational gaps. Among other things, these changes will result in a prescribed process by which a body may be nominated and approved to hold a township lease, improve the permit system for access to Aboriginal land and increase the penalty for unauthorised access. The bill rectifies issues that were brought to light in the early period of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory worked successfully to protect their communities through remote travel restrictions. But it's not just what's in the bill that matters; it's how it was put together. These reforms have been extensively co-designed with traditional owners in the Northern Territory and the land councils over the last 3½ years. The co-design process and the intent of the reforms themselves put the government's Closing the Gap commitments into practice, through working in partnership with Aboriginal people and supporting strong economic participation and Indigenous people's relationship with their land and waters.

Furthermore, decisions about Aboriginals Benefit Account funding, which had previously been taken by the Australian government, will be taken by the Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation. The corporation will be led by a board of eight Aboriginal representatives from the Northern Territory, two government appointed directors and two independent directors appointed by the board. As a result, for the very first time an Aboriginal controlled body will be able to use funds derived from the ABA to strategically and proactively seize and generate economic and social investment opportunities. This emphasis on shared decision-making, just as much as the technical content of the bill, should be recognised and celebrated. I commend this bill to the chamber.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to be able to make a contribution to this debate on the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Economic Empowerment) Bill 2021. I should not so much express a conflict but make a declaration. Prior to entering this federal parliament my job was as a policy adviser to the Central Land Council. I just want to make that declaration. I will also dob in my colleague the shadow Attorney-General, because he was a lawyer—and I'm not sure if he has improved—with the Northern Land Council in Darwin. He's acquired additional information over that time.

I think it's worth at the outset reflecting on some comments in the Bills Digest. It refers to page 2 of the explanatory memorandum, which states:

Amendments to the Land Rights Act are not common. Aboriginal stakeholders in the NT have strong voices through their Land Councils (the NLC, CLC, ALC and TLC)—

the Northern Land Council, the Central Land Council, the Anindilyakwa Land Council and the Tiwi Land Council—

and the Commonwealth has committed to only amend the Land Rights Act with their support.

That's only a reasonably new development, because this act, as the Bills Digest reminds us, has been amended many times—often just to add land claims, which may require parliamentary action—with the widespread support of the land councils and traditional owners and frequently it has been amended—for more fundamental amendments—against the wishes of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. The Bills Digest says that on many occasions it has been amended in ways in which the land councils have not supported t indicates, in an accurate depiction of these amendments, that key features of the bill are best understood as rollbacks of or compromises over past amendments, to which the land councils objected over time.

The previous speaker outlined the detail of the act in relation to the development of the Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation, an Aboriginal controlled corporate-Commonwealth entity funded from the existing Aboriginals Benefit Account, which, as we heard, has $1.3 billion at its disposal. Since the establishment of the Land Rights Act, monies out of the act, under section 54.4, were paid to the Aboriginals Benefit Account for distribution. An Aboriginals Benefit Account advisory committee was set up under the act, under section 65. Its job was to set priorities for and make recommendations on how the monies should be expended. The final decision was in the hands of the minister, who could choose to accept or otherwise the recommendations from that advisory committee.

Sadly, over a period of time, ministers got to use this fund as a discretionary fund, where they determined its use without necessarily seeking the advice or getting the approval of the Aboriginals Benefit Account Advisory Committee. We had the outstanding example of Minister Brough, when he was the minister responsible, taking money out of the Aboriginals Benefit Account, which is for the benefit of Aboriginal people whose lands have been exploited in the Northern Territory and who are affected by it as well as for the benefit of the broader Aboriginal community of the Northern Territory. He made a grant to a festival in Queensland, which was totally discretionary and outside the bounds of what the legislation would have otherwise provided. Successive ministers since have made allocations of monies out of this account without a recommendation from the Aboriginals Benefit Account Advisory Committee—purely at the discretion and the decision-making of the respective minister.

So this reform is an important one. It will set up a corporation, which will have a board that is largely independent of government, with representatives of the Aboriginal land councils in the Northern Territory. There will be two from each, which, I might say, is very kind on behalf of the CLC and the NLC, which have large areas and large population bases and which could argue—I would have thought—for additional members. Nevertheless, they've—graciously, in my view—come to a decision to provide a board which has two members from each of the land councils, two government appointed directors and two independent directors appointed by the board.

This corporation will also, as the previous speaker said, take over the responsibility for making beneficial payments to Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, which are currently made out of the Aboriginals Benefit Account. The importance of this change cannot be underestimated. There can be criticism, absolutely, of some of the detail, but it is very clear that this is a major step forward. To give direct control of these substantial funds—$680 million over the next three years—to an entity which is controlled by traditional owners, through their representatives on the board of this corporation, in the Northern Territory is a remarkable change.

I think it's important to acknowledge that this change hasn't been taken lightly or without the necessary level of consultation. The Land Rights Act is a very prescriptive piece of legislation, as I'm sure the shadow Attorney-General will attest. Section 23 of the act prescribes the functions of the land councils and their roles and responsibilities to consult extensively with and to reflect the wishes of traditional owners and, indeed, other Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. It's within that context that, when you contemplate the roles of the land councils under section 23, you need to look at how they're constructed, how their consultation processes proceed and how they work through their delegates at a local community level to provide information and to get feedback. They regularly hold meetings in remote places so they can bring together traditional owners to discuss things like these proposed changes. I'm confident, because of my knowledge over many years of how the land councils operate, that they would have taken great care in making sure that job was done properly.

Now, the bill will also make other changes to processes around negotiation of the mining provisions in part 4 of the act. These amendments flow from recommendations by Justice Muirhead in the review of part 4 of the act in 2013, as pointed out by the previous speaker. It will, as the previous speaker said, make changes to section 28(a) of the act, about access to Aboriginal land. It will repeal unused powers of the delegation of land council functions to corporations. We opposed this when it was introduced by the Howard government and we're pleased to see it go.

The bill will also repeal section 74AA of the Land Rights Act, which was part of the Howard government's Northern Territory intervention and which has the effect of preventing land councils from overturning permits for accessing Aboriginal land that had been granted by a minority in the community but against the wishes of the traditional owners. That's gone. That goes to the comments made in the bills digest about this remedying and winding back decisions which were taken against the interests, desires and wishes of Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory.

This legislation is very important. Whilst it makes a great change in terms of this new corporate entity, it doesn't release the land councils from their obligations, and they are extremely conscious of and wise to this. Now, there will be people who will argue that these amendments are not appropriate, but to them I just say I've watched the Land Rights Act in operation, I've seen the way in which various governments have introduced amendments to override the rights and interests of traditional owners in the Northern Territory. This bill does the opposite. For that, I want to commend—not that I'd normally do this—the minister for undertaking, through his agency, NIAA, an extensive process of consultation and negotiation with the land councils, providing them with the capacity to go back to their membership to seek the instructions that are properly required for them to agree to this proposal.

But changes are important. I can well recall—and I'm sure the shadow minister will recall—the ill-fated Reeves review, a review of the land rights act by John Reeves, a former member of this parliament and now a judge in the Federal Court. He undertook a review of the land rights act and made a series of recommendations which would have radically changed the act. The Howard government put forward proposals which never saw the light of day because of the opposition of Aboriginal people across the Northern Territory. That was a significant victory, and it was done against the backdrop of a government wanting to overturn and limit the rights and interests of Aboriginal people under the act.

We're now in a situation where it could be argued that the opposite has occurred—that the rights and interests of Aboriginal people are being enhanced by these amendments. Whilst they are not perfect, and they may need reviewing over time, they do provide an opportunity for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory to make a dramatic change in the way moneys are allocated out of the ABA. That, to me, is a very significant change. I applaud the land councils for their work. I was involved in a couple of joint meetings of the land council executives where they discussed these recommendations over a period of months this year. I was delighted about the way in which they'd come together in unity around these proposals and had undertaken very clearly, with their eyes wide open, a negotiation with the federal government which has achieved a successful outcome and that is reflected in this legislation.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] I'm very happy to speak about Aboriginal land lights and also to recognise the previous speaker, the member for Lingiari, for his long engagement in the area. Of course, the Wave Hill Walk-Off in 1966, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, was just a couple of weeks before both you and I were born, so in that respect there are a couple of us in this chamber who are very much a benchmark of progress in this area, based on the simple fact of how old we are. It was 55 years ago, and halfway into that time—the 27 years that followed 1966—was probably my first visit to Indigenous Australia, with the intention of doing research based in the semi-desert community of Lajamanu. On the way through, one stops at Kalkarindji for a triple-decker toasted sandwich before heading off to Lajamanu, where there were considerably less pickings in the local store at the time. They were celebrating the walk-off in 1993. It's important because, another 27 years into the future, we can make general assessments about what we're achieving generationally. I think very little was achieved in the generation between 1966 and 1993, and sadly I see no evidence of any more achievement in this area in the 27 years that have followed.

There have been apologies many times for the mainstream work in Indigenous affairs. My greatest concern is that I won't be forced to apologise to my children, to my grandchildren and to Indigenous Australians for what we did while we were here in this chamber, what we are voting for today, and in this case, we consider Aboriginal investment and economic empowerment. The previous speaker has connections to the Central Land Council dating back to 1993. Exactly the same period that he was there, I was studying medicine, and within two or three years I found myself in a remote community evaluating a newly devised azithromycin treatment for trachoma—Australia being the only developed country in the world that was afflicted. The result of that work is that azithromycin is now the mainstream treatment for this disease, and that blindness is almost unknown in Australia as a result of that drug that was first trialled in 1993 in Lajamanu.

So, personally, I go back to the people of Lajamanu and my very limited Warlpiri from being involved in that community for 15 months. It was bookended, on my first trip to the community, by the spearing of a young man, and when I left it was petrol sniffing and a community gathering under a tree to discuss these incredibly difficult issues. The phrase 'petrol sniffing' was inserted into Warlpiri. There was no way that the senior men and women could express such a scourge in their own language, so they had to appropriate English to do it. There were tragic elements at Lajamanu. And, while things may well have improved in certain areas, I have to admit that I am getting tired of listening to the respective leader every year talking about a couple of gaps closing and a couple of them opening.

This presumption that we need to close the gap with mainstream Australia forgets that we actually can dream of Indigenous Australia being better than us. It's not about closing the gap; in many cases, this community, by walking in two worlds with, as Noel Pearson says, a foot in both worlds, can be better than us. I don't want to close a gap; I want them to be better in many areas. And what are those areas that this Indigenous Investment Corporation should be focusing on? Let's be honest: what we've done so far hasn't achieved a great deal.

You're best to get out of Indigenous and remote Australia to see the solutions by looking globally. In my time in parliament, I have fought against this Aboriginal exceptionalism; this notion that there is something utterly unique about Indigenous Australia that necessitates particular and specific structures to help them realise their dreams. We are all part of humanity, and the general economic rules, wherever you travel, will be pretty much the same: four out of five families live independently of government; four out of five families raise their kids without them being vulnerable or at risk; four out of five families get their children to school to complete their education and go on to tertiary education or work; four out of five families are independent of publicly provided housing and they contribute to their aged care; and four out of five work for most of their career and fund their retirement. These are basic rules that apply no matter where you go—give or take.

What we have created in Indigenous Australia is utterly different, and I don't like it being explained away as being 'traditional' or 'connected to country', which are the excuses used for appalling outcomes. What are those outcomes? Every community relies on the provision and consumption of goods and services. But what we've created in much of regional and remote Australia is basically a single stream of welfare or royalties flowing in and a consumption mostly of imported goods and rubbish at the local store. There's virtually no production of local goods for Indigenous people. I use 'painting' as a terrible generalisation. Dot painting is a good, but they are not dot painting for themselves; they are dot painting to exchange for cash. And, then, what services are delivered between Indigenous people? That is a very important question, because half of mainstream employment is the provision of services to each other. With cultural elements aside, in the absence of a services sector, it's almost impossible to dream of full employment. So the Aboriginal Investment Corporation has a massive challenge here. There are these antecedent conversations that haven't been had in one or two generations.

My problem with the previous speaker is that he is perhaps inured by having been in those situations for so long that he simply can no longer visualise a way out. I'm saying today that there must be a way out of the paternalism and the patronising nature of mainstream structures being overlaid to ensure that Aboriginal people can manage their money. This is my concern with Aboriginal benefit accounts. With the greatest of respect to the good people in land councils, where else in the world do ordinary families appropriate the management of their personal finances to a barely elected body? I can understand the role of a local government, where we vote them in and pay a contribution, but this is very different. This is money that belongs to individual families.

With the Western overlay of these administrative structures that are in no way Indigenous, where we are, at the same time, eroding kinship and family groups with welfare payments to individuals, where does that leave traditional family and kinship structures? That is the pre-eminent structure to which I think every Indigenous person I've ever met would turn to for advice, guidance, counsel and leadership. But there is no role for these kinship groups in what we're doing at the moment—and I fear not in this investment corporation either.

We're all unified here in this chamber for economic, social and cultural prosperity, but my great concern is that there's so much symbolism and there are so many administrative overlays that we've lost all practical progress. We've got a blizzard of 16 gaps to close—so many that no-one I have ever met can list them all. There are three gaps that we don't have in there that would close the other 13. Fundamentally, this is about learning, living and working. We need four out of five families learning and showing up to school and transitioning into some form of employment which is their choice. Four out of five families need to be independent of government payments because they're earning their way through life. Lastly, we need four out of five families, because this is the way the rest of the world works, to be independent of government payments for the majority of their household income and independent of publicly provided housing. Learn, earn and work: if these things are taken care of, we don't need the other 13 gaps, because they will close on the way through to closing those three. We've got so many gaps that we can't focus on any of them. It's like a rotisserie arrangement, where one or two haphazardly close for the year, and we congratulate ourselves, and then we sadly mourn the fact that none of the others did.

I'm very disappointed about where we are at the moment, because I don't think we'll come any closer to a solution. I recently visited Indigenous businesses from the top of the NT to the centre, and the common theme for me was the fact that none of these individuals have been given an opportunity to run their own personal business. The notion is that if you go out alone you're competing against your kinship groups, so everyone either works within the cooperative or not at all. I'm all for setting up new Indigenous enterprise, but my concern is if it's nothing more than dot painting, which is about the only 'good' that might be produced, or rangering on traditional country, which is the only service being provided, then we're going to have to just wait until someone wants to pay for those services or those goods. Aboriginal Australians have moved past those dreadful, simplistic generalisations and can be so much more than that, and the Indigenous corporation needs to be attuned to that. We can't simply lift one or two individuals out of the red zone and show that they can run a business and then cross our fingers and hope that they'll employ one or two more. We need a fundamental rethink of economic activity on land.

Connection to country doesn't mean you're trapped on it, that you are mandated to earn your money from it. A lot of people aren't totally clear that capitalising and optimising Indigenous land, which by 2030 will be around 50 per cent of all of Australia, is not primitive rent-seeking. Ten per cent of mainstream Australians are rent-seekers. The point is that everyone else isn't. There's a substantial proportion of people carving their way through other forms of enterprise. This must be the focus of this corporation. It's not about liberating the land. It's not about exploiting the land. It's about doing whatever you're really passionate about. It doesn't have to be those generalisations that I am trying to break in this speech.

What we need is the recognition that family and kinship groups make these decisions for themselves. I've got on Stradbroke Island a pernicious system where individuals driven out of the prescribed body corporate are alienated from all of the current structures under the Native Title Act. They haven't forfeited their native title right—they still hold it—but they're excluded from the PBC. 'What is a PBC?' and 'Why do we need a land council?' are super-important questions. I know that no-one's thought of a different way of doing things. But, if you're talking about a way of extinguishing the rights of individual families and kinship groups, it's having a larger global entity making decisions on your behalf or your being voted down by majority, where the enterprise that you wanted to have invested in can't get any money from the land council because the others voted you out. We need a threshold under which individual families can maximise utility and engage the economy without interference or molestation by a land council majority decision. I'm not saying this is an endemic problem, but it's never worked anywhere else in the world, has it? Let's be honest. It's only in place in Central Australia. We've got to be brutally honest that we are failing in Central Australia.

A remote Indigenous community and a family within it will always be my barometer of success in Indigenous Australia. I love to death Indigenous people who are succeeding in the city. That's fantastic. But, ultimately, when it comes to closing the gap, the gap I'm most mindful of is the gap that we see in a household that still speaks an Indigenous language in remote Australia, where the delivery of services and opportunities are bleakest and most challenging. That is where we must be tested. That is where the focus must always be.

In conclusion, I'm all for something that's, hopefully, going to increase business opportunity, but the current language must change. We must be refocusing on individual family and kinship groups and identifying senior men and women to make decisions and control resources for their family group. I don't believe necessarily in an Indigenous voice to parliament. I want Indigenous voices to parliament, because there is no one voice that paternalistically and patronisingly speaks for Indigenous Australians. They won't cop it. They won't cop someone from some other family group, let alone another community, speaking on behalf of them. Let the voices come forward from local areas. There is no need for bureaucracy to make this happen. It should have happened yesterday. It's been two decades since ATSIS. Again, why do Indigenous Australians need to come to me, to you, Deputy Speaker, and to the parliament, for permission to have a voice? I want to be completely disintermediated from this and just see the voice happen organically. It will prove its value and its worth, and the facts on the ground will see legislation driven and, ultimately, constitutional change by virtue of it proving itself to its own people.

This is not a decision for white politicians. The voices to parliament already have a democratic path, but I absolutely support—as I would for any minority group—an alternative route to express opinions and give advice. There is nothing wrong and there's nothing to be frightened of. This business and investment corporation could play a role there. But, for those that are appointed—by Indigenous Australians, by government and independently—I will be personally challenging this corporation, whether this first conversation is had about what family groups individually want to do, and how much of everything that we're doing today in the last generation is actually adding to the patronisation of Indigenous families. We have to unlock the potential that you see in the rest of the world, and it starts with a new conversation—not a fixation on closing gaps or setting up new bureaucracies.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] This is my first time contributing virtually, so I hope that you can hear me okay. One thing that doesn't change, when you're coming in virtually, is the member for Bowman and that curious speech that he just gave, but I'll leave it to the member for Lingiari and other people with more in-depth knowledge to school him at a later time. Having spent some time recently with First Nations artists in the Northern Territory, I can say that painting and expressing culture is about so much more than selling artwork. It's about describing, communicating, lore, culture, families and dreaming. It's an important part of their culture. It's not simply something to be traded. I think the member for Bowman's ignorance on some of these issues belies the problem we have with realising the deep, deep potential of Indigenous exceptionalism.

Recently, here in the Northern Territory, the Children's Commissioner has reported that one in three NT kids are living in poverty, so we've got a great deal of work to be done. This legislation—the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Economic Empowerment) Bill 2021—might be part of the solution, but I think it'll only be part. It is important. It's not perfect, as the member for Lingiari mentioned earlier. There's so much that needs to be done to lift the standards. To think it's all going to happen from enterprise and not from concerted government action, at the federal level, the NT government level, the local council or local government level, is naive at best but at worst a deliberate attempt to defund organisations and programs that are slowly but surely leading to better outcomes.

Having said that, let me reflect on land rights for a little while. Here in the Northern Territory we live on the front line when it comes to the matter of Aboriginal land rights. It was a battle hard-fought by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders to begin that process of achieving some form of compensation for their significant losses during the period of European colonial settlement. There was a way for them to regain their connection and rights to the land that was taken from them—nearly always without their consent—and to strengthen that connection to their traditional lands with a connection in law. That movement had a massive impact here in the Northern Territory. These days, about half of the Northern Territory is now recognised as Aboriginal land. Given that Aboriginal Territorians represent about a third of our population, consulting with this population has always been paramount here in the Northern Territory.

I'm happy that these amendments have come about in part through some extensive consultation with the Northern Territory's four Aboriginal land councils. Like the member for Lingiari, I commend the minister for that. The Northern Land Council, the Central Land Council and the Tiwi and Anindilyakwa land councils have all played a part in helping shape this bill. They have called for these changes, which are 'the most significant set of reforms since the land rights act came into effect, in 1976'. I'm really pleased that this has occurred. Labor is very supportive of any measures that support the economic empowerment of Indigenous Australians.

As has already been mentioned in this debate, there are four major sets of changes being made to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. I won't go into them all here today, and I stress that they're not all perfect. Firstly, the bill seeks to establish a new Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation as an Aboriginal-controlled corporate Commonwealth entity, funded from the existing ABA, or Aboriginals Benefit Account. As others have said, the ABA was established almost 70 years ago, and it extracts those royalties from mining on Aboriginal land. The federal government currently makes decisions about investment and other payments from the ABA and takes advice from the ABA advisory committee. Under this bill, the new Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation will be established and will make investment decisions mostly independently of government. The idea is that it will promote self-management and economic self-sufficiency as well as the social and cultural wellbeing of Aboriginal people in the NT, which is hugely important. It will be led by a board of eight Aboriginal representatives from the NT—two from each of the four land councils—two government-appointed directors and two independent directors appointed by the board. The new body will also take over responsibility for making beneficial payments to Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory that are currently made by the ABA. This is a big deal.

The ABA holds considerable funds—currently about $1.3 billion—which is accumulated from mining royalties. The government has said that the Aboriginal Investment Corporation will initially receive half a billion dollars from the ABA with an additional $60 million per year during the first three years of its operation. That represents a lot of money to be spent for the betterment of Aboriginal Australians here in the Territory. One thing that needs further thought is the range of investments that the NTAIC can make to build revenue. There needs to be a wide variety of investments to enable the revenue to keep growing and for the ongoing investments to benefit Aboriginal communities. Again, in the make-up of the board there is now a disproportionate weighting in favour of the two smaller land councils, and also there's no board representation from non-traditional owners. As the member for Lingiari said, I think that shows a significant level of grace from the northern and central land councils, representing, as they do, a much bigger percentage of Aboriginal Territorians. But we need to ensure that representation is fair and that investment and spending is done fairly across the Northern Territory.

I'd also like to note that currently the ABA's funds can only be invested in cash accounts, term deposits or investment-grade securities, like government bonds. Over the more than 40 years since the land rights act came into effect, the return on such investments has declined a lot. It's dropped to about a third of what it once was. Although the establishment of the AIC addresses this in part, more than $620 million will remain with the ABA. The ABA's mining royalty income is likely to drop off in the near future, as the Groote Eylandt manganese mine, which currently provides about two-thirds of mining revenue to the account, is scheduled to stop operating in the coming years. Perhaps it's time to look at a higher-return investment strategy so that the ABA will be able to meet its legislated functions in the future, including covering land councils' operating expenses so that they can do their important work.

Another concern is the change which gives the minister increased control over the remaining ABA balance. As we heard from the member for Lingiari, there were times when former federal ministers for Aboriginal affairs made decisions that were inconsistent with benefiting Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. Even though the federal Labor team would always take a sensible and legal approach to these issues, we need to make sure that, no matter what government is in power, legislation supports ministers to do the right thing by Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory and keeps them accountable. There's currently no legislated scheme in place that provides for advice to be made to the minister, so the payments from ABA would be made solely at ministerial discretion. That's problematic, as I just said, because, quite frankly, I don't have a lot of faith in those opposite to always do the right thing in these circumstances. That's no reflection on the current minister, but it has been supported by history.

I won't dwell on this too long, but we've also seen how ministerial discretion has been abused by a variety of Commonwealth grant programs in recent times. We've seen the outrageous sports rorts, the car park rorts and last week's heavily imbalanced spending by the BBRF, the Building Better Regions Fund, which was of course skewed towards coalition seats. I don't want to see even more political spending and manipulation of public funds that are meant to support and uplift some of our most vulnerable people. Surely, we need a strong advisory mechanism in place to protect the ABA's funds, to build and maintain trust and to make sure that grants are made fairly and transparently? I'm sure all honourable members would agree. I do hope there's consideration made of this.

On another note, I'd like to acknowledge the ABA's investment and interest in a cultural centre in my electorate of Solomon, here in Darwin. This is going to be a magnificent development that aims to showcase and celebrate Larrakia culture and history and to help maintain it for generations to come. It also aims to help foster economic independence for Larrakia people and to be economically sustainable, and I welcome it. Looking after land and sea, as the Larrakia have been doing for millennia, is important. It's important to all First Nations people. It will help to maintain existing ties and build new relationships with other Indigenous people, not just in Australia and the Pacific but globally.

Labor has welcomed the repeal of section 28A of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act, which we opposed when the Howard government introduced it. It was a brazen attempt to split and undermine the authority of land councils, and I'm very happy to see that it's being removed. We also welcome the repeal of section 74AA, which former Prime Minister Howard brought in as part of the NT Intervention. That section prevented land councils from overturning permits for accessing Aboriginal land that may have been granted by a community minority but against the wishes of traditional owners. There are other changes in this bill regarding processes around negotiation, consent and approval of exploration and mining ventures on Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory that should reduce inefficiencies and delays without—and I stress, without—compromising the rights of traditional owners. I do note that the NT's four land councils are strongly supportive of this bill, as is the Minerals Council of Australia.

I'd like to quickly pay tribute to Drew Wagner, who is the outgoing CEO of the Minerals Council in the NT, for the work that he's done. He's been a powerful advocate for Aboriginal people to be able to create jobs and wealth from the assets on their land, whilst seeking to protect the environment and upholding the concerns of landowners and custodians of that land. I wish him all the best for the future. I'd also like to acknowledge the work of Marion Scrymgour, Labor's very strong candidate for Lingiari. The reason I bring her up in this context is that, over her political career as a minister and the Deputy Chief Minister in the Northern Territory government, she was a powerful voice for Indigenous communities. She was also the first female CEO of any land council in the NT when she was appointed head of the Northern Land Council. She's been a trailblazer and a fighter, and I commend her for that work. I know she'll be an excellent member for Lingiari after the next election and an excellent advocate for Indigenous people across our nation.

Overall, despite some concerns I've mentioned today, there is lot to support in this bill. I believe it represents some very necessary and overdue progress in this space. I encourage all members to consult widely and to think deeply about issues involving First Nations people in our nation. I encourage members to take to their hearts the Uluru Statement from the Heart and the legitimate wants of First Nations people in our nation to have a voice, to have the truth told and to reach agreements about land— (Time expired)

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

I rise to speak on the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Economic Empowerment) Bill 2021 and I make the point from the start that, as I'm the member for Grey, this legislation doesn't apply across the border to the south; it is about the Northern Territory. But, while the structures and formulation of land ownership and asset ownership in South Australia are different to those in the Northern Territory, there are many implicit messages in this piece of legislation that should carry through to our state parliaments. Those parliaments should, where they can, act in a way that will empower Indigenous communities and make decisions—hopefully good decisions—on their behalf on the use of the income stream derived from the land rights legislation. The member for Solomon pointed out that 47 per cent, so almost half, of the Northern Territory is now Aboriginal land. In itself, that tells us two things: first, that the policy of accumulation and land transfer has been a spectacular success; and, second, that that is a double-edged sword because the benefits that the Indigenous people have derived from this ownership have been a spectacular failure. Certainly, that is the case south of the border in South Australia, where we've seen large amounts of money and large landholdings now in the possession of Indigenous groups and yet we seem to see very little advance in their economic and social outcomes, at least those outcomes that are directly related to the new-found resources.

It's worth pointing out that it's the 40-year celebration—although we've had to delay the celebration slightly—of the handing back of the APY lands to the Anangu Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara corporation by the Tonkin government, a Liberal government, in 1981. The celebrations have been delayed and will be held next year because of obvious complications around COVID isolation. I can remember talking to an Aboriginal elder who was involved in those original negotiations. He passed away about five years ago, I suppose. He said to me, 'When we negotiated all this, we thought things would be a lot different to what they are now.' It had been a great disappointment to him that they won the fight, if you like, but they didn't win the battle—that they didn't win the battle for economic success, growth and all those things that they had hoped land ownership would deliver. It is worth pointing out that the APY lands is a little more than three times the size of Victoria and supports a population of less than 3,000 people, and there is implied and hidden wealth there; it is just not well-exploited at this time.

This legislation will establish a new Aboriginal controlled body to handle the wealth that has been accumulated in the ABA. That will hopefully unlock a lot of the barriers to investment in a whole host of things that will benefit Aboriginal people—in particular, things like aquaculture, agriculture and tourism enterprises, which speak for themselves. There's been some success in that area in the past, but there have also been many failures. It will also support community projects like art centres and youth centres. But I really hope that one of the things that the new corporation decides to invest in is housing. Wherever I go, particularly in remote Indigenous communities, there is a call for more housing. There's been enormous investment by governments over the years to address the shortfall, but it still falls short. It seems to me that, for the rest of society, if we own our land then we build our own houses. But you can't do that if you don't have an income stream. But in the case of the Northern Territory, they do have an income stream, and they have money in the bank.

So I hope they will look at the projects of investing in Indigenous communities. As part of this legislation, there are adjustments to the land councils that will allow entities to lease township land and derive benefit from it. That is getting closer to a personal ownership model. Noel Pearson has spoken many times about the disempowerment of Aboriginal people because they're not able to use their houses for collateral. They're not able to own their own houses; they're all owned by the government, for all intents and purposes. That can't be a good outcome. We need this housing and these housing projects to be owned, controlled and operated by Aboriginal people who have access to streams of Aboriginal income. So I hope they put that up as a high priority, because I think that could make a real difference in these communities.

Also, a barrier has been lifted to the amount that this new corporation will be able to invest without seeking ministerial approval, from $1 million to $5 million. I think that simply reflects the cost of everything today, quite frankly. We speak about self-determination, and we have to entrust these bodies to make decisions on their behalf that are intelligent. In that, though, it is implicit that these corporations, this new body, should meet the same accounting standards as, say, a local council or a medium-size business. That is not the case at the moment—certainly in my patch, at least—and the accounting standards for the NGOs are also not held to the same standard. I think that in itself is a racist condescension, if you like. I think it is an insult to send this message that Aboriginal people aren't capable of meeting the same standards as local councils. Those types of things should not be tolerated. We need to step up to the plate. There should be one set of rules for all. When you're dealing with other people's money you need to meet the same type of criteria as any other Australian enterprise would. That's what this new organisation will have to be up to.

The bill repeals some delegation provisions, as I said before, which will further simplify land administration and certainly, as I said, allow the entities to engage in the leasing of townships and for them to enable an income stream from that. My comments have probably been abridged a little bit. I realise I have about five seconds left, so I'll leave it at that.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.