Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Bill 2006. The report on the inquiry into this bill was handed down last week, and there remains serious dissatisfaction from key stakeholders, including the traditional landowners, regarding the bill proceeding through the parliament. Unfortunately, there appears to be a lack of consideration and respect from the government in considering the impact of some of the changes that will result from this bill.

This is another important piece of legislation that has some degree of merit but where the negative far outweighs the positive. It has been formulated without proper assessment of its impact on the lives of the people it will affect and without proper consultation. Submissions received from the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, the Australian Law Society, the major land councils and the Minerals Council of Australia were all critical of the bill. It was strongly argued that the bill should not proceed until such time as agreement could be reached with traditional owners and other key stakeholders. The message that the bill should not proceed in its current form was clear. The answer as to whether the government listened is simple: no.

So today we stand here again witnessing the government’s abuse of a Senate majority. We are dealing with a situation where a Senate inquiry was held with only one public hearing and less than a week to prepare the report—not enough time to allow for proper consideration of such a bill. If this sounds familiar, it is because it is becoming a regular occurrence with this government, one that we on this side have come to expect from the out of touch Howard government. Even the majority report of the committee made the point that the time allowed was totally inadequate. But that is not all it had to say. It said:

There was insufficient time for many groups to prepare submissions and a single hearing was complicated by the necessity to include a number of teleconferences within the hearing. Additionally, time constraints prevented the Committee hearing from a number of witnesses. The inadequacy of time to do justice to the complex nature of the issues involved was reinforced by a number of groups in evidence.

So the majority report highlighted the inadequate time frame and the denial of potential witnesses to be heard.

As some in this chamber may remember, it was the establishment of the Woodward royal commission by the Whitlam government and the resulting report that formed the basis of the land rights legislation. The royal commission was brought about by a number of cases surrounding the unfair treatment of Aboriginal Australia with respect to traditional connections to the land. One of the most significant of these cases was the Gove land rights case, in which the Yolngu people’s fight for land rights led to a Federal Court case. The action of the traditional owners of the Gove Peninsula and Arnhem Land to protect their land was due to Nabalco being granted a 12-year lease by the federal government to extract bauxite from the ground on the Gove Peninsula. However, the traditional owners lost. They lost because, at the time, Justice Blackburn used the terra nullius claim, which implies that land was unoccupied prior to European settlement.

The drafting of the land rights legislation was based on the report by Justice Woodward and included such significant aims as:

• The doing of simple justice to a people who have been deprived of their land without their consent and without compensation.
• The promotion of social harmony and stability within the wider Australian community by removing, as far as possible, the legitimate causes of complaint of an important minority group within that community.
• The provision of land holdings as a first essential for people who are economically depressed and who have at present no real opportunity of achieving a normal Australian standard of living.
• The preservation, where possible, of the spiritual link with his own land which gives each Aboriginal his sense of identity and which lies at the heart of his spiritual beliefs.

Justice Woodward said that these aims could best be achieved by:

• Preserving and strengthening all Aboriginal interests in land and rights over land which exist today, particularly all those having spiritual importance.
• Ensuring that none of these interests or rights are further whittled away without consent, except in those cases where the national interest positively demands it—and then only on terms of just compensation.
• The provision of some basic compensation in the form of land for those Aborigines who have been irrevocably deprived of the rights and interests which they would otherwise have inherited from their ancestors, and who have obtained no sufficient compensating benefits from white society.
• The further provision of land, to the limit which the wider community can afford, in those places where it will do most good, particularly in economic terms, to the largest number of Aborigines.

Perhaps central to the current state of Indigenous affairs in this country—which, under the Howard government, is not being achieved—is Justice Woodward’s aim that:

The maintenance and, perhaps, improvement of Australia’s standing among the nations of the world by demonstrably fair treatment of an ethnic minority.

Now, more than 30 years on—a whole generation after the Woodward royal commission—we are in a position to update and reform the bill to assess if the changes previously made are still relevant and still to the advantage of the people whom this bill affects and protects. We have the opportunity to uphold this important recommendation of Justice Woodward made back in 1973. But the reality is that here is an opportunity to address an important issue and this government has set it up for failure.

Looking at some of the content in this bill, it would appear that Minister Brough has continued with the same attitude of the coalition ministers before him. That has not been lost on Indigenous Australians, as highlighted in the speech by the member for Lingiari, who held consultative meetings with traditional owners in their communities in the Northern Territory. He said:

At those meetings, people expressed their frustration, their anguish, their concern and their hurt at the way the Commonwealth government has imposed its agenda for change without any reference to them.

He went on to say:

They are deeply concerned that the government feels absolutely no compulsion to sit down and talk with them, let alone to consult or negotiate with them; that the government shows them no compassion; that it shows no knowledge or understanding of their cultural values or priorities; and that it shows no knowledge or understanding of the cultural differences that exist across Indigenous Australia, and of the different historical experiences that different communities have suffered.

There have been three reviews of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 over a nine-year time span. Significantly, in 2003, a submission to the government was made by the Northern Territory lands council, in a joint effort with the Northern Territory government, regarding possible amendments to the act. Many of these amendments, based on the finding of the three reviews and their own consultations, have been adopted in the bill. However, some of the proposed amendments contained in this bill before us today have not been negotiated with traditional owners and their representatives.

One has to question why the government call for submissions for an inquiry when they clearly fail to give them the genuine consideration they deserve. They do not adequately consult with those affected and they put in place a series of reworded amendments that have the potential to destabilise the whole region. As was outlined in Labor’s dissenting report, the following amendments were not negotiated with the traditional owners: the 99-year leasing on Aboriginal townships; the creation of new land councils; the ministerial power to override a land council’s decision not to delegate its function to a regional body; the removal of guaranteed funding for land councils; the altered administration of the Aboriginal Benefits Account and composition of the ABA advisory board; and the excision of intertidal zones not contiguous with Aboriginal land.

In principle, there are perhaps some functions that may be better off if delegated at a more regional level. This was indeed a proposed amendment by the Northern Territory government and the existing land councils. However, as the member for Lingiari rightly pointed out, the government has taken this way too far. One of the amendments means that the core land council functions with respect to mining and leasing on Aboriginal land could be delegated. This is problematic because it provides for a situation where the powers of the body representing the traditional owners, a land council, could be delegated such that a body including non-Aboriginal people could exercise the core land council functions.

In addition to this, one of the recommendations of the Reeves report of 1998 was opposed by members of the standing committee investigating Reeves’s recommendations. Another poorly conceived consequence in the land council deregulation amendment is that the minister of the day has the power to make decisions about a land council’s authority, whether they agree or not. So you get this scenario whereby the original act, which was designed to give rights to Indigenous Australians, is going in the completely opposite direction. A further poorly conceived aspect of this bill is the proposal for funding for land councils to essentially be at the minister’s discretion. There exist serious concerns about this outcome. If the government of the day is giving payment to the land councils based on workload, it is essentially saying, ‘Let us know what you’ve got coming up and we’ll see what happens.’ It gives an unfair amount of decision-making power to Canberra. This is just a small insight into the problems resulting from some of the government’s amendments.

There is no doubt that there remain some serious flaws in the bill as it currently stands. The Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee handed down its report on the bill last week, and it is fair to say that the people who were most disenchanted and generally unhappy about the proposals were the very people who will bear the consequences of the bill’s passage. With a bit of jockeying around the committee table, the government agreed to consult with them but only after the bill has been passed. Paragraph 1.75 of the government majority report recommends:

... subject to the amendments foreshadowed by the Minister and a commitment by the Government to undertake further ongoing negotiations and dissemination of information to the NT Government, Land Councils, traditional owners and communities likely to be affected by this legislation.

What they are saying is that the bill be passed and then the government will negotiate with traditional owners—after the horse has bolted. They are saying to the traditional owners, ‘Trust us, and we’ll negotiate later.’ One can only wonder as to why the government see the need to rush the bill through the parliament without taking the time to negotiate with the traditional owners beforehand.

Given this government’s record in honouring undertakings made, it is plain to see why traditional owners, key stakeholders, the opposition and minority parties have grave concerns about such a statement. It is little wonder that those in the Indigenous community get extremely frustrated and discouraged by this government when every time they have the opportunity to move forward they are pushed two steps back. Labor senators, in their minority report, called for the bill to be split to allow for the agreed amendments, such as the negotiated provisions of the bill relating to mining, exploration and subleasing, to proceed. Mining expansions are welcomed by many areas of the Indigenous community because it means they can generate substantial funds to improve their communities and social conditions. The negotiation process of mining has come a long way since the people of the Gove Peninsula boldly defended what was theirs.

Labor also recommended that the remainder of the bill be subject to thorough consultation and negotiation with traditional owners, their representatives and other key stakeholders before it is considered by parliament, not after. Given the lack of consultation raised in submissions to the inquiry, it would be a valuable recommendation to adopt. If, however, the bill is not split, then Labor recommended that the bill should not proceed.

I looked at some of the speeches on this bill made in late June by coalition members in the House of Representatives. Some of the comments are just proof that there is a serious partition between what is needed for Indigenous Australia and what is being applied. For example, the government’s member for Solomon wants ‘normalisation’ for Indigenous communities and cites Irish theme pubs and McDonald’s for incorporation into their lives as his measuring stick for what is normal. The member for Kingsford Smith said at the time, ‘What a joke,’ and I say today: what a disgrace. It just highlights that some government members have little regard for the cultural sensitivity of Indigenous Australia. The minister had the bravado to call it a ‘sorry day for the Labor Party’ for not supporting this bill’s passage through the lower house. In my view, Minister, sorry in respect of rights for Indigenous Australia is a word that many in your party, including your leader, have a very bad track record on.

The transcript of the Senate inquiry on the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Bill 2006 demonstrates a lack of consultation and negotiation. It demonstrates a lack of respect for traditional owners. As stated in the Labor senators’ report:

These non-negotiated amendments represent some of the most significant changes to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act since its original enactment thirty years ago. They have the potential to undermine the long-term viability and independence of Land Councils and deny cultural, social and economic enjoyment of land by traditional land owners.

Without the government addressing the key areas outlined by opposition senators in the inquiry, and indeed today in this chamber, we cannot support the bill.