Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I just make the point, Mr Acting Deputy President, that Senator Scullion did not have the opportunity to hear the evidence from those parties. I want to reiterate: I do not think that it is beyond the wit of the government to get the consent of traditional owners to some of their objectives here. What has been lacking is a bit of goodwill. What has been lacking is the preparedness to spend the time to find a solution that allows traditional owners to maintain control of their land and facilitate economic development on that land through some sort of leasing scheme.

I have not yet met an Aboriginal person in the Northern Territory or elsewhere who has said to me they are not in favour of economic development. In fact, they always tell me quite the opposite. Senator Scullion and I are actually in screaming agreement. People understand that they need economic development to help their communities prosper. They want jobs, they want services, they want a decent supermarket in town and they want a mechanic where they can get their car fixed. They want all those services. There is no-one in this chamber who supports any sort of proposition that says that they should not get them. That will require, I think, both the nurturing of some economic enterprise in those communities and the resolving of some of the issues that exist in terms of land use. There is no question about that. But the question is about what then happens to the property rights of those landowners.

These people effectively have freehold title. This is their land—and you do not go and muck with their land without talking to them. You do not go and take away their property rights without talking to them. For the Liberal Party, the defenders of property rights, to be in here today saying we are effectively going to diminish people’s property rights, without consultation with them, without attempting to get their consent, I think will make a lot of past Liberals turn in their graves. This is fundamentally about dealing with property rights. You can get a better solution if you are prepared to work at it. You are not prepared to work at it.

What Labor are arguing for—and we have the support of the Democrats and the Greens on this, and I thank them for that—is to split the bill so that when we get to the issues that are more contentious, which have not had the benefit of negotiation and discussion or any sense of consent, we delay those sections of the bill so that the government can engage in that process. As I say, I do not think we are that far away on these issues. We are a long way away on how we treat Aboriginal people—whether we show them respect in dealing with them and dealing with their land rights—but the objectives of all in this parliament, and of Aboriginal people, in terms of economic development are very similar.

I think it is possible to get to a better result than the government have got to. To be fair to the government, they are making improvements. A lot of the changes and a couple of the amendments that the government have announced in recent times are things that I have been arguing for over recent weeks. I do not pretend that I had any influence on the government, but I do make the point that they have been arguments that we have been supporting. Some of those amendments do improve the bill, but the point is that you are not there yet—you are a long way from being there—and you still have the fundamental problem that you do not have the consent of the people whose land you are dealing with. That remains your fundamental problem. That is why Labor is opposed to proceeding with that part of the bill now—because you are again telling Aboriginal people what you are going to do to them rather than what you are going to do with them.

I will come to the voluntary nature of things in a minute. Clearly, we will get to some of those more specific debates. Essentially, what we are trying to do is to allow those things that have been agreed, that are pro economic development on Aboriginal land, that have been negotiated with the Aboriginal people and that have been delayed for too long, to proceed. We are keen for the government to take back the other sections of the bill, to negotiate with the Indigenous people and stakeholders—some of whom, along with the traditional owners, are very concerned about the implications of these provisions—and to come back with a package that the whole parliament can support.

One of the great things about the Northern Territory land rights legislation is that it had bipartisan support through this place. It has had a long history of bipartisan support. It is one of the most iconic pieces of legislation ever considered and passed by this parliament. To the credit of the Fraser government, it picked up the legislation, on the defeat of the Whitlam government, and passed it. As recommended by Justice Woodward, when he did his inquiry which led to the bill, we on all sides of politics have adopted the policy that we would not amend this bill without meeting a very strong test about Aboriginal and traditional owners’ knowledge of any amendments and, wherever possible, their consent to amendments.

That is the philosophy that underpinned the bill and that underpinned the Fraser government’s approach and approaches by all subsequent governments. It is the philosophy that underpinned this government’s approach to the first sections of the bill. The government had detailed negotiations and engaged with the land councils, traditional owners and the Northern Territory Labor government, and they came up with a good package—which would go through on the nod unanimously here today if the bill were split. But they also started to seize on some political opportunities late last year and sought to roll them into the whole package. So when the minister says that this has been the subject of long negotiations, he misleads the Senate. It is not true.