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

Certainly, Mr Acting Deputy President. The Senate needs to know that the level of consultation with and the level of knowledge and consent of traditional owners on matters contained in this bill are clearly split along the lines I am proposing that we split the bill. One section has been thoroughly negotiated and agreed; the other sections, which go to issues of leasing arrangements, the creation of new land councils, ministerial powers, funding protections for the land councils, the altered administration of the ABA and the title zones, have not been the subject of wide consultation and negotiation.

The Senate committee found that unanimously. In the report of the Senate committee that inquired into these matters, the Liberal senators who took an interest in the matter and attended the hearings found that. They did not go as far as we have in terms of calling for a split of the bill but, if you look at the report, it is clear that this does not have the consent of the Indigenous people—they do not know enough about it, they feel that it is being done to them without consultation and they are concerned by it.

As I said, my view is that the government ought to take it back and have another go at that section. I am not arguing for years of delay. I think with a bit of commitment the government could move quite quickly. Cyclone Mal, as the minister is known, can move quickly when required—some would say too quickly and with too little effect. If he could apply the same energies that he has brought to some other issues—ones that are slightly more negative for Indigenous people—it seems to me that this legislation need not be delayed inordinately. Labor have no interest in delaying it. We think that improved leasing arrangements in Indigenous communities is helpful for economic development.

So I am in the uncomfortable position, I suppose, that we agree on the objectives but we do not agree on the process. I do not usually like to argue about process, but in the end you have to make a decision about where you stand. That has been my practice over all my time in the Senate. It is unusual for me to be in this position. But the reality is that this is a very different piece of legislation and a very different issue for us. This is fundamentally about people’s property rights—the property rights of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. This bill will change the arrangements that apply to them on their land, without there having been proper consultation with them.

If we did that to people who own suburban blocks in Perth, I suspect, Senator Bishop, that we would have a riot on our hands. If we announced to them that we had put through the federal parliament a bill that interfered with their enjoyment of their backyard or their swimming pool, I suspect you and I would spend many months dealing with protests and complaints. But somehow, because these are the property rights of Aboriginal people, we can treat them in a different way. That is fundamentally what is wrong with this legislation. In dealing with these issues, we are not showing Indigenous people the respect they deserve and we are not showing enough respect for their property rights. That is at the heart of it.

I know it is a process argument in one sense, but it is a very important process argument. It is a very important argument that is at the basis of this parliament’s adoption of this legislation. At the start, we made it very clear—as did Justice Woodward and the House of Representatives committee that inquired into the act in 1999—that you need to be careful in amending the act and that you need to try as much as possible to ensure that traditional owners have full knowledge of and consent to what occurs. I think we can do better. We must do better. As I said, the committee, during a very short inquiry—having only one day available to it because of the workload—heard overwhelming evidence that people were concerned with the process the government was following and that they did not feel they had knowledge of what was being pursued.

I will come to a lot of the key issues that the minister alluded to later. I cannot cover them all here; this is essentially about trying to split the bill to allow the proper process to occur for those measures that have not been subject to proper consideration and negotiation with the traditional owners. The government’s key defence in all of this is that it is all voluntary and, therefore, they can pass whatever they like because, if the Aboriginal people do not agree, it just will not happen. Of course, that sounds all very good until you start examining what is happening on the ground. The reality is that the minister has already said to communities: ‘Sign up for the 99-year lease and you’ll get a new school and new houses. You’ll get the sorts of services that you are entitled to as citizens of this country—that is, access to education—if you sign up for the deal.’ That is not voluntary, in my view. That is not what I call voluntary.

The power relationship between the Commonwealth government and some of the poorest people in our community, people living in Third World conditions, is so unbalanced. To say that negotiation and bargaining between the powerful Commonwealth government and poverty-stricken Indigenous communities is somehow going to be fair is a complete nonsense. We have already seen, with the minister’s activities, an attempt to link the provision of basic services, basic rights of citizenship, like education and health services, to an agreement to enter into one of these leases. It is not about a voluntary contract. It is not about people being able to make intelligent decisions. It is about them facing the power of the Commonwealth and being coerced into entering into the leasing arrangements. And it is all so unnecessary.

Aboriginal people want economic development on their lands. They want services. They want normalisation of their townships so that they can get clean water, electricity, gas and access to shops and services. These are goals they share. They would even be interested in private homeownership—although a lot of them think that is a long way from being achieved. But, if that is part of the solution, great; if there are opportunities for private homeownership, I am sure they will take them. In dealing with these issues, they should not have to feel that their property rights, their land rights, have to be traded away in order to get that sort of development. They ought to be able to have a fair process of bargaining, a fair process which allows them to control what happens on their land.

What is completely absent from this bill is any detail about what input Indigenous people would have once they have signed up to the lease. There is no mention of whether they would have any control once the lease was signed. We are asking people living in abject poverty to sign up to agreements that sign away their land rights, their property rights, for 99 years without any knowledge of whether they will have any say at all over what happens on that land for the next 99 years. Unfortunately, for Indigenous people that is almost four generations. In signing up, they lose total control. That is a really difficult choice for them. The unfair power relationship between the Commonwealth and those communities is not something we ought to be endorsing. As I said, we can get a better outcome. We can get changes to leasing arrangements in Indigenous communities. We can get economic development. But it has to be done in a way in which there are some reassurances for Indigenous people that they will have some say over what happens on their land, and it has to be done in a way that ensures the voluntary nature of the agreement is protected.

Currently, I am not at all convinced that the provisions that allegedly provide for voluntary participation are anywhere near strong enough. The power relationship between the Commonwealth and these communities reminds me a bit of the Work Choices legislation, where an unskilled 18-year-old fronting up to an employer allegedly has the same sort of bargaining power as an employer in a time of high unemployment. It is just a nonsense. There is no fair bargaining arrangement. We want to ensure that Indigenous people are able to negotiate these leasing arrangements from a position where they have power over their land and where they find the legislation has not undermined them before they start.

The Commonwealth needs to take back the second part of this bill and negotiate properly and fairly. I do agree with a couple of things the minister said. They are not that far away from a lot of the Aboriginal groups in terms of these provisions because they share common objectives. But they are far enough away for it not to be appropriate for this parliament to approve the bill in this form at this time. If the Commonwealth were genuinely committed to the process and genuinely committed to respecting Indigenous voices and Indigenous representation, they would go back and work through some of the issues that remain in contention and bring back a bill that the whole parliament could support and which had the consent of traditional owners.

I think that is possible. As I said, I think that some of the amendments the government have made will improve the bill. But they are not there yet. They are not at a point where Labor could feel comfortable supporting the bill in its current format. Without that consent of traditional owners we do not think this parliament ought to be proceeding. We urge the Senate to split the bill and to allow us to deal with those matters that have been agreed to and to allow the government to deal properly with Indigenous people before proceeding with the other aspects. (Time expired)