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

The opposition opposes schedule 1 in the following terms:

(1)    Schedule 1, item 46, page 21 (line 28) to page 24 (line 14), section 19A, TO BE OPPOSED.

This goes to the question of the 99-year leases. I have said previously, and will not go over all the arguments about it, that we have concerns about the model adopted by the government. We have argued that there are other models under development in places like Wadeye and Yarrabah, which is in Queensland, that provide other ways of seeking the sorts of objectives that are common to the government, to the opposition and, more importantly, to Indigenous people. I think the government’s approach almost assumes that traditional owners are anti development and seems to seek at all stages to cut those traditional owners out of the equation, out of the decision-making process. Because of the lack of clarity about the way the entity which will be the repository of these leases will work, it is very hard to come to grips with exactly how the proposition will work.

Of particular concern to Labor is the prevention of traditional owner corporations holding the leases or having an ongoing say over how those occur. For instance, I have concerns—and they have been raised with me by others—about inappropriate development and the capacity, once the lease is signed, for traditional owners to have a say over what is appropriate or not appropriate development. For instance, if someone wants to set up a casino in the middle of a town, what say would the traditional owners have about that sort of development? It is not the aspect of the lease itself, but the conditions that would apply to the lease and what capacity there would be for traditional owners to continue to have some say, some influence, over what happens on their land. That is at the heart of the concern about the government’s approach.

We do not have all the detail. We do not have a clear idea of how the entity will work, what consultation processes there will be or who will be running the entity et cetera. Fundamentally, the traditional owners’ loss of control over development on their land is at the heart of Labor’s concerns. We have not received any comfort so far from the government’s explanation of their proposition. It seems to reflect the age-old response of governments, which is: ‘We’ll take over the land and tell you what’s best for you because you are incapable of doing it.’ That seems to be the basis of the approach.

As I said, I do not think it is because there is mass disagreement about the objectives. Every Indigenous person I speak to wants services and development, but there are serious concerns about the capacity for people to have an ongoing say and control over what happens on their land. On that basis, we are moving to oppose section 19A of item 46 to make the point which has been central to the whole debate, which is about the model of the leases.