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

The opposition opposes items 173 and 174 of schedule 1 in the following terms:

(7)    Schedule 1, item 173, page 69 (lines 7 and 8), TO BE OPPOSED.

(8)    Schedule 1, item 174, page 69 (lines 9 to 21), TO BE OPPOSED.

This debate goes to the existing provision which guarantees 40 per cent of funds from the Aboriginals Benefit Account being available to support the land councils’ activities. The government seeks to delete that provision. Labor, in moving this amendment, seeks to retain it. The government has previously accepted that this funding floor, as it were, to support the land councils’ operations has been appropriate. The provision removes that funding floor and seeks to determine it on the basis of estimated workloads. It is an approach that has been adopted with some other Aboriginal organisations.

We are concerned about this measure. We believe it removes a protection which helps to ensure the long-term viability and independence of the land councils in representing traditional owners’ interests. It seems to be another measure that is aimed at tightening government control over the land councils, and we are concerned that, as part of a package of measures, it is really about government control rather than effective representation of Indigenous landowners. The government talk about outcome based funding in supporting these measures, but the land councils have already moved to performance based funding under recent administrative changes. We think, as I say, that it is much more reflective of a government seeking to tighten control. We think the controls they currently have are adequate. We think the land councils are committed to accountability and proper process. We think there are broader roles for the land councils in terms of economic development, job creation and advocacy that this amendment has the potential to undermine.

We have seen with other community based organisations where governments have sought to tighten control of their funding that a by-product of this invariably is that advocacy and those types of functions tend to be restricted by the government’s tight control. I have seen it in the disability sector, where the government has moved against the disability organisations that promote advocacy as part of their function. I have serious concerns about the measure to remove the guaranteed floor of funding to the land councils, together with the government’s other activities in relation to the ABA, where the minister seeks to dip into the money whenever he needs to solve a political problem and access money which he cannot win through the cabinet processes. He seeks to dip into the Aboriginals Benefit Account and he argues that what he is doing is in the best interests of Aboriginal people and therefore he has the right to access those funds and use them as he wants. Again this is a reflection of the attitude ‘We know best, and we will do to you, not work with you.’

So I think this is part of an undermining of the independence of the land councils. I do not think that is a good thing. I think one of the great problems in Indigenous affairs in this country currently is the lack of Aboriginal voices, the lack of capacity for Aboriginal people to be represented, not only with the demise of ATSIC but also with the government tightening its control on legal services and on native title representative bodies. This is just another measure that seeks to restrict the capacity for independent Aboriginal voices and for advocacy, and that is why Labor is opposed to the government removing the funding floor. Independence of funding provides a great deal of independence in how you operate. The land councils are strictly controlled anyway in terms of regulations and accountability mechanisms, but this measure fundamentally seeks to undermine their independence and thereby undermine their capacity for advocacy on behalf of traditional owners. I do not think it is a move that should be supported by the Senate.