Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for those comments. But I think the fact that there are a number of rep bodies or land councils in that situation where they have either handed back their responsibilities or have administrators in place actually shows that the system is working. Where there have been problems, the system has moved in to deal with those problems. In relation to your comment that this is not about lawyers and not about anthropologists, I would say that it is about that, because if you cannot attract highly skilled, highly experienced staff in this area then the losers will be the Indigenous people that they are there to represent and advocate for. We do not want in the system—and we should not be encouraging in the system—just people who are there to get experience or to learn on the job; we want a mixture of experienced specialists in this field as well as those who are there to gain experience.

I also think there is a problem in putting a specific limit on registering the rep bodies. Many of the people who provided submissions to the committee in fact were not in favour of this, and I still say to you that I do not believe that there has been enough evidence provided to the government to warrant such major changes—particularly when at the same time in this bill you are not requiring these rep bodies to provide a strategic plan. So there is some hypocrisy and inconsistency in your approach here. On one hand we are going to tighten the accountability procedures, but on the other hand there are amendments in this bill that say the rep bodies no longer have to provide a strategic or business plan as part of their operation. I reiterate that we do not believe that this is going to make the system more efficient and deliver better outcomes for Indigenous people; in fact we believe it will clog up the system even further.