Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move amendment (2) on sheet 5274:

(2)   Schedule 3, item 5, page 57 (after line 7), at the end of section 59, add:

        (3)    The regulations must prescribe that a body corporate with members who do not meet the Indigeneity requirement specified in section 29-5 of the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 is not entitled to become a prescribed body corporate.

Of course, under the recent amendments contained in the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 there is scope for non-Indigenous persons to be members of Indigenous corporations, but as native title is a process which is connected so closely with Indigenous laws and customs it is Labor’s view that it is not appropriate that corporations with non-Indigenous members be eligible to be prescribed bodies corporate. The difficulty is that without that section the area is open. So I seek to close that to ensure that that is the outcome. I seek the government’s support for that.