Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows

The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act was established with cross-party support in 1976, enabling communal Aboriginal land ownership in the Territory under Australian law. The land title is inalienable and equivalent to freehold title, but is held communally, reflecting the nature of Aboriginal land ownership.

The Northern Territory Aboriginal Land Rights Act was subjected to major amendments last year which, amongst other things, enabled 99-year leases to be established on townships on Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory.

This Bill before us enables the Commonwealth to establish a township leasing entity in the event that the NT Government has not established a township leasing entity of their own to manage the leases.

The Democrats expressed very strong concern at the time that legislation was pushed through this Senate that there had been completely inadequate consultation with Indigenous peoples throughout the Territory who would be affected by these changes. The Senate Inquiry process into that Bill was totally inadequate – another in a long and sad line of acts of contempt from this government towards the Senate which continues to degrade the credibility of the Senate Committee process. Indeed, some months later, I recall hearing a speech in a public forum from one of the participants in that disgracefully brief Inquiry process, seriously questioning whether contributing to Senate Committee Inquiries was a worthwhile use of their time in the future.

The ability of Aboriginal landholders to meaningfully participate in that Inquiry process was minimal, despite the fact that it directly affected some of their most basic rights. The process was so bad that even Minister Mal Brough later conceded that it was less than ideal. Despite those widely admitted flaws and inadequacies with the previous legislation, this time around the government has prevented any sort of Senate Committee inquiry at all, even though there is no urgency to pass this Bill prior to August.

The continuing refusal of this government to allow proper public scrunity of their legislation and open public engagement and consultation with affected Indigenous people is simply inexcusable. The Democrats are on record in this Senate as far back as August 2005 calling for proper consultation to occur before changes are made, but this has not happened. We are on record saying that we would consider potential changes to Land Rights if it could be shown it may be of benefit to Indigenous people, but that this “should not and must not be done without the full involvement of consultation with and subsequent agreement of the Aboriginal people.”

To the Democrats the big issue here is not whether 99 year leases as envisaged in the Act and the Bill before may be beneficial in some circumstances. It is that there has been an almost total, and one would have to say apparently deliberate, attempt to exclude Aboriginal people from involvement in this process, other than trying to persuade – some would say blackmail – them into agreeing to a lease at the end of the whole process.

The Democrats were very critical of the new leasing scheme contained in the 2006 amendments due to concerns about a lack of protection against unintended consequences. In particular, the head leasing and sub leasing provisions may mean that traditional owners relinquish control and cannot prevent inappropriate commercial development on sub leased land.

In this case, the bill seeks to facilitate a lease by establishing a Commonwealth office of Executive Director of Township Leasing (in the absence of NT Government action). The fact that there is no legislated requirement for the Executive Director to undertake ongoing consultation or negotiation with Traditional Owners or Land Councils regarding management of their land once the headlease is agreed is of significant concern.

Of extra concern to the Democrats is the fact that, as the Explanatory Memorandum makes clear, the costs of the Executive Director of Township Leasing will be met for up to $15 million, to be provided over five years from 2006-07 to 2010-2011 and that the funds will be sourced from the Aboriginals Benefit Account (ABA). This Account contains the equivalent of mining royalties for mining carried out on Aboriginal land. The money is already there to be spent for the benefit of Aboriginal people. Whatever else one might think about the 99 year lease proposals, the fact that the government is covering the costs of the process from money that has already been set aside to be spent on the benefit of Aboriginal people is a complete disgrace.

If the Commonwealth Government is so keen to trial this 99 year lease process that it will bulldoze through major changes to the immensely important Land Rights Act without properly consulting the Aboriginal people who are directly affected, the very least they could do is to cover the costs out of consolidated revenue, rather than take it from money already set aside that is meant to be spent for Aboriginal people.

We must put a pause in this process until there is proper consultation. The government may try to say that this is urgent, but I would be very very doubtful that any lease would be ready to be agreed to before August. 99 years is more than a lifetime, particularly for Aboriginal people, given the disgraceful fact that they have an average life expectancy 17 years less than other Australians. If we are to try this pathway and process, let’s do all we can to make sure we get it right.