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

The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Township Leasing) Bill 2007 will bring a further change to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. It is an amendment that allows township leasing—or so we have been led to believe. It will establish the office of the Executive Director of Township Leasing. This will enable communities to enter into township leases, which will be managed by the appointed executive director.

These leases will enable Aboriginal landowners to issue 99-year leases over their land, supposedly to improve the chances of economic development. The origins of this bill date from last year under the first tranche of changes that concerned the Aboriginal Land Rights Amendment Act of last year. We saw the introduction of section 19A—as opposed to the current section 19 under the act. Section 19 under the act allows for individual lots, plots or parcels of land to be released and leased, and last year we saw an extension of that to include whole townships.

If people want to get a clear look at the impact of this legislation and at the way it has been handled by this government, they should look at some of the fine contributions by my colleagues in the House of Representatives earlier this week. I refer in particular to people like Ms Macklin and the member for Lingiari, Warren Snowdon. This legislation impacts on Mr Snowdon’s electorate singularly and solely. He is probably one of the most knowledgeable people I know when it comes to the operation of the land rights act. I would also like to acknowledge the contributions from Mr Martin Ferguson and Mr Peter Garrett. I think they are a fine compilation of exactly how people feel about the way Indigenous people are being treated by this government.

This is not about us objecting to moving Indigenous people forward economically and it is not about us standing in the way of people who may want to embark on different sorts of economic development. This is about ensuring that Indigenous people are with you and are consulted and that there is informed consent for these changes. I want to emphasise that point about informed consent in relation to these changes and what they mean. Look at the contribution of the member for Solomon, Mr David Tollner, who looks after solely Darwin and Palmerston and so would have had no or very little interaction with the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. In his role he would not have gone to any remote communities to speak to people about this. His knowledge is minimal. The contribution by him in this regard was extremely disappointing.

What we have here is a sign of a government that is absolutely desperate to prove that it has been able to do something for Indigenous people before the coming election. In relation to the Tiwi Islands, where the basis of this legislation emanates from, we have a situation where in the 2006 budget $100 million was to be allocated by this government for Indigenous housing and for implementing this leasing plan. Twelve months have now elapsed—I will go into this in a bit more detail in a moment—and nothing has been done. Suddenly we have Minister Brough—or ‘Minister Bluff’ as some people in the Northern Territory might want to call him—running around like a rabbit in the spotlight trying to implement in the Tiwi Islands a housing strategy or a land leasing strategy that is vastly different from those in Wadeye and in Alice Springs. There is no overall strategy here and there is no overall forward thinking. This is a sign of a government that is desperate to prove that it has been able to achieve something for Indigenous people.

And people in the Territory are resisting. People in Alice Springs are strongly resisting this minister’s ‘take it, take all of it or take nothing’ attitude. You do it on his terms or you do it on no terms: ‘You must do it in the way I want you to do it and the way I, as a non-Indigenous person in this country, perceive you should do it.’ According to Minister Brough: ‘The way you ought to develop your economic prospects is my way or no way.’ But Indigenous people are not silly. Indigenous people are quite intelligent. As Jenny Macklin said at the start of her speech on this legislation in the House of Representatives, where she quoted from the song From Little Things Big Things Grow, Indigenous people in the Territory have a history of waiting patiently—not aggressively, as this minister wishes to go about his business, but very patiently—until they get what they want, on their terms. So people in the Territory will sit back and wait and watch and listen. They are not about to be bullied or coerced into signing up to something they do not seriously believe in and do not understand.

I think if you look at the contributions to the debate on this legislation from non-government people in both Houses, they are about trying, again—and I think I do this nearly every month down here in this place—to encourage this government to sit down and negotiate with Indigenous people about exactly what it is they want.

The 99-year leases have been, and remain, a highly contentious issue in the Northern Territory. This bill specifies the functions, the terms and conditions of the office of Executive Director of Township Leasing. Let us go back at this point and have a bit of history. The history is that, at some point, someone came up with the idea that one way we might be able to improve economic outcomes for Indigenous people—and let us not go into an analysis of this federal government’s absolute neglect of the support needed for that to occur—was to talk about their land: ‘Let’s assimilate and normalise Indigenous people so that their lot in life is to buy a little quarter-acre block with a little house on it and a bit of a fence.’ That is so unlike Indigenous people’s view of economic success and economic outcomes. But, nevertheless, this is a government that believes in assimilation for Indigenous people—that is, ‘Let’s make them all like us’—and not self-determination—that is, ‘Let’s empower them and educate them and provide them with the knowledge and skills to actually determine for themselves where they might want to go with all of this.’

So one of these ideas was, ‘We’ll lease a whole community.’ That went a bit further when amendments were made last year to the Northern Territory land rights act. At that time the Northern Territory government was going to look at setting up an entity—I suppose it would be a statutory authority, in a sense—that would be the managing authority for this township. I have sought constantly, through questions on notice and questions at estimates, to find out exactly what this entity might look like, how it would operate and what its relationship would be to the town councils in these communities. Yet I still cannot get any comprehensive answers. I get answers, but they are not comprehensive answers about how exactly this is going to happen. So the Northern Territory government decided to embark on a range of consultations and to take its time. But of course we have a federal minister now who will not take time. The value of his time is of the utmost, and it has to be done in his time and no-one else’s time. And so this legislation has now been drafted, and has been rammed through both houses of parliament within four days.

Has the legislation been provided to one Indigenous person in the Territory? No. Has it been explained to any Indigenous person in the Territory? No. I even had land councils this week asking me to email them a copy of the legislation—the very four entities concerned in the Northern Territory. They include the Anindilyakwa Land Council at Groote Eylandt. I am sure the Tiwi Land Council has got an idea of what is in it. But the Northern Land Council and Central Land Council have not had an opportunity to thoroughly examine this legislation. They have had no opportunity to have input to a Senate inquiry into this legislation. That, I think, is quite astounding in terms of the rights of Indigenous people in the Northern Territory.

I do not believe there is any urgency about rushing this legislation through before we rise next week. And a government that was genuinely concerned about engaging Indigenous people, informing Indigenous people and letting them have their say might actually have flicked this legislation off to the Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee and allowed us to go to places like Alice Springs or Darwin, Port Keats-Wadeye or Bathurst Island to consult people about what they thought of this concept and how that entity might be set up. But this government operates behind a veil of secrecy when it comes to Indigenous people. So there will be no Senate inquiry. That is not allowed—not on. ‘On my terms or on no terms’ is the way this minister conducts Indigenous affairs in this country.

We could have easily done that inquiry over the winter recess. It probably would have been a good time to go to the Territory; it is the dry season and we do not have minus temperatures up there, so people might have welcomed the change. And we could have easily reported on the first day back in August and dealt with this legislation then. We know that when Senate committees look at legislation there is an opportunity for us to change that legislation for the better. But the Senate committee has not had the chance to do that. And that, I think, is another example of this government’s belligerent attitude when it comes to the future of Indigenous people.

I want to go to a quote that we found in putting together some speaking notes on this legislation. It comes from a very eminent person in this country, an Indigenous person, Professor Larissa Behrendt. She writes regularly for a national Indigenous newspaper. In commenting on this government and the minister in the National Indigenous Times on 31 May this year she said that the minister’s:

... approach to Indigenous affairs has been one where he holds himself out as having the answers ... if only those blacks would see the wisdom of his ways.

She goes on to say, as to what really needs to happen—and I quote from her article—that ‘the truth of the matter is that Aboriginal people need to be saved’ from Minister Brough. Patricia Karvelas wrote an article, in the Australian of 5 June, headed ‘Indigenous policy is assimilationist’, in which former Family Court Chief Justice Elizabeth Evatt warns that such a policy could ‘destroy Aboriginal culture’. She went on to warn of the dangers implicit in the Prime Minister’s rigid ideas of mainstreaming Indigenous programs with the end result being ‘the eventual disappearance of Aboriginal tradition and culture’.

I do not have an awful lot of time this morning to contribute to this debate. While some people might think 20 minutes is enough, I could probably speak for much longer than that. There are many things that I want to put down on the record, but the main point that I want to get across today is this. If this is going to be the way of the future for Indigenous townships and if Indigenous people actually want this to occur—and I am not convinced yet that is the case—the fact is Indigenous people have not been fully informed about how this is going to operate. When people actually sign on the dotted line to lease their land for 99 years, it will be forever—and I do not think the people have quite realised that. That is why we have Willy Tilmouth and the Tangentyere council fighting with this minister at the moment over the reformation of the town camps in Alice Springs. This minister is suggesting that they ought to give up the special purpose lease for 99 years but Tangentyere council is saying that is just a little bit too long, let us go for 20 years and let us sit down and talk about this. But at the end of the day, according to this minister, it is his way or no way.

In relation to the town camps, this minister makes an announcement in May 2006. He takes over a year to come up with a formal proposal, gives it to people in Alice Springs in May and gives them 30 days to make up their mind. I thought Martin Ferguson very cleverly highlighted in the House this week that when we talk about airports being leased for 99 years we do not give the corporations involved less than a month to look at the details. But that is what this government is expecting Indigenous people to accept. When Indigenous people say, ‘Wait a minute; we need a bit more time here,’ this government minister says: ‘Well, I’m going to take the money off the table. You play by my rules or you play by no rules. I will take my bat and ball and go home.’ Quite frankly, Indigenous people are quite used to this from this government. But they are also prepared to sit around and wait and make sure that at the end of the day what they perceive as being important in their life is what is finally negotiated and achieved.

In relation to the Tiwi Land Council, during estimates I put quite a number of questions on notice, through Senator Scullion to Minister Brough, and got this amazing answer that this was really none of my business, it was not my responsibility and I would have to ask the Tiwi Land Council myself. Yet I was able to get evidence that there are many times when questions on notice are actually put through the minister—that is the only way that you can do it in this place—and the minister actually flicks those off to the statutory authority and responds, ‘I’ve sent these questions to this authority and on their behalf here are the answers.’ Every time we have tried to get detailed information about this it has been blocked. We either get no answers to questions or questions are not answered. There was a stunning display of buckpassing in estimates only a few weeks ago where everything I asked of OIPC in the Community Affairs estimates was flicked to IBA, Indigenous Business Australia, who will be handling some of this leasing at Wadeye. When I asked IBA the questions, they then said: ‘We can’t give you the answers. That is actually OIPC.’

I do not think that was incompetence on their part. I believe it is a deliberate strategy. What is happening here is that people buck-pass and avoid answering questions at Senate estimates. You might laugh, Senator Scullion, but I saw members from IBA, having been sent back into the other room, quickly briefing people from FaCSIA before I went back to FaCSIA to re-ask the questions. A conference—discussion and conferring—was going on. So, yes, I do believe that there are problems in terms of openness and transparency.

Let me give you just one example of this in relation to how scattergun this government’s approach is to housing. Four houses have been built out at Wadeye, two at Nama and two at Wudapuli. I asked questions about the houses. I asked why there was no external provision for each house. They had no shed, no driveway, no verandah, no outside area to sit on and even no concrete around the outside. IBA told me they did not construct those because they were never asked to do so by FaCSIA. You have to ask yourself: what government would build a four-bedroom house and plonk it in the dirt without any external amenities for people? What sort of strategy is that?

Then we discovered that the lease that this government have asked people at Nama and Wudapuli to sign actually breaches the Northern Territory tenancy act. Why is that? Because the Northern Territory tenancy act only applies to certain land leasing arrangements, and Nama and Wudapuli leasing arrangements fall outside of that. So these people have been asked to sign a tenancy agreement that really under the law is highly contestable. So what sort of strategy is this? This is supposedly from a federal government that believes it is doing the right thing by Indigenous people by improving their economic lot and their economic outcomes. We hear a lot of rhetoric about how this is going to improve people’s economic outcomes. That may well be so—and we do not stand in the way of any sort of progress which actually takes people to the next level—but it has got to be done in consultation and with a little bit more foresight and planning and strategy than I currently see from this government.

Nobody can tell me what the total value of the township of Nguiu actually is; nobody in this government can tell me that. No-one can give me a business plan and a business case as to why leasing the whole of the township of Nguiu is going to be the best thing rather than leasing it lot by lot. No-one can show me what economic long-term value these people are going to get out of this. They tell me that it is going to give them economic long-term value and it is going to improve their lot in life, but I have not seen it on paper. If I was the director of Wesfarmers or Rio Tinto, I would not be buying into this because I do not believe the economics stack up—and the economics have never been done by this government.

This legislation is not supported by us because it is legislation that has not been done in consultation with Indigenous people. It is not about changes to the land rights act that involves their informed consent, and we will not be supporting it. (Time expired)