Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to move to the aspect of this legislation that relates to the extraordinary powers over Aboriginal lands that the emergency bill will provide to the minister. Those powers do seem quite extraordinary. They give the minister the ability to terminate any right, title or other interest in the land at any time. The Commonwealth can sublease and license their interest in the land. The minister can amend through regulation certain provisions of Commonwealth laws as they apply to land the government holds under this act. The Law Council calls these provisions ‘Henry VIII clauses’. They give the government the power to exclude anyone from the land—and I would like the minister to confirm that—including the people who live there, which is quite extraordinary. I would therefore like to ask a couple of questions. As I understand it, the reason that the government wants to amend the permit system is so that Aboriginal communities cannot exclude people from the communities, yet the government wants that same power for itself. What sorts of laws does the government envisage that the Commonwealth would be able to exclude itself from applying on lands that it will be administrating under this bill?