Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

I note with some disappointment that we have two assertions in this place. One is that we do not seek to delay the passing of this legislation, yet we seem to be going over the same ground we went over last night. But I will respond again. I think we all need a bit of a reminder about what is going on here. The reason we are acquiring this land is that we have already tried to put infrastructure into these communities, and those attempts were delayed by about 14 to 16 months from even commencing. We know that if those delays occur with this intervention the intended outcomes are simply not possible. We are intending to provide new houses, infrastructure to those houses and street lighting—the level of amenity every other Australian takes for granted. That is what we are attempting to do; this is what this is about.

Even for someone with a very low level of knowledge of the law such as myself, particularly with regard to some of Senator Evans’s comments, the acquisition of property under the Constitution must be on ‘just terms’. Any bills that we bring into this place will not remove or diminish that aspect of the Constitution. I did not want to go into any further details but, perhaps for comfort, I mentioned the Customs Act last night and luckily it has been confirmed today that I was in fact correct. There are a number of acts, including the Commonwealth Service Delivery Act, which deal with compensation on ‘just terms’. It is exactly the same issue and exactly the same legislation. It is simply the convention that this wording is used. As I indicated last night, there was a Federal Court case to confirm that that convention was in fact correct. There are a number of other pieces of legislation—the Australian Hearing Services Reform Act, the Telecommunications Act and the Australian National Railways Commission Act—that refer to that exact wording. As I said, it is our simple intention to acquire the property. We have said, in this place, that the Constitution requires that, and we wish to acquire it on ‘just terms’. It is for a five-year period so that we can improve the infrastructure in that place. It will then automatically return to the landowners. We are not actually acquiring ownership of the land. The underlying native title remains. We have taken great care to ensure that that is the case. The wording of this is consistent with the wording of any legislation that provides for reflecting upon the Constitution, which says that any compulsory acquisition will be compensated on ‘just terms’, and this legislation reflects just that.