Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for the answer but I do not think he answered my question. My question is: why are you requiring in this clause that it be ‘property to which paragraph 51(xxxi) of the Constitution applies from a person otherwise than on ‘just terms’’? Why don’t you just state that that requirement applies? What we are offering in the alternative is a requirement that the ‘just terms’, if you like, guarantee or provision of the Constitution will apply in these circumstances, but it seems to me that you are trying to wriggle out of that. That is the advice that the Law Council provide, and they are the concerns that have been raised. I know there is this legal debate about whether it applies, so, given that there is this legal argument—this defensible legal proposition that that section may not apply under section 51 of the Constitution—aren’t you saying that compensation will only apply if it is found that section 51 applies to the Northern Territory? Only then will you have an obligation for compensation. Why are you putting that barrier in? Why don’t you accept that paragraph 51 of the Constitution applies to Indigenous people in the Northern Territory?