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

If the minister thinks that sort of response is going to reassure people—it is not about reassuring us; it is about reassuring Aboriginal people—he has to be kidding himself. To say that the legislation has no intention of interfering with people’s rights, that it does not have any effect and therefore we do not need to have this amendment is, I think, frankly a non sequitur. If the government is genuinely saying that the legislation does not have any effect then there should be absolutely no problem with including the amendment so as to put the issue beyond doubt.

Legislation, including the bills before us, will have clauses that start with the words: ‘To put it beyond any doubt, the following is the case ...’ That is the purpose of this amendment: to put it beyond any doubt, because there is doubt. Notwithstanding the assurance of the minister, that doubt will continue. Indeed, I would suggest that that doubt will be much stronger because of the intransigence being displayed by the government once again.

Following some questions from Senator Siewert during the debate on the previous amendment, the minister again made the statement that the rights of traditional owners would continue. I thought he then qualified that by saying that they will continue as long as they do not get in the way of what the Commonwealth wants to do. I am obviously paraphrasing somewhat, but his words were to that effect. We need to know what it is: either the rights will continue except when they get in the way of what the Commonwealth wants to do or the rights will continue. The minister has just said that they do continue and that they are not affected, at least in terms of rights under the land rights act. If that is the case then the amendment should be supported. If that is not the case and the rights continue ‘except for’ or ‘in a qualified way’, that should be made clear as well. I would prefer that the amendment was agreed to. If the amendment is not going to be agreed to, it should be made crystal clear just how far those rights will not be continuing.

Question negatived.

I move Democrat amendment (4):

(4)    Clause 37, page 34 (after line 11), after subclause (6), insert:

     (6A)    If the Land Trust proposes to grant, terminate or vary a town lease, it must not do so until after it has consulted with an Indigenous Consultative Land Council (ICLC) comprising:

             (a)    one (1) representative of the federal Government;

             (b)    one (1) representative from the Northern Territory Government; and

             (c)    three (3) representatives from the local Indigenous land councils,

all of whom must have had relevant experience in town leases.

This amendment proposes a new Indigenous body for township leases. It seeks to ensure that, if the land trust proposes to grant, terminate or vary a town lease, it must not do so until after it has consulted with an Indigenous consultative land council comprising a representative of the federal government, a representative of the Territory government and three representatives from local Indigenous land councils—all of whom must have had relevant experience in town leases. This amendment goes to the section dealing with rights, titles and interests of leases. It seeks to do what I have raised a number of times before and what has been described as absolutely imperative—that is, there should be some scope for representatives of Indigenous landowners to have a say in the holding or varying of town leases.

To some extent we have gone over this debate, so I will not labour the point excessively, but it does go to the core issue and is why it has been highlighted as absolutely imperative. Even if one accepts—and the Democrats do not particularly—that, because of the emergency nature of the government’s intervention, there needs to be more immediate and stronger powers given to the federal government, to do so in a way that completely removes any degree of Indigenous control, any say at all over what happens with these leases with regard to Indigenous people, is (a) unnecessary and, therefore, (b) quite dangerous.

Let us not forget that one of the overreaching philosophies underlying this—and one I have a fair degree of sympathy with, at least in principle—is that we need to be empowering and strengthening Aboriginal communities; we need to be getting Aboriginal people to own the solutions to their own situations and problems; and we need to be shifting away from a passive mentality. There is a lot of merit in recognising the dangers and damage of both passive welfare and being a passive recipient of services in other ways. I do not think that it is the be-all and end-all of the situation, but there is a fair bit of merit in acknowledging the negative contribution that can make. That is why, when you do act, it is crucial, as much as is possible, to ensure that it is not done in a way that reinforces that passivity. But that is what the government is doing here with its approach.

We have bizarre cognitive dissonance from some on the government benches in justifying their approach in recent times. On the one hand they are saying that passivity is terrible and we need to move away from it and get people to take responsibility for their own lives. Then, in almost the next breath, they are saying: ‘We openly admit these measures are paternalistic and paternalism is great. And isn’t it good that we are finally able to accept that paternalistic approaches are ones that we are not ashamed to take up.’ The very essence of paternalism is reinforcing a passive recipient culture towards the people who are being subjected to the paternalism.

This amendment seeks to mitigate that by ensuring that there is a degree of involvement from people with relevant experience in town leases and from local Indigenous land councils. I would submit that it does not fatally compromise the government’s approach of taking much greater control over Aboriginal land. It removes the problem of exacerbating a passive recipient response from the situation for Indigenous people. It deals with the issue of enabling Aboriginal people to be part of the solution and part of the process. To say that you will get around to that in five years time, which is the implied position of the government—we will do all the rebuilding of communities after we have done all of the emergency intervention—I think reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how to go about these things. You cannot switch from one to the other. If you put in place foundations that people do not have ownership of and involvement in then you are making it almost impossible, particularly in these sorts of circumstances, for them to then develop ownership. That is a mistake that has been made in the past by governments of all persuasions and it would be rather silly to repeat it here.

This is an important amendment for the reasons I have outlined and it provides another effort to recognise the common ground that needs to be identified and maintained, rather than letting the government blow away that middle ground and force the people to either side of a divide. That, apart from anything else, will make the chances of success of this intervention much more difficult. The Democrats’ focus on and approach to this issue is about maximising the chances of success in the long term rather than any short-term positioning opportunities that present themselves.