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

It is a good one, let me tell you—page 53 of the issue that has just been given to me. Under this new legislation before us, a permit issued may be revoked only by the issuer of the permit. So, under the changes being made here, if a traditional owner issues a permit, it cannot be revoked by the land council or by the minister, or if the land council issues something it cannot be revoked by the traditional owner. This was a point that was raised in evidence to the committee, very fleetingly, of course. I do not think it was able to be explored in the verbal evidence but it was raised in the submissions from at least one of the land councils. That is a concern and I have an amendment going to it. But I think the point Senator Evans was raising is that if a traditional owner issues a permit to somebody who is an undesirable, for whatever reason, my understanding is that on very rare occasions—not very often—land councils have stepped in and cancelled permits. That now will not be able to happen in all the areas where the permit system will still apply.

It also raises another issue which I think was also raised in a submission—certainly in some of the multitude of correspondence I have seen in the last week or two—of what happens if the issuer of the permit dies. If a traditional owner issues a permit and then dies, what happens then if it can be revoked only by the issuer of the permit? I think it would be useful to clarify that. The Democrats, I hasten to add, have an amendment that specifically seeks to remove this new clause 74AA. I am not sure why it is there. I do not know whether it is meant to disempower the land councils in some way. There is some view that there have been lots of tugs of war between land councils and traditional owners or something like that and this is meant to stop those. I am not aware that it has been a big issue. I think that, even if it has been a small issue, if this is a solution it is more likely to create more problems than it solves. As I said, we have an amendment a bit down the track. I think the solution is just to scrap the new clause and enable the status quo, basically. I think the minister’s initial answer was that nothing is changing, but it is changing because of this new clause 74AA. I think it would be better not to have it changed, frankly. I do not know whether the minister can clarify it. Maybe he can tell me I am misunderstanding things, but that is as I see it.