Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I seek leave to continue my remarks on the report on the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010 later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I will only be brief on this interim report on the Wild Rivers (Environmental Management) Bill 2010. I know that Senator Guy Barnett, who has been very involved as deputy chairman of this committee, has a very keen interest in this legislation.

This committee report is looking at a private member’s bill introduced by Mr Tony Abbott in the other place and introduced in this place by Senator Scullion. It has been referred to a Senate committee to have a look at the bill. The committee met at a number of places, and as a participating member I was able to be involved in the committee hearings in Cairns a few weeks ago. It became quite clear at the Cairns hearing that Indigenous people are absolutely furious, as well they may be, at the action of the Queensland state government in locking up their lands—the lands that they fought so hard to acquire over many decades—in a way that makes ownership of them practically valueless. We heard a considerable amount of evidence from different Indigenous people and groups about how the legislation and the processes were so complex that they restricted any useful activity that could be made on those lands.

This bill, which, as I mentioned, was originally introduced by Tony Abbott, was introduced as a result of a very close connection Mr Abbott has with Indigenous people in Cape York. Most people would not know—I did not until recently myself—that Mr Abbott has been going into Cape York without publicity and without the television cameras in tow. Over the last several years—I have subsequently become aware; I did not know at the time—he has been going up to Cape York, going to an Indigenous community and actually working with Indigenous people in various ways. I understand that in his last visit, which was several months ago and, of course, before he became the Leader of the Opposition, he went up there and worked as a teacher’s aide. Do not hold me to the facts—and Mr Abbott himself never talks about this very much—but others have told me that he goes up there, he lives in the community, he works with the community and he tries to add some value to their lives and, I suspect, to his own life in the way he assists Indigenous communities. He may be embarrassed, I hope not too embarrassed, that I am even raising this, because I know it is something that he has not been wanting to get publicity on. He really went up there to help, to look and to learn.

It was as a result of that close connection that Mr Abbott has had with Cape York communities over several years that he picked up on this anger from Indigenous communities about the wild rivers legislation and how those communities believed that it would impact upon their use of their lands. I know that the Queensland government has said, ‘There have been many applications and a lot of them have been granted,’ but, when you talk to the communities there, most of them would never even have made application for business activities in these wild rivers areas—the whole procedure was too complex and they felt that without resources, which very few of them have, they would be unable to make the case, make the legal challenge, get the accountants, solicitors and whatever was required to make a proper application to be given the ability to use their own land. That has incensed people in Cape York, and one can well understand why that might be.

I know that Senator Barnett will speak at another time on this report. I know there will be other senators who wish to make a contribution at some later stage. I understand, although I personally was not able to get to the committee meeting when this was dealt with, that the return of this report has now been extended by the government majority on this committee to a date which will mean that, quite frankly, the bill will never be able to be debated in this chamber prior to the next election. That is unfortunate, because it is an important area and it is an important bill. It is a bill that was very much sought by Indigenous people in the cape and it would have been good for the Commonwealth parliament to have been able to debate and vote on that bill about overturning the Queensland government’s wild rivers legislation wherever it occurs in Queensland. It would have been a momentous bill because it would have been one of those rare occasions when the Commonwealth parliament overrides the laws of a state under the Commonwealth Constitution, but it was so important for our Indigenous people that Mr Abbott thought that it was very important that the bill be introduced into the parliament, debated and voted upon. I am disappointed that the Labor majority on this committee have now rearranged the reporting date to effectively mean that it will not be able to be voted on prior to the next election. On the assumption that nobody else in the chamber wants to speak on this report at this time, I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.