Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to deal with a couple of matters that have been raised in the debate on the Wild Rivers (Environmental Management) Bill 2010 [No. 2]. The principal matter is the United Nations International Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. I will quote from the Prime Minister’s apology two years ago. He said:

… unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong.

The great irony, of course, was that the day that Rudd subscribed to the International Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous People was the same day that the Bligh government in Queensland applied the wild rivers legislation to the significant—