Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Hansard source

On the question of how genuine consultation will be achieved our government is committed to genuine and ongoing consultation with Aboriginal people, including native title parties. This bill provides notification and consultation-period requirements for a consultation report to ensure that state and territory governments undertake real consultation with native title parties when planning and developing public housing and infrastructure projects. The quality of the consultation will be controlled and monitored by a scrutiny of the consultation report and through intergovernmental agreements, including the national partnership agreements. This allows parties to be flexible, to ensure consultation is tailored for the particular circumstances of any one project. To further ensure appropriate process and to assist states and territories the bill includes a mechanism to enable the minister to issue guidelines on how such consultation should occur. This enables the minister to prescribe the requirements for genuine consultation in a flexible manner that takes account of developing needs and changing circumstances in the native title context.

In response to your question on time frame, native title holders, registered claimants and native title representative bodies are given an opportunity to comment on a project within two months from the date of notification. Native title holders and registered claimants also have the right to request further consultation with the action body about the project and potential impact on native title, and where consultation is requested, a total consultation period of up to four months is provided under the new process.