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

The outcome will be that we won't ever have any protection.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: Order! Senator McLucas, I would advise you not to respond to provocation.

I thank you for that advice. I am saying that it is totally unworkable. The process cannot apply to other landholders whose agreement is required, like leaseholders. There are other landholders who have an interest in what a wild river declaration might look like and what conditions might apply to that wild river. We have Indigenous native title holders, there are leaseholders and in some cases there are some freeholders, who need to be included in a discussion about the aspirations that can be agreed to.

Under the Native Title Act, you are ensuring that we will spend a lot of time holding meetings and having discussions about things that will have no economic outcome for people who are the traditional owners of that land. The bill does not cater for the circumstance in which Indigenous people agree about whether a wild river declaration should apply or not. This is a way to ensure that we have division on Cape York.

I want to end by talking about the aspirations of people who live on Cape York. They do not want to argue. They do not want to be turning up all the time. I note the comment from Richie Ah Mat from the Cape York Land Council when he appeared at the Senate inquiry. He is sick of turning up at Senate committee inquiries and he would like people to get on with it. Let's do that. Let's allow people of Cape York to get on—