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

'Not a shadow of a doubt,' he says. I would suggest that that is an opinion. I am not a lawyer. It is an opinion, and there will be others with different opinions. That is the nature of the law. Senator Brandis nods in agreement, because that, I think, is true.

Senator Scullion talked a lot about joint management of national parks. We all agree, but what does this bill do about joint management of national parks? Nothing. It does not do anything about joint manage­ment of national parks. We are doing it. I will make the point that I think Queensland has been slower than it could have been in developing joint management arrangements on Cape York Peninsula. I would have loved to see the Shelburne Bay joint management arrangements put in place before Tapich passed away. We want to progress on joint management arrangements, but this does not do anything to progress that. You know that, Senator Scullion. What this does is put obstacles in the way of finding agreement among various traditional owner groups around national parks.

I take the point that Senator Xenophon made about resourcing of appropriate processes, but in saying so can I say that to this point in time there have been no applications not approved, and the number of applications sits around 100. I take Senator Xenophon's point that it is a reasonably complex process. There is an organisation, though, that is resourced to support people to make applications and progress economic aspirations. It is funded to do that. It has been funded for a long time to do that. It is called Balkanu Cape York Development Corporation. That is the organisation that is meant to be supporting people to make application through any process.