Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

To respond to Senator Xenophon: yes, Indigenous stakeholders are very supportive of these amendments and are pleased that the government is supporting them to address the ability of non-exclusive native title holders to participate in the carbon farming initiative. Of course, there are some Indigenous stakeholders who would have liked them to have gone further and to have had them applied to areas of land that have not yet had a designation of native title. Whilst I have some sympathy for that view, I cannot see how you would make those determinations at this point. However, I have indicated that I am prepared to have a look at that in the future. There will be a review of this legislation in the coming years and, in that context, I will certainly be open to being more expansive still. But we need to see the legislation working. I think at this point the key is to get the legal issues sorted out and then get the capacity building sorted out. Then if we can expand it further well and good.

Question agreed to.