Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to associate the Nationals with this condolence motion for the Rt Hon. Malcolm Fraser. As the Prime Minister and in his life afterwards his influence was felt in many areas of Australian life. If I can just have a short anecdote, on Friday morning last I was approaching the Sky studios in Sydney—it is an open studio that looks out onto the street—and as I walked up a man turned to me, as a stranger, and said, 'Malcolm Fraser's died.' I turned and I saw that the Sky News TVs were in there. It was the first time. I turned around and looked and said, 'Wow, that's a bit of an end of a legacy.' He said: 'Yes, he sent me to war, you know. He sent me to Vietnam. He was the minister. I had a very bad time in Vietnam. But he did a lot of great things, so it's probably time to forgive him.' I think that quintessential Australian moment of looking through a TV as one of a few people outside probably really encapsulates the spectrum of influence he had on people's lives. He was not someone who necessarily always did things that people agreed with, but he certainly did things that people would have a lasting impression of.

Malcolm Fraser was elected to the seat of Wannon a year before I was born. Throughout my life I can still remember where I was when particular things happened, so he has certainly been around throughout my life. Obviously, I have a great interest in Indigenous affairs, and certainly his action and activism is something that we should remember as a great legacy for Australians. Land rights were very hard fought for, but I think we have to recognise that Mr Fraser delivered significant gains for Aboriginal people right across Australia, particularly in the Northern Territory. I think it changed the Northern Territory. The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act significantly changed the tone of that debate.

The Fraser government followed up on the Whitlam government's initiatives and passed significant land rights legislation relevant specifically to the Northern Territory. Interestingly, the term 'self-determination' was dropped from the government's vocabulary and replaced by 'self-management' and 'self-sufficiency'. For somebody at quite a high level to insist that those two terms be changed was a reflection of his conversations and his relationships with Aboriginal people on the ground. He insisted that those were the things that, from his conversations, we should actually change—our vernacular.

The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act provided recognition of Aboriginal ownership and established the position of Aboriginal Land Commissioner, the Aboriginal Lands Trust and the Aboriginals Benefit Account. It enabled traditional Aboriginal lands to be granted to those land trusts and provided for the creation of a Central Land Council, the Northern Land Council and the Tiwi Land Council.

This morning, Galarrwuy Yunupingu had this to say about his dealings with Malcolm Fraser: he reflected on his dealings with Malcolm Fraser, saying that he was a man of honour and a man of his word. Malcolm treated everyone as equals and together, through a tumultuous process, they developed land rights and also came to a very difficult agreement, he describes, over uranium mining in Kakadu.

In Malcolm Fraser, Aboriginal traditional owners had a friend and champion of the land rights cause. Because of their work, and the efforts of the Whitlam government before him, Aboriginal traditional owners were finally recognised as the landowners in the Northern Territory. Aboriginal land now covers almost half of the Territory and has been the basis for significant economic development across the communities. This is an absolutely clear legacy of not only Malcolm Fraser's government but him as an individual.

The uranium environmental inquiry, led by Justice Fox, examined many of the effects of the impacts of mining on people. When they recommended the Ranger mine go ahead, it was subject to many strict environmental safeguards. It is pretty well known in the Territory that part of the legacy of those environmental safeguards was, again, because of the personal intervention of a Prime Minister who had been affected and influenced by so many of those Aboriginal people on the ground.

In 1977—I am not sure about the exact connection but certainly under his leadership—the first Community Development Employment Program began nearly 40 years ago. Under this scheme, members of the participating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities or organisations forwent social security payments for a wages grant that was paid to the community. For those who are in this space, and I know that Senator Siewert follows this space, it was almost 40 years ago. We are moving back, frankly, to a system that is effective and reflects the spirit of the wishes of many of the people in those communities in that regard.

Many of the processes of representation were changed under Mr Fraser's guidance. The National Aboriginal Conference replaced the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee, a peak body to advise federal government on Aboriginal affairs. It comprised representatives elected to state branches from which a 10-member national executive was elected. This was the first time that we reflected that Aboriginal people had to be the spokespeople for Aboriginal people and actually had come from the area so that they could recognise the diversity of the Aboriginal people.

Justice Toohey was appointed Aboriginal Land Commissioner in the Northern Territory, and I think the first land claim was around Borroloola. The proclamation of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act in 1976 enabled traditional owners to claim unalienated Crown land. The act provided for the commissioner to hear claims and the power to grant limited title. This was the very first time under Australian law that claims of traditional ownership and the other benefits that flowed from that were judged, a most significant issue for our First Australians.

Mr Fraser can be credited with putting in place all this modern government infrastructure, much of which exists to this day, in Indigenous affairs. I think his legacy is a significant legal framework that established, for Aboriginal people, how to deal with governments and the courts of the day. Credit should be given to him, and to his leadership, as the architect to ensure that this happened under his watch.

In 1978, conflict arose between the Commonwealth and Queensland governments over Aurukun and Mornington Island Aboriginal reserves after the Queensland government decided to take control of both reserves. It actually led to the intervention of a prime minister, Prime Minister Fraser, after the community contacted him and asked for some assistance. Eventually, through his insistence, state and federal ministers agreed local authorities should be created for former reserves and the land leased to the newly created councils for a 50-year lease. Again, he was somebody who really believed that Aboriginal people should have a say and made it so.

The Northern Land Council and the Commonwealth government signed the historic Ranger agreement. The agreement provided for payments to be made by the Commonwealth to the Northern Land Council by way of royalties for mining on Aboriginal lands, and that created the Aboriginals Benefit Trust Account—and, if you are an Aboriginal Territorian, you will know exactly what that means and what that means for you, your communities and your families—which, uniquely, established that Aboriginal people receive the same royalties in the Northern Territory for mining on their land that the Northern Territory government does, as other state governments around Australia do.

In 1979, a group of prominent Australians, including Nugget Coombs and Judith Wright, formed the Aboriginal Treaty Committee to lobby for a negotiated treaty. Again, it is a matter for Indigenous Australians that we are pontificating on to this day. The conference put forward a treaty proposal, and Malcolm Fraser subsequently agreed to have significant discussions with the treaty proposers.

Fraser's government was also the first government, I think, significantly, to recognise the plight of Indigenous people with regard to health. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs released a report, Aboriginal health, which I think is the basis of the Closing the gap report later, providing all of the indicators that we now take for granted.

Many of the processes before Malcolm Fraser were extremely antiquated. We remember them although they are dust, and they are brought up in conversation from time to time. He was responsible for repealing a number of pieces of legislation that are of little interest to most: the Aboriginal Development Commission Act, the Aboriginal Loans Commission Act and the Aboriginal Land Fund Act. Part of the motivation for getting rid of those was to ensure that Aboriginal people were empowered. Fraser then went on to establish the Aboriginal Development Commission, which was governed, for the first time in Australia, by a board of Aboriginal people and had the task of administering a range of development oriented programs. The scope for more power over their own future was gradually opening up for our First Australians.

Following a review of the administration of a whole suite of processes, the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs actually changed a whole suite of things that we take for granted today. For example, with the very difficult issue of Aboriginality based on descent, self identification and community recognition were adopted by federal agencies. This was very much a landmark decision that we use today.

The Fraser government included the first Aboriginal federal parliamentarian, Neville Bonner. Neville had what he described as a 'good but robust' relationship with Malcolm, as one could understand. He was quoted later in life as saying:

When Aboriginal issues came up in the Party room, I had some very good and wonderful thought, particularly after the change of government in 1975. Malcolm Fraser and Philip Lynch, Margaret Guilfoyle, Bernie Kilgariff, Fred Chaney, Ian Viner, Peter Baume, …

I think that all these individuals were influenced very much by Malcolm's thoughts. These were all people who went on to make a significant contribution in Indigenous affairs.

What one needs to understand is that we take for granted in this place the things I have talked about: this is the way that we should think—we may have our slight schisms of views, but we are thinking much along the same lines. But I can tell you that as a Conservative in the early 1970s, this was certainly not what people were thinking. So when we talk about political courage and real leadership, this was providing leadership at a time when it was not popular. It was something that I think rankled many of his colleagues at that time, but it provided what we know in Australia as the right direction.

As we have already heard this morning, Malcolm Fraser was a key player in ensuring that apartheid became a thing of the past, particularly in the leadership role he played in 1977 at the meeting in Scotland where all Commonwealth countries affirmed their opposition to racial discrimination in sport, insisting that South Africa must lift apartheid to be able to compete in the Commonwealth Games scheduled for Edmonton in Canada in the next year. The Gleneagles Agreement against apartheid in sport was reached with his leadership at this historic meeting.

As a representative from the Northern Territory, I would also like to say that it was under Malcolm Fraser that the Northern Territory achieved self-government—a fully elected legislative assembly. This followed 67 years of federal administration, after 50 years of government by South Australia.

Malcolm Fraser continued his activism in Indigenous affairs after leaving parliament. In 2003 he said in his Sorry Day speech, which I think was not only eloquent but also absolutely accurate:

There are no quick fixes to Indigenous poverty and social disaster. Solutions will be found when the non-Indigenous people respect the insights of Indigenous people, and listen to them. Solutions will not be found while Indigenous people are treated as victims for whom someone else must find solutions. They will be active partners in any solution.

I think this is an insight that we have only recently started to grasp.

The legacy of Malcolm Fraser, of course, is a legacy across the political divide. I have touched on something that is close to my heart, but it is a legacy in this particular area where I do not think that Australia would be anything like what it is now had it not been for his very courageous and personal intervention.

I know that he will be sadly missed, particularly in Arnhem Land. I know that the Northern Land Council chairman, Sammy Bush-Blanasi, said, amongst other things:

Mr Fraser pushed it through—

He is speaking about the land rights act—

against strong opposition from the Country Liberal Party.

And whilst I was not around at the time I know many of the characters who were, and it would have been just full opposition in the place where we were introducing this legislation.

He said:

Mr Fraser pushed it through against strong opposition from the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory. Aboriginal people will ever be grateful to Mr Fraser for holding out against that opposition. We also recognise that Mr Fraser was a great advocate for the human rights of all peoples.

Again, in closing: this was a man of political courage. He was a man who did things that were unpopular at the time, not only amongst his colleagues but in quite large sectors of the Australian people. But he knew intuitively that this was the right thing to do and when he knew intuitively that that was the case, that is the direction he took.

He was an all-round champion Australian. I pass on the National's condolences to his family, to his wife, Tammy, and to his children and his grandchildren.