Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Native Title Amendment (Indigenous Land Use Agreements) Bill 2017 as well, and I want to start by saying this whole debate has got skewed, if you like. This debate started with the successful appeal of the WA Noongar land claim, and that has become known as the McGlade decision. I want to remind people here today that 'McGlade' is not a tagline, and that is what we hear in this place—McGlade this and McGlade that. McGlade is Mingli McGlade, a Western Australian Noongar woman, a proud woman, a woman who used her legal rights to appeal a decision that she felt was not right.

Quite frankly, I am sick of the side arguments here. Let's get back to what is central here, and that is the Noongar land claim, a $1.3 billion claim covering more than 300,000 hectares of the South West of Western Australia—a significant claim. But four people involved in that claim—one of them being Mingli McGlade and the others being Mervyn Eades, Naomi Smith and Margaret Culbong—legitimately appealed that decision. Yes, the unintended consequence of that was that, according to the Turnbull government, it seemingly disrupted other settled ILUAs. Well, we have not seen the evidence of that, and my understanding is that, for that disruption to occur, there needs to be an application. What I want people to focus on today is to get back to the issue at point, and that is the South West Noongar land claim, a significant claim that, if we get it right, will benefit all people in Western Australia, particularly Noongar people and hopefully including the four people who chose to use their rights under whitefella law to appeal a decision that they were not comfortable with. That is what is at the heart of this issue, and 'McGlade' has just become a tagline. People seem to have forgotten that there is a real person behind that.

The point today here is that we have seen the Turnbull government change this native title amendment bill. The way that they have handled this is their usual rushed way. We have seen four amendments. We have seen an absolute lack of consultation. The government gave such a short period of time to the committee inquiry that we had on this decision that it did not even go to Western Australia, where this decision originated. What an insult to the Noongar people of Western Australia to not be able to have the opportunity to come before the committee and put their legitimate grievances! Whether it was the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council or the group who appealed the decision, they were not given any opportunity to appear before the Senate inquiry, and the responsibility for that absolutely rests squarely at the feet of the Turnbull government. We had the inquiry go to Queensland, yet it did not bother to come to Western Australia, where the Noongar land claim that we are all here today to try to sort through originated.

I know that Senator Dodson and Senator McCarthy have done a lot of work with Western Australian groups, whether they oppose or support the claim, to try to get a reasonable outcome here. But the Turnbull government was so intent on rushing this through to appease someone other than the Noongar people that it refused to have the Senate committee come here.

In passing this bill today, it does not fix what has happened in Western Australia. That still needs to be sorted out. We would be asking the Turnbull government to resource that so that people can sit down properly and sort through a significant claim. It is the biggest claim in Western Australia. It is worth $1.3 billion. Quite frankly, we need to get it right. The Noongar people need to get it right. Everyone involved in that claim needs to be reasonably satisfied at the end of the day that they have had a fair hearing and that their issues have been put on the table. So the Turnbull government needs to resource that to happen. That is what has to happen next. But they are so intent on dealing with all of the side issues raised by this appeal that they have not focused on that. So I would be urging the government to sit down, put some money on the table and work this through. It is very clear to me that we do want this settlement. The vast bulk of Noongar people in Western Australia want this settlement. But, legitimately, people have objected, and that objection has been held up by the Federal Court. So that is the issue we need to focus on. That is what I want it to be brought back to. That is why I remind this Senate today that Mingli McGlade, Mervyn Eades, Naomi Smith and Margaret Culbong are real people with a legitimate grievance, as is the south-west land council. And that is really the issue that needs to be dealt with here today.

Certainly, native title in this country does need a fresh approach. It is far too complicated; it takes way too long. Quite frankly, the Turnbull government is ill-equipped to undertake to get it right in relation to native title. When we look at Western Australia and history of Western Australia, it is disgraceful—in terms of the way, since white colonisation, Aboriginal people in Western Australia have been treated appallingly. I do not want to see this Noongar land claim go the way of so much of the rest of our history in Western Australia where First Nations people are dealt with last. I want to see them front and centre. I want to see them being given the resources to sort this out for themselves. But I do not think that the Turnbull government is equipped to undertake that and to be respectful.

As I said, the amendments are questionable. Nevertheless, the certainty needs to be there. The haste in which this bill has been brought before the parliament was unnecessary. The unintended consequences of the McGlade decision is what is being dealt with here. But the genuine grievances of the Noongar people of Western Australia remain. They are not recognised by this decision, but they still need to be addressed. I would urge the Turnbull government to put some funds toward making sure that this significant claim for Western Australia can be sorted out in the best interests of everybody.