Amanda Stoker (Queensland, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I thank all those who've made contributions to this debate on the Native Title Legislation Amendment Bill. The bill will amend the Native Title Act and the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act to make practical and pragmatic improvements to ensure the ongoing effectiveness of the native title system. In doing so, the bill will implement recommendations from a range of reviews of the native title system, including the Australian Law Reform Commission's report called Connection to country: review of the Native Title Act 1993.

Passage of this bill will improve the native title system for all parties by supporting the capacity of native title holders through greater flexibility around internal decision-making, by streamlining claims resolution and agreement-making processes, by allowing historical extinguishment to be disregarded over areas of national, state or territory parks with the agreement of the parties, by increasing the transparency and accountability of native title corporations to native title holders and by improving pathways for dispute resolution following a determination of native title. The bill will also confirm the validity of important mining and exploration related agreements made under section 31 of the Native Title Act that are potentially affected by the full Federal Court's decision in McGlade v Native Title Registrar and others.

There have been some concerns raised in the course of debate by Labor and Greens senators. I've listened to them carefully and I acknowledge them. The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee undertook a comprehensive inquiry into the provisions of this bill and recommended that the Senate pass it. The committee's report included a minority report from Labor senators which, while supporting the objectives of the bill, made five recommendations. Recommendations 1, 3 and 4 of that minority report are directed to the government commissioning or undertaking further review and reform of the Native Title Act. The government has taken action to implement these recommendations by including a statutory evaluation mechanism in the bill. A new section 209A will require a formal evaluation of the amendments in the bill to be conducted within five years of the commencement of most of the bill. The government has also undertaken to request the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner to conduct a review of the operation of the Native Title Act.

A further overhaul of the native title system, including so that native title holders can better leverage their land and sea assets, as recommended by recommendation 3 of the minority report, would need to be considered in light of the results of those formal evaluations of the amendments made by the bill and the outcomes of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner's review process.

Recommendation 2 of the minority report called on the government to provide a comprehensive response to the 30 recommendations for reform in the Australian Law Reform Commission's 2015 report entitled, Connection to country: review of the Native Title Act 1993. This bill represents the government's response to the ALRC report and it implements those recommendations which received broad stakeholder support.

The committee's report into the bill also included a dissenting report from the Australian Greens senators. The dissenting report recommended that the bill not proceed until a number of matters were addressed. The government has provided further explanatory material in the form of the addenda to the explanatory memorandum to the bill that responds to the issues that were raised in the Greens' dissenting report. That further explanatory material clarifies the intended effect of the removal of an agreement from the Register of Indigenous Land Use Agreements, the role of the Commonwealth minister as an intervenor in native title proceedings and the intended operation of the new ground of allowing the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations to place a registered native title body corporate under special administration when it has either seriously or repeatedly failed to comply with its obligations under native title legislation.

The amendments will not enable the retrospective application of certain provisions of the bill in the manner that has been suggested by the dissenting report. The dissenting report also raised concerns in relation to the interaction of schedule 3 of the bill with statutory land rights under the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Rights Act. Schedule 3 will enable parties to agree to disregard the historical extinguishment of native title over an area that has been set aside or vested to preserve the natural environment. The drafting of this measure includes a number of specific safeguards to ensure the recognition and protection of existing third-party interests, including those of New South Wales Aboriginal land councils.

Importantly, the measure will only operate where native title and government parties agree—it's very important that we have that on record—and will be subject to any conditions required by the government party. This measure has been designed to allow the relevant government and native title parties to work together to ensure the use of this provision complements existing rights and interests, including those of the New South Wales Aboriginal land councils.

I'd like to turn to deal with some of the concerns that have been raised during senators' contributions in the course of debate. The first was to suggest that, as was raised by Senator Dodson, there were difficulties in the way that this bill deals—