Patrick Dodson (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Reconciliation) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I rise to take note of the final report of the inquiry of the Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia into the engagement of traditional owners in the economic development of northern Australia. The committee began this inquiry over three years ago in the last parliament and revived it after the 2019 election. When Rio Tinto destroyed the 46,000-year-old rock shelters at Juukan Gorge in May 2020, the committee suspended this inquiry to investigate that devastating event.

There is a strong connection between these two inquiries. The committee has returned again and again to the question of how First Nations peoples can share in the economic development of the north, because it poses a central challenge not just for the First Nations peoples but for northern Australia and the nation as a whole. The destruction of Juukan Gorge reveals how easily First Nations interests in land have been disregarded in the pursuit of wealth. It demonstrated how little the First Nations peoples have benefited from the development of the north, despite significant recognition of their interest in these lands over the last 50 years.

Most land in northern Australia is subject to some form of First Nations tenure, either under land rights regimes or native title, yet poverty is increasing in many remote communities. This has been rightly called a cruel paradox. As the chair of our committee has said in his foreword to this report, 'Title to land is, by itself, not enough.' Some mistakenly attribute this poverty to the collective forms of First Nations tenure held by First Nations people. They argue that First Nations tenure should be reformed to bring it in line with Western concepts of land ownership, specifically fungible freehold title. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the importance of First Nations' unique connectivity to country, and it's not surprising that those who advocate this approach often have the most to gain by assimilating First Nations tenure into mortgageable form.

In his 1974 report on the recognition of Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory, Justice Edward Woodward described the aims of land rights as including:

The recognition of pre-existing collective and deeply spiritual interest in land was also the basis of the High Court's Mabo decision nearly two decades later.

There needs to be an innovative solution. Seeking to protect these unique features of First Nations land title does not mean staying stuck in the past. We must find new, innovative solutions that will enable First Nations people to derive benefit from their land. A good deal of effort should focus on seeking reform of financial and commercial systems to enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to leverage their title while retaining, intact, its unique characteristics. We are an innovative country and this should not be beyond us.

Several of the committee's recommendations relate to strengthening First Nations tenure and making it more meaningful. Central to this is the principle of free, prior and informed consent, endorsed by Australia in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Free, prior and informed consent empowers First Nations people to give or withhold consent to projects that affect them and their lands. But, as the committee recognised, in order to exercise this right First Nations communities must be well resourced and equipped so they can be free from any form of coercion in decision-making. This is why the committee has reiterated its recommendation from the Juukan report that there should be a review of the Native Title Act to address the inequities between traditional owners and proponents. It's also why the committee has recommended increasing funding for the PBCs and representative bodies. It is critical that these institutional structures have sufficient financial resources, human resources and expertise to enable them to operate effectively within the native title and land rights regimes.

Township leasing is a perfect example of the importance of these principles. Township leasing in the Northern Territory was a product of the Howard era and was originally introduced without Aboriginal support. While I share a hope, expressed in the committee's report, that new forms of community led township leasing could unlock potential, its success depends on an adherence to the principle of free, prior and informed consent.

In conclusion, I thank my fellow committee members and our chair and deputy chair for their continued interest in and commitment to pursuing these important issues. I urge the government to make all efforts to implement the committee's recommendations.