Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Wild Rivers (Environmental Management) Bill 2010 [No. 2]. This is a very simple piece of legislation. It does two things, in effect, but they are important things. It will require the agreement of traditional owners; that the development and use of native title land in a wild river area cannot be regulated under the relevant Queensland legislation unless Aboriginal traditional owners of the land agree. There are three other parts to it: one gives the capacity for the Governor-General to make regulations and the others are a transitional provision to ensure that the time line does not go forever and it deals with the capacity under the Constitution about how we can make this law.

Aboriginal people in this country have been through a long and arduous process of having their legal rights recognised, and I know that many of those in this place have supported that process. But it seems in many cases that when you get to the end of that process everybody says, ‘Oh, fantastic—wasn’t that great?’ Aboriginal people, if you like, for a long time have been in the struggle for land rights and have gathered the eggs. They have gathered them in, and often the processes by which they gather those eggs are limited. They might be land councils, and we only give them money to gather eggs. There has not been much story in terms of the development. So we should not see the involvement of land and sea based economic activity as the endgame. The first step is over; they now need to be able to be involved in that process without any impediment. So that should be the beginning of the process—certainly not the end.

Many of our first Australians—I see this as I move around Australia, not only in Queensland but in a number of places—have seen their lands locked up as national parks, in some cases as part of a deal. A New South Wales land council speaking to me the other day told me it is not part of a deal; it is part of meeting some weird quota that they have in New South Wales. So we need to ensure that Aboriginal people have the same access to economic opportunities from their land as every Australian should.

As people interested in this debate will all know well, there is a great tragedy visible when we enter Aboriginal land. I worry that they might have very few things and they live in very sparse conditions, and many people would see abject poverty. They smile at me and say: ‘But, Nigel, look at our land. Look at our country. Look at our riches.’ It recalls, of course, the old phrase ‘land rich and dirt poor’. I wonder why this exists. Here is an opportunity today to support a piece of legislation that is not symbolic. It might not get it completely right, and I understand why some people would choose not to support it, but what it says is that we need to make sure that we take every single blockage that is not an essential blockage out of the way so that our first Australians can have equity in the simple process of being able to use their land.

We go out of our way sometimes to protect values, whether they be biodiversity values or cultural values, but we do not seem to spend enough time protecting economic values and opportunities for people to use the land that they have. Of course, Australians would have no problem at all with unique biodiversity or other particular cultural values being protected, and of course the very first people that will tell you that they need protection are our first Australians. They will tell you that that protection is absolutely needed. When we particularly protect unique and rich biodiversity—and that is effectively the motive behind the wild rivers legislation—nobody would disagree, but if that is going to be the case then everybody should bear the cost. We as Australians should all bear the cost. But the sad part about the wild rivers legislation is that the cost is fundamentally borne by the people who live in that area, because it is the cost of not having economic opportunities. That is a cost that I think is inequitably imposed on them. If there is unique biodiversity on some farmers’ land or in other areas, there are a whole range of other processes that take place to ensure that there is no inequity in that regard. So this is a piece of legislation that we cannot allow to remain in place, for that reason.

The notion of sustainable development of land and conservation being mutually exclusive, of course, is insupportable, and I have spoken about that before in this place. Supporting Aboriginal people to create economic activities for future generations is not asking anything special. It is not that we are asking anything different from any other Australian. If land has any special biodiversity or cultural values, yes, it should be protected, but we need to support the protection that will already be given by our first people; we do not need to take it over.

I can recall that when this first came up Mr Abbott did not raise this issue, as has been claimed, to somehow belt up the Queensland government. Aboriginal people should have the right to develop their own land, because they also have a right to ensure that they leave an economic legacy to their children. We have heard Noel Pearson, who spoke so eloquently about how this is not an issue about a decision for himself; this is an issue about a decision for his grandchildren. To leave a legacy in this place should be one of the smartest things we ever do. Support this legislation and provide that legacy. (Time expired)

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate on the Wild Rivers (Environmental Management) Bill 2010 [No. 2] in this chamber this evening is nothing but a political stunt, and I want people listening to the broadcast and people in the press gallery to clearly understand that this is a political stunt. The fact that as Chair of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, which inquired into this legislation, I have only five minutes to contribute to this debate and that this legislation will be debated within only half an hour proves how desperate the Leader of the Opposition and the people opposite me are to try to gain support, for some reason or other, in the Cape York Peninsula.

I say on record that never in my history of being involved in committees in this parliament and as chair have I seen my committee secretariat harassed, bullied and verballed by witnesses—by one particular witness, in fact—as I have during the course of this inquiry, to comment on the way in which committee decisions were made. With no dissent, committee decisions were made, and particular witnesses—one particular witness, in fact—then had the audacity to ring and verbal my committee secretary about that. We have had undisclosed material—an undisclosed privilege matter—and the whole conduct of this inquiry has been nothing but a sham in respect of the opposition, who have tried to bully, filibuster and bring this debate on well before time.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who’s the chairman? If there’s a sham, it reflects on the chair.

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Macdonald, I will take that interjection, because never before in the history—

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order on Senator Crossin’s remarks in respect of those in the opposition, and specifically those on the committee, because I find them incredibly and personally offensive. I would ask her to withdraw her remarks. Those members on the committee were bona fide and they did everything right. Her remarks were personal and offensive, and I ask her to withdraw her remarks.

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have not named individuals.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Crossin, I ask you to be mindful of your comments.

18:59:13

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have not named individuals. At every single committee meeting I held there were unanimous decisions made and the record of that will stand. Let me go to the conduct of this inquiry in the 2½ minutes I have remaining. There is no explanatory memorandum with this piece of legislation, so from the very beginning our committee was not aware of what it was that the author of this piece of legislation intended to achieve. It makes it particularly difficult. I might add that this matter was mentioned by the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills. They highlighted the fact that there was no explanatory memorandum with this piece of legislation.

I also add for the record that the Queensland parliament passed a Queensland act for the purpose of preserving the natural values of rivers that have all, or almost all, of their natural values intact. It was not the job of my committee to inquire into the piece of legislation that the Queensland government enacted. My committee’s role was to look at the piece of legislation that was before it, and I do not believe that a number of witnesses clearly understood that point during the conduct of the inquiry. We got 38 submissions—15 supporting the bill, eight disagreeing with the bill, with four being from Indigenous parties. There were 10 submissions that were critical of the Wild Rivers Act but were not supportive of the legislation that I as chair had before me. Therefore, we had 18 of the 38 submissions against this piece of legislation, not one way or the other, and 15 for it. So you cannot say that the majority of those who made submissions to this inquiry were in favour of this piece of legislation.

This bill raises significant legal issues and would substantially increase red tape, including for Aboriginal entrepreneurs and developers. It is inconsistent with the Native Title Act and I urge people to read the committee’s view in the Senate report. The last chapter goes to the explanation as to why we believe it is inconsistent with the Native Title Act. This is not in fact a future act under the Native Title Act and we go into the reasons why. This bill is poorly drafted, it is unclear and it could not be responsibly supported by any Australian government. A broad range of views was expressed at the Senate committee inquiry. (Time expired)

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the Chair of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee has said very clearly, this debate on the Wild Rivers (Environmental Management) Bill 2010 [No. 2] is a stunt. It is a political stunt and it has nothing at all to do with the economic aspirations of people who live in Cape York. It has everything to do with the gathering of votes in the lead-up to an election later this year. I am terribly disappointed that the behaviour of the Liberal-National Party I have observed on Cape York is being continued here today in the Senate. We have observed over years Liberal-National Party members intentionally dividing the community of Cape York Peninsula for their own political benefit and I am tired of watching communities that Senator Scullion himself described as not being able to have an economic advantage being used by those of you who sit over there and would like to sit over there in the other place for your own political advantage—and you know it. You know that this is the purpose of what you are doing. The Liberal-National Party has form in this area.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have no idea—go back to Canberra.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take that interjection, Senator Macdonald. Which area in Australia under the Liberal-National Party government never had a natural resource management board? Cape York Peninsula. Which area in Australia more than any other needed some sort of leadership through a natural resource management board? Cape York Peninsula. It is the actions of Liberal-National Party members that meant that that area never had a representative voice on natural resource management. It is a political stunt and you are getting more time to play with people who live on Cape York Peninsula.

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Crossin interjecting—

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Senator Crossin indicated, this bill is not only a stunt but also an unworkable bill. Evidence provided to the committee by many witnesses talked about the drafting problems that were evident and the unworkability of the bill in effect. I refer people to paragraphs 2.31 to 2.37 of the report which concludes by saying:

Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation concurred, stating that, in the absence of any draft regulations, it is impossible to tell whether the consultation processes proposed by the Bill would be any better than those currently in place:

If you want to make an amendment, make it to the Native Title Act.

Let me go to another issue. The assertion from that side is that the Queensland legislation means that economic opportunities that could be available to people of Cape York are now not available. If this is the case, why were those economic opportunities not taken up prior to the beginning of the wild rivers legislation? Why have things changed? There is simply no change. There have been 173 applications made since the instigation of the Wild Rivers Act on Cape York Peninsula. One hundred of those 173 applications have been approved and a number of them are in abeyance.

I go to the role of the Balkanu Cape York Peninsula development Corporation. Balkanu is the economic development organisation of Cape York Peninsula and they, as is their right, are running a campaign against the Queensland legislation. That is their right, but at the same time they are tasked and funded to assist Aboriginal people of Cape York to progress any economic aspirations. Why are we not surprised that the economic development organisation is not in fact doing this? If you were an Aboriginal person living on Cape York, why would you go to Balkanu to get assistance when you knew they were running the campaign against the state government? I think that is a problem. It needs to be resolved and it was canvassed during the hearing. Let us also go to the division in the community about whether or not the Queensland legislation is a good or a bad thing. It is a shame that I cannot finish my speech. (Time expired)

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that the interjections stop. Interjections from both sides affected Senator McLucas’s ability to make her speech.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The reason Senator McLucas did not get to complete her speech is that this debate has been crammed into 25 minutes on a Tuesday night. Before I comment on the substance of the Wild Rivers (Environmental Management) Bill 2010 [No. 2], I would like to make some remarks on the process that has brought us here. This is the first time in my experience, having been here for two years as a full member of the Senate Legal and Constitution Affairs Legislation Committee, which Senator Crossin chairs, that I have ever seen a proposed motion come through this parliament to cut short the reporting period of a committee. That is what happened. Senator Crossin, in her brief time, did not make mention of that. Then we saw the procedural chicanery that occurred this afternoon, and which has been going on for the last 48 hours, to find some time to have this debate. The Greens have been proposing, and the coalition opposed our proposition, additional sitting hours so that we could debate the bill—and we will get to the merits of it in a moment—without the farce of everybody watching the clock for periods of four, five or six minutes.

I would also like senators to recognise that we are on Ngunawal land tonight and that no Aboriginal voices are represented in this debate, as has been the case for the last several hundred years. So here we are again, debating the future and the sovereignty of Aboriginal people in their absence in this parliament. We have some affinity for the principles in this bill. We welcome the Liberal Party’s newfound commitment to increasing the rights of native title holders. The principle here, as I read it, is that native title holders should be able to agree or disagree with legislation and determinations that affect their land, so, for a moment, let us give the coalition the benefit of the doubt.

As the additional comments of the Australian Greens outline, there are substantial flaws contained in Senator Scullion’s bill and we identify in those comments why we do not believe the Senate should pass this bill. It will quite clearly not achieve what it says it will. We would be much better off with substantive Native Title Act amendments which would implement the bill’s stated intent far more effectively than what has been presented to us tonight. Any change to the native title rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should apply nationally, rather than in one part of one state. Professor Jon Altman, who provided evidence to the inquiry, said:

... unless such provisions are extended Australia-wide this change will constitute Cape York bioregion-specific legal exceptionalism. This is hardly appropriate given that the Closing the Gap framework applies nation wide ...

Changes to the Native Title Act would be far more likely to produce an outcome consistent with what we believe Senator Scullion’s legislation is trying to achieve, if this is really about a requirement to obtain the agreement of Aboriginal people before a wild rivers declaration on their land is made. Senator Scullion’s bill is silent on the processes that should be used in obtaining the consent of what the legislation refers to as ‘the traditional owners of native title land’.

Many witnesses to the inquiry pointed out—and Senator Scullion knows this well—that there is an existing process under the Native Title Act for negotiating Indigenous Land Use Agreements. This exists, it is already well defined and the Greens believe it makes sense to have this reflected in any legislative changes which seek to require the consent or agreement of Aboriginal people with regard to wild rivers declarations. Those increased rights should be available to all native title holders across the country and in all circumstances, rather than only on Cape York and only with regard to one particular Queensland state law.

As the committee’s report notes, many submissions and witnesses to this inquiry also raised the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and, in particular, the principle of ‘free, prior and informed consent’, which is detailed in article 19 of that declaration. The Greens have consistently supported the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and we supported the current government’s decision to sign that declaration. That is why we recommend that the content of this declaration be reflected in domestic laws and domestic policies, with priority given to examining how the principle of free, prior and informed consent should be consistently and effectively applied. The Liberal Party opposed that declaration while in government and continuing public statements—correct us if we are wrong, Senator Scullion—would suggest that their official policy is to continue to oppose it. But, nonetheless, we welcome the support that Liberal Party senators expressed throughout this inquiry for the principle of free, prior and informed consent as it is contained in the declaration. The committee notes the declaration and consent principle contained within it is not yet binding in Australian law. We do not believe that we should be signing international declarations unless we are prepared to make an effort to implement them in domestic law.

In Australia, free, prior and informed consent provisions exist only under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act and, even here, there are ways of overriding the right of veto and the right of consent. In other jurisdictions, apart from WA, under land rights under state laws, there are specific forms of consultation and negotiation possible. But, just as we have seen, not just in Cape York but right across the Top End in the Kimberley and the goldfields—right across the country—the Native Title Act does not contain the right to say no and have that no respected. For this reason, the Native Title Act should be amended to provide native title groups with free, prior and informed consent rights. Instead, under the future acts regime, they perhaps, at best, have a right to negotiate or, more weakly and at the worst, they have a right of consultation, and then various developments can roll right over the top of them. If the coalition has suddenly discovered the benefits of giving traditional owners a veto power over developments on their land, then let us talk about sovereignty and let us have that principle enshrined nationally.

In 1999 the Nunavut Act was signed in Canada. That is just one example, I suppose, of just how far it seems we have to come in this country, that we should be having a debate here in parliament in 2010 in the absence of Aboriginal voices in this parliament or people to put their own views without white fellas putting them for them yet we had an act of parliament in Canada that established the newest federal territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the north-west territories on 1 April 1999 by the Nunavut Act. How far are we in Australia from that kind of discussion of sovereignty of Aboriginal peoples? Rather, we have these continued legalistic wranglings over the way the land rights act operates in the NT and the way the Native Title Act operates around the country.

There are big structural changes that require more than a 25-minute debate squashed into a Tuesday night more or less against the will of the chamber. I think we need to give more substantive time to this debate. This is one of the worst abuses of process I have seen in the brief number of years I have been here, both in the committee stage when it was being dealt with and in the way this debate was brought before the chamber this evening.

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to deal with a couple of matters that have been raised in the debate on the Wild Rivers (Environmental Management) Bill 2010 [No. 2]. The principal matter is the United Nations International Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. I will quote from the Prime Minister’s apology two years ago. He said:

… unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong.

The great irony, of course, was that the day that Rudd subscribed to the International Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous People was the same day that the Bligh government in Queensland applied the wild rivers legislation to the significant—

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, on a point of order: we have a Prime Minister in this country who has a proper title. I think this chamber of all places in this country should refer to the Prime Minister by his correct title.

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Crossin. That is correct. However, time for the debate of this bill has now expired.

Question put:

That this bill be now read a second time.