Patrick Dodson (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Senate)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of this bill. It has been the subject of a fair amount of discussion between the minister's office and ours. I just want to be clear that I am speaking to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Amendment (Indigenous Land Corporation) Bill 2018.

This bill and the following bill, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Land and Sea Future Fund Bill 2018, have their origins in the Mabo decision of 1992, which recognised that terra nullius was a myth and that traditional title to land, custom and law had survived in many parts of Australia. It also found that, to our great sorrow—that is, the First Nations people's great sorrow—native title had been legally extinguished by the actions of successive Australian governments in many parts of Australia. In response, the Keating government established the Native Title Act, which defines native title and establishes a process for its recognition in the places that could prove that there had been no extinguishment.

The land fund, now officially known as the land account, was the second part of the negotiated agreement. The land account sets up a mechanism for compensation for the dispossession of many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples since 1788. It sets up a new statutory authority created at the same time as the land account. The Indigenous Land Corporation, the ILC, has used the land account to purchase property for the use and enjoyment of Indigenous Australians whose native title has been legally extinguished. In 2018, the government, after a review period, introduced two substantive pieces of legislation and one piece of consequential legislation to alter the functions and governance of the Indigenous Land Corporation and the Indigenous land account. These are the bills in front of us today.

The first bill gives the ILC functions in relation to water related rights. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations can acquire rights to water. Assistance can be provided to acquire water based rights. Management actions can be taken on Indigenous waters, and assistance can be provided for those management functions. In other words, what the ILC could previously do on land it can now carry out on Indigenous owned and managed areas of water. It is important to understand that what was previously recognised as land rights has evolved in recent times to include sea rights. Those of us who are from the saltwater country have rights, responsibilities and commitments to care for the areas of salt water and fresh water that form our traditional lands and country. For example, the Yawuru people in my part of the world have management plans in place that support our traditional use of resources along the coast and in the waters of Roebuck Bay. It is timely that our roles to protect and manage our saltwater country should be recognised and supported.

The bill does not create any new rights, and the ILC, the Indigenous Land Corporation, is still required to exercise its functions in a manner that is consistent with the rights and interests of other persons or international law. The bill does allow for the change of the name of the ILC to the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation, to better reflect the expansion of its functions. The ILC has conducted extensive stakeholder consultations in relation to changing its remit. According to their consultation report summary, there was overwhelming support for change from those participants. Labor supports the intention of this legislation. We support the expansion of the remit of the fund to cover water and support native title holders to exercise these rights. We support this bill.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Amendment (Indigenous Land Corporation) Bill 2018. The Indigenous Land Corporation, as was just articulated, was established in 1995 following the Mabo No. 2 High Court decision and assists First Nations peoples to acquire and manage land for the benefit of First Nations people. The bill amends the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act 2005 to expand the remit of the functions of the Indigenous Land Corporation, the ILC, to include water related rights to enable it to support First Nations people to care for, manage and benefit from freshwater and sea country, something the Australian Greens very strongly support. The establishment of the ILC's remit beyond land based activities is consistent with the developments in native title case law and is something which, through various inquiries, we've heard many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples call for.

The ILC held consultations in the second half of last year with First Nations peoples across Australia about the potential for the expansion of its remit to include functions relating to waters. The majority of those consulted supported these reforms. This bill will also amend the name of the Indigenous Land Corporation, which will become the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation, consistent with the expansion of the Indigenous Land Corporation's functions. The Australian Greens support the bill.

During the committee inquiry into the provisions of this bill—and the other two that are coming on, one of which we'll be debating next—it became apparent that the bill failed to give the Indigenous Land Corporation management functions of all waters for which it has water related rights. The Australian Greens are pleased to see that the bill was amended in the House of Representatives to rectify this omission in line with recommendation 1 of the report of the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee's inquiry into the bill and the additional comments from the Australian Greens.

We will be supporting this bill. We think it's a very important progression of the role of what will soon become the former ILC and it's something that, as I said earlier, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been calling for.

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

I thank senators for their contribution to this debate on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Amendment (Indigenous Land Corporation) Bill 2018. This bill represents a significant step forward in Australia's land rights journey. I'm immensely proud that the government has brought forward this legislation. The Indigenous Land Corporation was established as part of the government's response to the High Court's decision in Mabo No. 2. The Indigenous Land Corporation was established to assist Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations to acquire land and manage Indigenous-held land to provide economic, environmental, social and cultural benefits for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This is in recognition that many Indigenous people will be unable to benefit under the Native Title Act 1993, principally through dispossession not allowing them to be able to demonstrate continued connection with country.

Developments in native title case law following the establishment of the Indigenous Land Corporation have clarified that common law is capable of recognising native title rights in relation to water. These developments in the law acknowledged that, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, land and water are inseparable parts of country. Whenever I was able to be with Aboriginal people, wherever I was, there was a notion, from my very earliest connection, of sea country or saltwater country and saltwater people. That very strong connection wasn't reflected in a Westminster approach to the sea or the ocean particularly. The Westminster system said that it ended at the high-water mark and whatever was seaward of that was common property, or some notion of the like.

This bill amends the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act 2005 to extend the functions of the Indigenous Land Corporation to include all of those water related rights. It allows the Indigenous Land Corporation to acquire and divest water related rights to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations in the same way that it currently is able to acquire and divest land. The bill also enables the Indigenous Land Corporation to carry out management activities in relation to Indigenous water or waters in which the Indigenous Land Corporation has water related rights.

The bill further enables the Indigenous Land Corporation to provide assistance in the form of grants, loans and guarantees for the purpose of management activities in relation to Indigenous waters. In the same way as the ILC can acquire a property—invariably because that property could never be acquired through the native title process, because of dispossession—it can also acquire and take interest in, for example, fishing rights. If you're going to use a pastoral lease, you need to keep the cows in one place, so you need infrastructure like fences or yards. In the same way, if you want to manage, utilise or harvest fish, you need jetties, boats and those sorts of things.

The bill also renames the Indigenous Land Corporation the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation to reflect the expansion of its remit now to include saltwater and freshwater country. These reforms follow extensive consultation with Indigenous stakeholders. A clear majority of stakeholders support these changes to expand the remit to include freshwater and saltwater country. We've listened and we've acted. By expanding the roles of the Indigenous Land Corporation, this government is realising its commitment to improving the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. I thank senators for their contributions and for their assistance in formulating this bill. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.