Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Ordinarily, the opposition would be represented in this debate initiated by the member for Dawson by the member for Brand or the member for Lingiari, both of whom are in Darwin today at the Northern Australia Investment Forum, talking about Labor's commitment to northern Australia, so I am happy to sub in for them. Northern Australia obviously has different challenges and different opportunities to the rest of the country. Cairns has more in common with Broome than it does with Brisbane, and Broome has more in common with Cairns than it does with Perth.

It is encouraging indeed that the federal government is focusing on northern Australia's potential, and Labor looks forward to working with the government to achieve this. Labor in government established the focus on northern Australia by creating the Office of Northern Australia and the Northern Australia Ministerial Forum. It is positive that the government is continuing with similar governance arrangements.

The white paper on developing northern Australia deserves serious attention. It is, however, a little light in detail. Many initiatives are subject to further consultation, planning or review, so there is much work to do to translate big expectations into concrete, deliverable outcomes.

The government has built up expectations around its northern Australia policies, particularly the $5 billion northern infrastructure loan facility, to which the member for Dawson referred. But the government has not yet followed through with its announcements. We still have no information on how loans will be prioritised and what the money will be spent on. The government promised that the project proposals for its loan facility would be accepted from 1 July 2015. We are now well into November, and the government has not even released eligibility criteria defining the types of infrastructure that will be supported or the financial criteria that projects need to meet. The government needs to stop this uncertainty and finalise the loan eligibility criteria forthwith.

Native title and land rights are important property rights which provide valuable economic opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Labor welcomes investment in the improvement of native title processes to accelerate the resolution of outstanding native title claims. These processes must be progressed with the full engagement, involvement and agreement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Reforms to native title bodies and processes must not circumvent or undermine land rights legislation.

A focus on improved policy process is critical, including guarantees that robust cost-benefit analysis processes will be followed for every investment project. So much of northern development will always depend on sustainable water supply and access. The Rudd government in 2007 convened a Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce, which examined the long-term strategic potential for land and water development, with particular emphasis on the capacity of the northern Australian area's agricultural development.

The Martin and Henderson Northern Territory Labor governments were part of that process and had, as a critical objective, set up strategic Indigenous reserves, or SIRs. SIRs aimed to allow Aboriginal traditional owners to have perpetual, exclusive and inalienable rights to a share of water from aquifers, rivers and creeks. The idea was that that water could be used by Aboriginal people for economic or environmental activity that would generate prosperity for their communities. The policy was developed by the Indigenous Water Policy Group and driven by the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance, or NAILSMA.

The election of the Mills and then Giles CLP government in 2012 unfortunately changed everything. Immediately after the election, the CLP government tore up the SIRs, denying Aboriginal people the opportunity to participate in their own economic future and development. The same CLP government then handed out huge allocations of water to other, non-Indigenous, interests.

At present the Northern Land Council is negotiating on behalf of traditional owners of those lands planned for Ord stage 3 in the extreme north-west of the NT abutting the Western Australian border. Ord stage 2 was negotiated in such a way that the traditional owners' interest, native title, was extinguished in exchange for $57 million and some training dollars as well. We know of the enormous social dislocation caused by stages 1 and 2 for Aboriginal people. Any visit to Kununurra will show that. Now the Northern Territory government, no doubt with the support of this federal Liberal government, is also seeking to extinguish native title for the owners of the Knox Plain and Keep River areas of the NT.

Wouldn't it be better for Aboriginal people to be at the table right from the start of these grand ideas? It can be done and it must be done, or northern development will remain a pipedream for Aboriginal people, and attempts to develop their lands will be rife with acrimony and dissent.

See this speech in context