Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

Obviously we are here noting and debating the government’s amendments to the Native Title Amendment Bill 2006 that have been introduced in the Senate and have come back here for our consideration. Unfortunately, from our point of view, these amendments do not even scrape the surface in fixing the problems with the bill, which I highlighted when the bill was last debated in the House.

Firstly, I just want to draw attention to the continuing problems with the bill as it still stands, particularly in relation to periodic recognition. We are opposed to periodic recognition of native title representative bodies. We understand—unfortunately the government does not seem to—that these bodies are representative institutions and we should be promoting their independence, not increasing their dependency on bureaucracy and the minister. I think the important thing to note is that these bodies already report against performance indicators in their funding agreements. They are already regulated by the Office of the Registrar of Aboriginal Corporations. The minister has the power to withdraw recognition if a body is poorly performing. So in our view the periodic recognition that the minister is proposing to impose is over the top and unnecessary. I know the minister is aware that an average native title claim takes about six years. So one of the most important things in this area is stability; not only for the native title system itself but for the social and economic development agendas of these institutions. We are certainly all for accountability but in my view this is not about accountability; it really is just going to make life more difficult for these native title representative bodies.

We made a number of constructive amendments to the bill when it was in the Senate, and these were based on various submissions to the Senate inquiry. Unfortunately, all but one of these amendments were rejected by the government. I am pleased that the government did support one amendment: that the parties’ consent was required for the tribunal to make a hearing public. There is no question that that was a positive amendment that we put forward and I am pleased that the government has agreed to it. This was a change that drew upon a recommendation from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissioner.

We had a number of other constructive amendments, which unfortunately have not been adopted. For example, we wanted to make sure that only corporations registered under the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 would be eligible to apply for recognition as a representative body because as a result of the government’s bill all corporations—both mainstream and Indigenous—will be eligible to apply. We also had an amendment to make it possible for prescribed body corporates to apply for funding in much the same way that native title rep bodies do. The government’s rejection of this amendment is a major disappointment for the National Native Title Council, the Minerals Council and us on this side of the parliament.

The bulk of the amendments that we are still considering are unfortunately still focused on top-down control and more power to the minister and the bureaucracy. And there is nothing dealing with what everybody in this area really recognises as the major problems, which are the bottlenecks in the system and the fact that the native title rep bodies are not properly funded and that getting agreement is just taking too long, which is holding up development. I know the Attorney-General is aware of that, and we would certainly hope that he will be arguing for additional funding for native title rep bodies in this budget round. It is a shame that he has not looked at the evidence that has come from submissions on this bill. That, I think, would have further enhanced the operation of the native title system, but we still have major problems with the bill and with the amendments that are before us.

Question agreed to.

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