Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I thank both members for those questions, and the member for Stirling's indulgence. I did understand the member for Blair was asking a question on a similar topic and thought it might be easiest to take both of them together. Absolutely, the government is confident that it can fully reconcile its support and recognition for the 20-year anniversary which comes this Sunday in celebration of the High Court decision in the Mabo case and then, of course, the Labor government's action to introduce the native title system—mind you we met with enormous opposition from those opposite. I did think that the very brief and fairly churlish comments in the House today indicated that some in the opposition still have an antipathy to native title. That is a shame, when 20 years on we can see that the system is working quite well.

What I think the member opposite is not recognising, and the question the member for Blair asked started to highlight, is that the government has made a decision in this budget which does provide some administrative savings by moving the Native Title Tribunal back into the Federal Court—keeping its own identity but being able to share all of its administrative backroom functions. That amount of money has been invested many, many times over in other Indigenous programs, which are also in this budget but which I have not yet been asked about—for example, the night patrols that are occurring across many communities in the Territory, and the investments in other justice programs which apply across all the country. The reason that this decision was taken is that we had a recommendation from the Skehill review looking at a range of matters in our courts. We had many, many representations from those involved in the native title system, and we have clear evidence in front of us that this system is working. We know how long it would take if we kept on the same trajectory that we were on—with the Native Title Tribunal itself estimating that the current cases could take at least another 30 years to be completed.

Some of the first steps that the previous attorney took have started to bear fruit. For example, in the 16-year period from when the Native Title Act came into force until the end of 2009-10, the Federal Court handed down 86 consent determinations. In just the year-and-a-half following some changes that our government introduced, 43 consent determinations were handed down. Even though this is early in the process, that is a rate five times higher than prior to the reforms that we instituted through the Native Title Amendment Act 2009. These decisions in the budget simply take that a step further. The 2009 amendments allowed the Federal Court to play a much more active role in the speedy determination of matters. This now will be able to be—

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