Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to be able to make a contribution to this debate on the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Economic Empowerment) Bill 2021. I should not so much express a conflict but make a declaration. Prior to entering this federal parliament my job was as a policy adviser to the Central Land Council. I just want to make that declaration. I will also dob in my colleague the shadow Attorney-General, because he was a lawyer—and I'm not sure if he has improved—with the Northern Land Council in Darwin. He's acquired additional information over that time.

I think it's worth at the outset reflecting on some comments in the Bills Digest. It refers to page 2 of the explanatory memorandum, which states:

Amendments to the Land Rights Act are not common. Aboriginal stakeholders in the NT have strong voices through their Land Councils (the NLC, CLC, ALC and TLC)—

the Northern Land Council, the Central Land Council, the Anindilyakwa Land Council and the Tiwi Land Council—

and the Commonwealth has committed to only amend the Land Rights Act with their support.

That's only a reasonably new development, because this act, as the Bills Digest reminds us, has been amended many times—often just to add land claims, which may require parliamentary action—with the widespread support of the land councils and traditional owners and frequently it has been amended—for more fundamental amendments—against the wishes of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. The Bills Digest says that on many occasions it has been amended in ways in which the land councils have not supported t indicates, in an accurate depiction of these amendments, that key features of the bill are best understood as rollbacks of or compromises over past amendments, to which the land councils objected over time.

The previous speaker outlined the detail of the act in relation to the development of the Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation, an Aboriginal controlled corporate-Commonwealth entity funded from the existing Aboriginals Benefit Account, which, as we heard, has $1.3 billion at its disposal. Since the establishment of the Land Rights Act, monies out of the act, under section 54.4, were paid to the Aboriginals Benefit Account for distribution. An Aboriginals Benefit Account advisory committee was set up under the act, under section 65. Its job was to set priorities for and make recommendations on how the monies should be expended. The final decision was in the hands of the minister, who could choose to accept or otherwise the recommendations from that advisory committee.

Sadly, over a period of time, ministers got to use this fund as a discretionary fund, where they determined its use without necessarily seeking the advice or getting the approval of the Aboriginals Benefit Account Advisory Committee. We had the outstanding example of Minister Brough, when he was the minister responsible, taking money out of the Aboriginals Benefit Account, which is for the benefit of Aboriginal people whose lands have been exploited in the Northern Territory and who are affected by it as well as for the benefit of the broader Aboriginal community of the Northern Territory. He made a grant to a festival in Queensland, which was totally discretionary and outside the bounds of what the legislation would have otherwise provided. Successive ministers since have made allocations of monies out of this account without a recommendation from the Aboriginals Benefit Account Advisory Committee—purely at the discretion and the decision-making of the respective minister.

So this reform is an important one. It will set up a corporation, which will have a board that is largely independent of government, with representatives of the Aboriginal land councils in the Northern Territory. There will be two from each, which, I might say, is very kind on behalf of the CLC and the NLC, which have large areas and large population bases and which could argue—I would have thought—for additional members. Nevertheless, they've—graciously, in my view—come to a decision to provide a board which has two members from each of the land councils, two government appointed directors and two independent directors appointed by the board.

This corporation will also, as the previous speaker said, take over the responsibility for making beneficial payments to Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, which are currently made out of the Aboriginals Benefit Account. The importance of this change cannot be underestimated. There can be criticism, absolutely, of some of the detail, but it is very clear that this is a major step forward. To give direct control of these substantial funds—$680 million over the next three years—to an entity which is controlled by traditional owners, through their representatives on the board of this corporation, in the Northern Territory is a remarkable change.

I think it's important to acknowledge that this change hasn't been taken lightly or without the necessary level of consultation. The Land Rights Act is a very prescriptive piece of legislation, as I'm sure the shadow Attorney-General will attest. Section 23 of the act prescribes the functions of the land councils and their roles and responsibilities to consult extensively with and to reflect the wishes of traditional owners and, indeed, other Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. It's within that context that, when you contemplate the roles of the land councils under section 23, you need to look at how they're constructed, how their consultation processes proceed and how they work through their delegates at a local community level to provide information and to get feedback. They regularly hold meetings in remote places so they can bring together traditional owners to discuss things like these proposed changes. I'm confident, because of my knowledge over many years of how the land councils operate, that they would have taken great care in making sure that job was done properly.

Now, the bill will also make other changes to processes around negotiation of the mining provisions in part 4 of the act. These amendments flow from recommendations by Justice Muirhead in the review of part 4 of the act in 2013, as pointed out by the previous speaker. It will, as the previous speaker said, make changes to section 28(a) of the act, about access to Aboriginal land. It will repeal unused powers of the delegation of land council functions to corporations. We opposed this when it was introduced by the Howard government and we're pleased to see it go.

The bill will also repeal section 74AA of the Land Rights Act, which was part of the Howard government's Northern Territory intervention and which has the effect of preventing land councils from overturning permits for accessing Aboriginal land that had been granted by a minority in the community but against the wishes of the traditional owners. That's gone. That goes to the comments made in the bills digest about this remedying and winding back decisions which were taken against the interests, desires and wishes of Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory.

This legislation is very important. Whilst it makes a great change in terms of this new corporate entity, it doesn't release the land councils from their obligations, and they are extremely conscious of and wise to this. Now, there will be people who will argue that these amendments are not appropriate, but to them I just say I've watched the Land Rights Act in operation, I've seen the way in which various governments have introduced amendments to override the rights and interests of traditional owners in the Northern Territory. This bill does the opposite. For that, I want to commend—not that I'd normally do this—the minister for undertaking, through his agency, NIAA, an extensive process of consultation and negotiation with the land councils, providing them with the capacity to go back to their membership to seek the instructions that are properly required for them to agree to this proposal.

But changes are important. I can well recall—and I'm sure the shadow minister will recall—the ill-fated Reeves review, a review of the land rights act by John Reeves, a former member of this parliament and now a judge in the Federal Court. He undertook a review of the land rights act and made a series of recommendations which would have radically changed the act. The Howard government put forward proposals which never saw the light of day because of the opposition of Aboriginal people across the Northern Territory. That was a significant victory, and it was done against the backdrop of a government wanting to overturn and limit the rights and interests of Aboriginal people under the act.

We're now in a situation where it could be argued that the opposite has occurred—that the rights and interests of Aboriginal people are being enhanced by these amendments. Whilst they are not perfect, and they may need reviewing over time, they do provide an opportunity for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory to make a dramatic change in the way moneys are allocated out of the ABA. That, to me, is a very significant change. I applaud the land councils for their work. I was involved in a couple of joint meetings of the land council executives where they discussed these recommendations over a period of months this year. I was delighted about the way in which they'd come together in unity around these proposals and had undertaken very clearly, with their eyes wide open, a negotiation with the federal government which has achieved a successful outcome and that is reflected in this legislation.

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