Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs has been visiting Aboriginal communities talking up ways to address the dire situation of many of these communities, yet at the same time his government actively undermines other avenues of self-determination for Aboriginal communities afforded through resource development of their lands. This concern was reinforced this week by the Minerals Council of Australia’s response to the budget. The council’s budget response highlighted three issues where the Australian government has failed—skill shortages, exploration incentives and resources for the effective operation of the native title system.

It would be fair to say that those in the Aboriginal community generally support resource development of their lands, provided it is with their agreement and they are able to reasonably share in the benefits, including training and employment opportunities. With recognition of native title, the ability of government communities to share in the benefits from resource developments has improved, as has the approach taken by major mining companies. Unfortunately, none of this has been enhanced by the policy of this government.

Ideally, supporting Aboriginal communities to negotiate with mining companies on an equal footing in order to share in resource wealth would be a commonsense approach to achieve the social, health and education outcomes to which governments in Australia are supposed to aspire. However, for our Indigenous communities to undertake negotiations with large companies, they require resources and funding. The state of funding for these negotiations is so diminished that Aboriginal groups have had to rely on funding from the project managers themselves, the resource companies.

In 1998, consultants to the federal government found that funding to bodies representing Aboriginal communities, such as land councils, had to be doubled just to meet their statutory obligations and to assist in facilitating economic development in Australia. This unfortunately has not happened; in fact, funding has declined in real terms since the report.

A recent paper on this issue by Professor Ciaran O’Faircheallaigh of Griffith University has exposed the system-wide bias against the Indigenous communities in such negotiations. In the end, successful negotiations now depend on the political capacity of the various Indigenous communities to navigate the system—and it is a complex system. What companies are prepared to offer Indigenous communities—and I quote Professor O’Faircheallaigh—‘depends very much on the political resources that Aboriginal people can mobilise and apply in negotiations’. Yet, without the initial resources, they are not even in a position to negotiate on an equal footing.

These lopsided agreements are clearly not good for industry, not good for Australia, not good for Indigenous communities and frustrating for the resource sector generally. Indeed, ending Aboriginal disadvantage is in the interests of the business community and, in particular, the mining sector, which has identified Aboriginal communities as a key source of long-term skilled labour for the future. Yet, despite benefits for Aboriginal communities, industry and the Australian taxpayer, the Howard government has failed to provide either the services that these communities need or the support to negotiate with companies over minerals development of their lands.

The poor state of funding for Aboriginal bodies is one way that the government has undermined the ability of Aboriginal communities to successfully negotiate better outcomes for themselves and the Australian community generally. Other ways include the weakening of native title under the 1998 amendments, the stringent conditions on the use of funds and the government funding of non-Indigenous third parties to native title claims. It is these issues that contribute to ensuring that the environment for negotiations is ‘hostile to Aboriginal interests’.

The government should be assisting economic development opportunities for the Aboriginal community with a negotiation process; it should not be creating barriers. These people need resources so that we can get on with their development, start to improve their community activities and, in doing so, open up resource development in Australia. I simply say that it is time that the Howard government realised the long-term effects of its policies in undermining the ability of these communities to move forward and that it decided to put back in place environments that lay the groundwork for future progress.

If we are going to continue to ride on the back of the resource sector, we have to facilitate resource development in Australia. One way to open up the resource sector in Australia even more is to make sure that Indigenous communities are properly resourced so that they can conduct negotiations in a proper framework, achieve the necessary community outcomes and, in doing so, assist in the development of Australia. It is up to the government to take on this challenge in a realistic sense. (Time expired)