Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the minister’s last response to one of the key issues that we have been raising throughout the debate: cross-compliance. If I had any doubts at all about my reservations about this bill, the minister just nailed them and made me feel very reassured that I have done the right thing. In his answer, he made it very clear that this is about a deal; that this is about a fix: ‘You do what we want and you’ll get access to things like schools and housing. You actually have to come to us and bargain for access to essential services such as adequate schools that allow you to educate children or housing that allows you to provide shelter for your family or your community.’ That is the thing that has most concerned me about the proposition. It is the thing that has most concerned me about the minister’s behaviour.

In reading the advice given to him, I think the minister correctly represented the government’s position. I do not have any doubt about that. But I think it also highlighted for the Senate exactly why we have serious concerns about the approach being taken. The phrase I think the minister used was, ‘These are special benefits not otherwise available.’ That is, we will do a deal to provide some of the services that the Commonwealth normally provides under Commonwealth funding arrangements—basic services like schools and housing that allow people to live a basic life, have a basic existence and enjoy the rights of citizenship that all other Australian citizens expect.

This is at the heart of the disagreement about this measure. There is no disagreement about organising proper land tenure arrangements for Aboriginal communities. There is no disagreement about objective economic development. There is no disagreement about providing employment and other opportunities and better services in Indigenous communities. The disagreement in this process is about whether Indigenous people have to lose control over their land and whether they are going to be made to bargain for what we regard as citizenship services from the Commonwealth in return for signing up for the deal.

It seems clear from the minister’s answer that Indigenous people will be required to bargain for services that should be made available to the community anyway; that the requirement from the government in order to get its leasing proposals accepted is to exercise its superior bargaining power and say, ‘If you want this school or if you want these houses, you’re going to have to sign up to our leasing arrangement.’ That has been a fundamental concern of the Labor opposition from the start and I think it is now clear that that is the government’s intention. I said in my contribution in the second reading debate that it seemed to be reflected in the minister’s activities, in his press releases and in the way he rampaged through communities, making it clear to the people that it was his way or the highway. To have it confirmed, I think, is seriously concerning, but it does confirm my view that we ought not to be going down that path.

I would like to hear the minister explain the extent to which traditional owners and other Indigenous people resident in a township or community will have any say over development that occurs on their land once the 99-year lease is signed away. It is a concern that I have raised throughout the debate. I have not heard the government’s explanation of what it says will be the reality of Indigenous input into decisions about what happens on their land once the lease has been signed over to the entity. That is the other critical issue that has been concerning people. I would appreciate it if the minister could provide the same sort of clarity that he did on the question of cross-compliance in relation to the issue of exactly what ongoing role or input Indigenous traditional owners will have over their land, over the town site, once the lease is signed.