Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

Clearly, the government is not in a mood to take on board the shared concerns of all parties on this side of the chamber, which I think is unfortunate because those concerns also reflect evidence that was provided to the Senate committee inquiry. The minister has taken a quote there, accused Senator Siewert of selectively quoting and then selected a quote himself that suits his argument. But I think the other point that needs to be made is that the rationales that the minister put forward for this measure of accountability and about improving performance and outcomes are not something that anybody disagrees with, either in this chamber or amongst any of those people from all sides of the spectrum who engage with the native title process. The view of the Democrats and, I suspect, others, and certainly the view of many submitters to the committee who engage with this process—not just native title rep bodies themselves but others—is that there are other ways to ensure adequate accountability.

The problem with this—and I accept that it is put forward as an accountability measure, and in that sense I am not criticising the intent but the consequence or at least the potential consequence—is that it will affect stability. It will affect the ability to engage in long-term planning. As we all know, probably unfortunately but probably, at least in some cases, unavoidably, native title matters can stretch out over a very long period of time. A rep body can have a number of them ongoing in any one period of time and has to decide where to direct its resources. It is very difficult to do that if it does not have a reasonable degree of certainty into the long term. So the concern is that the government’s measure, whilst it is aimed at accountability, will unnecessarily impact on stability, on the ability to engage in long-term planning, and that in itself can impact on the performance and the outcome, which is what we are all interested in. I do not think we should be spending our time arguing backwards and forwards about which of us cares about getting good outcomes. That is what we all want. I think we have different views about how we can get there. Clearly there was a lot of evidence that this is not the best way to address accountability issues. It is certainly my recollection from the spoken evidence to the Senate committee inquiry that this aspect was seen as a potential problem, and I think it is unfortunate that the government has not taken that into account.

But the other point needs to be made that, in proposing that this measure not be incorporated into the law, there are other measures and proposals put forward that would address some of the accountability concerns but do not have the potential consequential problems of impacting on stability and planning. We all know that, with a whole range of organisations that are dependent on government funding in a whole range of sectors, particularly in Indigenous service delivery organisations that are community based, it can be very difficult to retain staff if there is not long-term certainty, and it can be very difficult to gain staff.

I am not saying that this measure alone is going to lead to wholesale problems—and I am not saying that there are not problems with regard to that already, for that matter—but these are all factors that need to be taken into account, particularly if you are looking at practical outcomes. That is what we are talking about here. It is certainly what the Democrats are talking about. It is what I have been talking about with regard to Indigenous issues for a long time: practical outcomes. If we are going to make significant changes to the Native Title Act in a range of areas, as this bill seeks to do, then we want to make sure that it is going to improve the practical outcomes, not make them worse.