Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have no problem with welcome to country ceremonies—in fact, sometimes they are initiated by the National Party when the Aboriginal community want to do them—but what I do have a problem with is that this is a masterpiece of mistiming. How can the Labor Party and the Greens support this after trying to remove every right of the Aboriginal community in Cape York, depriving them of their land—not only native title land but deed of grant in trust land that was given to them by Joh Bjelke-Petersen when he was Premier? They came in and said: ‘You can’t use that land anymore. This is under wild rivers legislation. Sorry—you can’t even put in a market garden and clear land if it’s in a high-preservation area.’

The Aboriginals were told that this was wild rivers legislation. Wild rivers legislation became wild basin legislation, and wild basin legislation took in every creek, every river, every stream and every spring. It became not wild rivers—