Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I want to make some remarks based on Senator Fawcett's contribution. At the outset I want to be clear that I will reserve my final position on Defence Legislation Amendment (Woomera Prohibited Area) Bill until the Senate Foreign Affair, Defence and Trade Committee has completed its report. However, I do have some concerns with respect to this bill, particularly in relation to the traditional owners of the land in question. But, having said that, I think what Senator Farrell has done by bringing this bill forward is a very worthy thing. This is an issue that needs to be resolved. I can understand Senator Farrell's frustration at the delays in appropriately dealing with this bill through the committee process. I do not want to get into the claims and the counterclaims with respect to that, but I do congratulate Senator Farrell for bringing this bill forward because it is an issue that must be resolved. I believe that Senator Farrell's bill, with appropriate amendments, ought to be passed.

I noticed that Senator Fawcett referred to Minister Tom Koutsantonis in South Australia. I think it is fair to say that Minister Koutsantonis is a passionate advocate of the mining industry in South Australia. He has done a lot of good work in respect of that and infrastructure. No-one could accuse Minister Koutsantonis of being in any way dilatory in his duties by trying to expand mining in the state of South Australia. He sees the benefits of a strong, sustainable mining industry, and I congratulate him on that. I, too, support the mining industry, but of course subject to the big caveat of the environmental impact and also the impact on water tables, particularly with hydraulic fracking. That is another issue.

Let us go to the bill that Senator Farrell has presented to us and the important issues it raises. When this bill was introduced by the former government, I was approached by representatives of the Maralinga and Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara people, who shared with me their long history of fighting to regain rights to their traditional lands. Those traditional owners had been removed from their lands and transferred to the Yalata Lutheran Mission in 1955 and continued to be denied access to those lands until 1984. That is a period of 29 years that they were denied access to their homes, to their lands. This obviously caused huge cultural and social dislocation for the traditional owners, and that is shameful.

In an attempt to redress this, the South Australian government handed back the traditional lands to the Maralinga Tjarutja corporate body, or MT, in 1984. The act, in part, allows the Maralinga Tjarutja to act in accordance with the wishes and opinions of the traditional owners in relation to the management, use and control of the lands and to negotiate with persons seeking access to or use of the lands.

Currently, the Woomera Prohibited Area covers about 40 per cent of the Maralinga lands, including Section 400, where the British nuclear tests took place. After years of negotiation, the Commonwealth, South Australia and MT agreed on an appropriate clean-up and rehabilitation of this area, which occurred between 1993 and 2001. Better late than never, I guess. As a result, all but 200 square kilometres of Section 400 are now fit for permanent Aboriginal habitation. These 200 square kilometres are contaminated with plutonium and contain buried debris from the nuclear tests. In many cases, no-one knows exactly what these burial areas contain.

After this rehabilitation was completed, Section 400 was handed back to the traditional owners in 2009. Part of this hand-back included the formation of the Maralinga land management plan, which makes the MT responsible for controlling access to Maralinga Village and the former test sites. MT currently uses a permit system, locked gates on the only public road entrance and a security officer and caretaker at Maralinga Village to ensure the area is secure. MT has also established guided tours of the site and Maralinga Village, which generate an important revenue stream. Both MT and APY are supportive of mining and petroleum explorations on their land and have negotiated successfully with companies to facilitate exploration.

I note that the basis for this bill is the recommendations from the Hawke review of the Woomera Prohibited Area, which was released in May 2011. MT expressed their concerns about the consultation process during this review. Their submission to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee states:

It—

that is, the final report—

differed markedly from the Interim Report in that it no longer included “indigenous freehold land” in the Terms and Definitions, and almost all of the many references to indigenous people, usually regarding the cultural and spiritual significance of the land, had been excluded from the final report.

That is, in part, what the submission says. They are very salient and important points.

Despite the fact that MT wrote to the minister after the report was released requesting urgent consultation, they were never consulted. In fact, the Department of Defence did not consult with MT until the draft of this bill was released by the former government. That is really not good enough when you look at the history of that land. This was used as a nuclear testing site. It took decades to rehabilitate it. These people were dislocated and displaced for decades. I think that was completely unsatisfactory.

MT believes that Section 400 should be fully removed from the Woomera Prohibited Area. Almost all of Section 400 has been rehabilitated and is now fit for human habitation. The result of the five-year consultations before Section 400 was handed back to the traditional owners was that the access to the land is strictly controlled by those owners. MT has built an income stream from tourism based on its ownership and control of those lands. Further, the risks of mining and other exploration in Section 400 were considered so great, due to buried waste, that it is exempt from South Australia's Mining Act. It is MT's view—and I agree—that the time, effort and money that has gone into rehabilitating Section 400, as well as the potential risks, mean that no Defence activities or weapons testing should take place on it. I think they have had enough of being a testing ground for weapons, particularly after what occurred in the 1950s. Removing Section 400 from the Woomera Prohibited Area and allowing its traditional owners to have full control over the land will be an important step in recognising the social and cultural dislocation these people have suffered.

It is also important to note that APY, some of whose traditional owners also suffered as a result of the British nuclear tests, also fully supports the removal of the Woomera Prohibited Area from the whole of Section 400. To not have consulted appropriately with them only adds insult to very real injury.

As I indicated at the outset, I will reserve my position on this bill until the committee inquiry is complete. But I share Senator Farrell's frustration about the delays in respect of that. I also think that what Senator Farrell is doing by bringing this bill forward is a very worthy thing. This is an issue that must be addressed. This is an issue that can and ought to be explored, subject to appropriate environmental safeguards. I will support this bill's second reading and flag that, if it proceeds, I will be moving amendments to ensure that Section 400 is exempt. I believe that this is the only option to ensure that Maralinga's traditional owners and their cultural links to the land are properly acknowledged. Given what they have been through, it is the very least we ought to do.