Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

We are working with Indigenous Australians across a range of measures to generate wealth and to build their local economies. And, as we have acknowledged for many years, land tenure has to be progressed to deliver long-term economic outcomes for traditional owners.

We're making sure the notion of 'land rich and dirt poor' no longer applies to our First Australians. As my friend Galarrwuy Yunupingu said, 'We need to wake up land rights.' We're investing for the first time in native title holders, with a $20 million fund to ensure that the prescribed body corporate can act in a way that is not a David-and-Goliath arrangement—that they actually have the capacity to have legal services and other services to ensure that those negotiations are fair and equal.

In the Northern Territory, we're working with traditional owners to ensure we have township leases in Mutitjulu, Pirlangimpi, Groote Eylandt and the like. All of this progress is making sure that traditional owners, communities and individuals are at the heart of decisions now and into the future. (Time expired)