Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Amendment (Indigenous Land Corporation) Bill 2018. The Indigenous Land Corporation, as was just articulated, was established in 1995 following the Mabo No. 2 High Court decision and assists First Nations peoples to acquire and manage land for the benefit of First Nations people. The bill amends the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act 2005 to expand the remit of the functions of the Indigenous Land Corporation, the ILC, to include water related rights to enable it to support First Nations people to care for, manage and benefit from freshwater and sea country, something the Australian Greens very strongly support. The establishment of the ILC's remit beyond land based activities is consistent with the developments in native title case law and is something which, through various inquiries, we've heard many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples call for.

The ILC held consultations in the second half of last year with First Nations peoples across Australia about the potential for the expansion of its remit to include functions relating to waters. The majority of those consulted supported these reforms. This bill will also amend the name of the Indigenous Land Corporation, which will become the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation, consistent with the expansion of the Indigenous Land Corporation's functions. The Australian Greens support the bill.

During the committee inquiry into the provisions of this bill—and the other two that are coming on, one of which we'll be debating next—it became apparent that the bill failed to give the Indigenous Land Corporation management functions of all waters for which it has water related rights. The Australian Greens are pleased to see that the bill was amended in the House of Representatives to rectify this omission in line with recommendation 1 of the report of the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee's inquiry into the bill and the additional comments from the Australian Greens.

We will be supporting this bill. We think it's a very important progression of the role of what will soon become the former ILC and it's something that, as I said earlier, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been calling for.