Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the Native Title Legislation Amendment Bill 2020, otherwise known as the 'naive title bill'. I wish to remind senators that article 32 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the UNDRIP, reads as follows:

States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources.

This bill does not affirm the rights of our people to free, prior and informed consent. This is why it must not be allowed to pass as it is.

The position of the Australian Greens is very clear: free, prior and informed consent must be obtained from all traditional owners before anything happens on their land or their waters. It doesn't matter, or at least it shouldn't matter, how much the big mining companies and the politicians that they have purchased want this bill passed. If all of the traditional owners of any sovereign First Nation do not want it, then that should be the end of the discussion. It is for very good reason that certain areas of country or water should never be disrupted or desecrated.

I will be moving amendments to this bill to separate schedule 3 from the rest of the bill. In my view, schedule 3 is the most beneficial for our people. It will allow for native title applications to be made over national, state or territory parks where currently this is not available. However, senators will note that my amendment goes further than just opening up national, state and territory parks for native title claims. Rather, it opens all Crown land for native title claims by negotiation and agreement between the relevant government and traditional owners—sovereign to sovereign. I'm calling on the support of my fellow senators for my amendments. This issue is too important for our people to just wave this problematic bill through as it is. I am a traditional owner and I know that the native title process is an obstacle course, and this bill mostly adds even more obstacles. It's destroyed country and destroyed families. In the main, only the lawyers, anthropologists and mining companies reap the most benefits.

It's hardly surprising that companies with mining and exploration interests are the ones who are most in favour of this bill. They're going to rake in the dollars, which is all they care about. The naive title system, or the native title system, is not about returning the rights of our people to their lands and waters—lands and waters that were stolen and never ceded. The native title system is about doing everything possible to keep us from them. Native title is not land rights. Mining companies, with the permission of the politicians that they've purchased, have absolutely no problem getting access to country, which tells you everything you need to know about who this bill really is for. Rio is still making millions after desecrating country by wilfully destroying the caves at Juukan Gorge. If the native title system were about us and our rights to free, prior and informed consent over country, then this bill would never have seen the light of day.

This government's problem is that it can't take no for an answer. Our people do not give you consent. That should be enough. The desecration of Juukan Gorge: traditional owners did not consent. Fracking in the Northern Territory: traditional owners do not consent. Mining at Jabiluka: traditional owners did not consent. A nuclear waste dump in South Australia: traditional owners do not consent. The destruction of sacred Djab Wurrung trees: traditional owners do not consent. And yet here we are with this bill that does not affirm our rights to free, prior and informed consent. These rights belong to all Aboriginal people, not just the ones the government likes to hear from. The naive title system is just reinforcing the aims of the colonial project—it's all take, take, take, destroy and destruct. The colonial project has taken our lands, our waters, our children, our women, our laws, our country, our totems and our lives. And what do we get? We get thrown scraps and are told to be thankful—good old ration style, as if we were still on the mission. This government would have us feast on scraps and then tell us that we should be grateful when we demand what was denied to our ancestors.

Aunty Margaret Culbong, a proud Wadjuk elder, said the following at the committee inquiry into this flawed bill:

I've been fighting and I've walked these streets for law and justice for my people for many years … native title—

or naive title—

was never a part of my future for myself and for my grandchildren and everyone else. I have not ceded my rights to my country.

I honour your words, Aunty Margaret, and I speak them here today because they must be heard and they must be followed. Proud Mirnang Noongar man Mervyn Eades—brothaboy—also told the committee:

Native title—where it's come from and where it is today—serves our people no purpose. Native title has turned into the interest of mining companies and the states. They've taken all rights away from us.

The Warnpurru Aboriginal Corporation put it best when they said:

Can you please change the rule, change the law, because my people want to live out there, want to hunt and gather, want to do our ways of life as we've lived and the way our ancestors lived.

That's what we, as people in this parliament, must do: we must change the rules to allow our people to live the way they want to live—in the way of their ancestors, if that is what they want. If the government were serious about working with our people, it would genuinely involve traditional owners on all decisions over country and facilitate them getting free, prior and informed consent—in the same way it moves mountains when mining companies come knocking on these halls. This bill doesn't do that. This is why I am seeking to amend it. Let's keep the section that will benefit our people most. Let's open up areas of Crown land to native title claims—by agreement, sovereign to sovereign—because until we have a treaty, or treaties, there can be no consent. With actions that happen on country, if traditional owners do not consent then that is the end of the matter.

May I remind everyone in this chamber that we are all on stolen land and that we benefit from the stolen resources—it's not the first people of this country that benefit.