Dr LIM - 1995-05-16
Recent developments over native title claims in Alice Springs are causing great concern in the town. Can the Chief Minister explain what is happening in relation to native title matters in the Territory at the moment?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, this is a good question and it is certainly appropriate for these sittings. Unlike most questions we receive from the opposition, this has a real and direct bearing on what is happening to the government of the Northern Territory. The situation could be best described as expected. Everything that the Northern Territory government said would happen is happening and everything that the Commonwealth said would not happen is happening.
The Commonwealth said claims would not be made to backyards, and now such claims are being made in Alice Springs and elsewhere. It said the issue of pastoral leases extinguishes native title but, a month ago, the Native Title Tribunal registrar accepted claims over land which the most cursory examination would show has been under a pastoral lease and other forms of tenure and occupancy that extinguish native title. It said that ATSIC would not get into the business of buying up the remaining pastoral estate of the Territory, but it has just allocated two-thirds of its total land acquisition budget of $20m to doing exactly that. This is, of course, in addition to the 26 pastoral leases that have been purchased already with funds from various sources, including the Aboriginal Benefits Trust Account, and I think claims for conversion of those 26 leases to inalienable freehold have been lodged in every instance. It said it would not allow an economically damaging backlog of land disputes to pile up in the Native Title Tribunal. Today, there are basic issues, like native title extinguishment by pastoral lease issue which certainly will take 2 years to resolve, and let us remember that we are almost a year into the process already.
Mr Speaker, I table a number of letters, between myself and the Prime Minister, which I believe best illustrate the warnings that we have issued to the Commonwealth in regard to the erosion of the Territory's pastoral estate and the inability of the Territory government to govern in relation to land held under inalienable freehold. The tabled documents also reveal the critically lame excuses given by the federal government as to why it is doing nothing to resolve these problems. My letter of October 1993 raised, and not for the first time, pastoral lease and compensation matters. Subsequently, the Prime Minister and I met on these and other issues surrounding native title. In his letter of 25 July 1994, the Prime Minister referred to that November 1993 meeting, and he stated:
Page 520
Consistent with our discussions last November, measures have been put in place to ensure the land fund is not
used to increase the number of conversions of pastoral lease to inalienable title under the Northern Territory
Land Rights Act.
He went on to say that the land purchased by the Indigenous Land Corporation cannot be converted to inalienable freehold. Thus, he has accepted the principle, which he did long ago, that conversion to inalienable freehold should be minimised and that extra funds should not be allocated for this purpose, bearing in mind that Aboriginals have the right and now the ability to purchase increasing amounts of ordinary freehold title as other Australians are entitled to do. Freehold title is, of course, as secure and useful a title as any citizen should want. Notwithstanding that, the Prime Minister has acknowledged that an expansion of inalienable freehold of pastoral leases is not desirable I pointed out to him, in my letter of 27 July 1994, that ATSIC has some $63m to spend before 1997, the cut-off date for the lodgement of land claims for conversion under the Land Rights Act.
The Prime Minister's response to my appeal to him was made on 13 February 1995, and it is in those tabled papers. That response was made 7 months after my letter to him, but at least it was a response from the Prime Minister, and I quote from it:
Following consultation with indigenous representatives, it was decided that the simplest and most effective way
of ensuring that no new moneys were used to facilitate the conversion of pastoral leases to inalienable
freehold was to allow ATSIC to retain its existing moneys for land acquisition and management until 1997
and to prevent the conversion of inalienable freehold of any properties purchased by the Indigenous Land
Corporation.
I am not surprised that the unnamed `indigenous representatives' agreed to that. After all, why wouldn't they? That $63m is available for property purchases before 1997 and all such property can be converted to inalienable freehold because this money is not Indigenous Land Corporation money, but ATSIC money.
I have news for the Prime Minister. The seller of a pastoral lease or any other parcel of land does not mind which bag the money comes from. To him, it is all money. To suggest that you can stand by a principle by ensuring that a particular fund purchases land that cannot be converted and top-up funds in another corporation that purchases land that can be converted is the type of politics we expect from the present Prime Minister. In case anyone doubts the agenda on the properties to be purchased with the ATSIC money, the Chairman of the Northern Land Council, Mr Yunupingu, said yesterday:
ATSIC is there to act in the best interests of Aboriginal people and, with the sunset clause in the
ALRA due in 1997, after which no more land can be claimed, I am confident ATSIC has acted in the best
interests of the Aboriginal people overall.
That would be in the best interests of the Aboriginal people overall in the Northern Territory. I would not think that many Aboriginals in the rest of Australia, who do not have access to land in the states, would share that sentiment. I believe that has been expressed interstate as well.
Page 521
Finally, in one of the letters to the Prime Minister, I protested at actions of the Native Title Tribunal. In short, I said at the outset that what the Territory predicted would happen when the Native Title Tribunal Act was passed is happening. The processes are rapidly becoming hopelessly bogged down. Bear in mind that we are in the embryo stages of native title processes in Australia, yet it cannot afford to pay even for Northern Territory title searches over claimed areas.
I end on a note of some optimism and that is that the Territory government will continue direct face-to-face talks with Aboriginal representatives because, in that way, there is hope for real progress. That is a course that we will pursue. However, if we get to a stage of negotiating regional ...
Mr Bailey interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr PERRON: Mr Speaker, I am not surprised that honourable members opposite do not want to hear it all. However, it is relevant today and it affects the future of the Northern Territory, but I guess they have never been particularly interested in that, and the electorate has shown what it thinks of them. It remains to be seen how far the Commonwealth is prepared to go in sitting down at the table over regional agreements with the Territory government and Aboriginal organisations. We have flagged to it the sorts of costs that may be involved in compensation for land, which has been alienated since 1975, that may retain native title and may require freehold levels of compensation to be paid. Of course, the Commonwealth has undertaken to pay 75%. However, we do not accept the figure of 75%. We believe it is unreasonable. When the Commonwealth heard that the bill might be in the tens of millions of dollars, it shuddered with fright. There has been an initial meeting of officers over these matters, and the Commonwealth is just beginning to realise what the compensation clauses really mean to it and to the Australian taxpayer. When it realises the total bill, it will run a mile. The circumstances in the Territory do not present a happy picture.
Fortunately, there are other aspects of life and government and the economy of the Territory which are very buoyant ...
Mr Bailey interjecting.
Mr PERRON: We will go forward.
Mr Bailey interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I ask the Chief Minister to resume his seat. The member for Wanguri is testing me sorely, and I will give him one warning only.
Mr PERRON: Mr Speaker, fortunately, there are compensatory aspects to life in the Territory which make the place not as dismal as the picture I am painting here. Nevertheless, we would certainly progress much faster if we could resolve some of these issues.
Page 522
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, this is a good question and it is certainly appropriate for these sittings. Unlike most questions we receive from the opposition, this has a real and direct bearing on what is happening to the government of the Northern Territory. The situation could be best described as expected. Everything that the Northern Territory government said would happen is happening and everything that the Commonwealth said would not happen is happening.
The Commonwealth said claims would not be made to backyards, and now such claims are being made in Alice Springs and elsewhere. It said the issue of pastoral leases extinguishes native title but, a month ago, the Native Title Tribunal registrar accepted claims over land which the most cursory examination would show has been under a pastoral lease and other forms of tenure and occupancy that extinguish native title. It said that ATSIC would not get into the business of buying up the remaining pastoral estate of the Territory, but it has just allocated two-thirds of its total land acquisition budget of $20m to doing exactly that. This is, of course, in addition to the 26 pastoral leases that have been purchased already with funds from various sources, including the Aboriginal Benefits Trust Account, and I think claims for conversion of those 26 leases to inalienable freehold have been lodged in every instance. It said it would not allow an economically damaging backlog of land disputes to pile up in the Native Title Tribunal. Today, there are basic issues, like native title extinguishment by pastoral lease issue which certainly will take 2 years to resolve, and let us remember that we are almost a year into the process already.
Mr Speaker, I table a number of letters, between myself and the Prime Minister, which I believe best illustrate the warnings that we have issued to the Commonwealth in regard to the erosion of the Territory's pastoral estate and the inability of the Territory government to govern in relation to land held under inalienable freehold. The tabled documents also reveal the critically lame excuses given by the federal government as to why it is doing nothing to resolve these problems. My letter of October 1993 raised, and not for the first time, pastoral lease and compensation matters. Subsequently, the Prime Minister and I met on these and other issues surrounding native title. In his letter of 25 July 1994, the Prime Minister referred to that November 1993 meeting, and he stated:
Page 520
Consistent with our discussions last November, measures have been put in place to ensure the land fund is not
used to increase the number of conversions of pastoral lease to inalienable title under the Northern Territory
Land Rights Act.
He went on to say that the land purchased by the Indigenous Land Corporation cannot be converted to inalienable freehold. Thus, he has accepted the principle, which he did long ago, that conversion to inalienable freehold should be minimised and that extra funds should not be allocated for this purpose, bearing in mind that Aboriginals have the right and now the ability to purchase increasing amounts of ordinary freehold title as other Australians are entitled to do. Freehold title is, of course, as secure and useful a title as any citizen should want. Notwithstanding that, the Prime Minister has acknowledged that an expansion of inalienable freehold of pastoral leases is not desirable I pointed out to him, in my letter of 27 July 1994, that ATSIC has some $63m to spend before 1997, the cut-off date for the lodgement of land claims for conversion under the Land Rights Act.
The Prime Minister's response to my appeal to him was made on 13 February 1995, and it is in those tabled papers. That response was made 7 months after my letter to him, but at least it was a response from the Prime Minister, and I quote from it:
Following consultation with indigenous representatives, it was decided that the simplest and most effective way
of ensuring that no new moneys were used to facilitate the conversion of pastoral leases to inalienable
freehold was to allow ATSIC to retain its existing moneys for land acquisition and management until 1997
and to prevent the conversion of inalienable freehold of any properties purchased by the Indigenous Land
Corporation.
I am not surprised that the unnamed `indigenous representatives' agreed to that. After all, why wouldn't they? That $63m is available for property purchases before 1997 and all such property can be converted to inalienable freehold because this money is not Indigenous Land Corporation money, but ATSIC money.
I have news for the Prime Minister. The seller of a pastoral lease or any other parcel of land does not mind which bag the money comes from. To him, it is all money. To suggest that you can stand by a principle by ensuring that a particular fund purchases land that cannot be converted and top-up funds in another corporation that purchases land that can be converted is the type of politics we expect from the present Prime Minister. In case anyone doubts the agenda on the properties to be purchased with the ATSIC money, the Chairman of the Northern Land Council, Mr Yunupingu, said yesterday:
ATSIC is there to act in the best interests of Aboriginal people and, with the sunset clause in the
ALRA due in 1997, after which no more land can be claimed, I am confident ATSIC has acted in the best
interests of the Aboriginal people overall.
That would be in the best interests of the Aboriginal people overall in the Northern Territory. I would not think that many Aboriginals in the rest of Australia, who do not have access to land in the states, would share that sentiment. I believe that has been expressed interstate as well.
Page 521
Finally, in one of the letters to the Prime Minister, I protested at actions of the Native Title Tribunal. In short, I said at the outset that what the Territory predicted would happen when the Native Title Tribunal Act was passed is happening. The processes are rapidly becoming hopelessly bogged down. Bear in mind that we are in the embryo stages of native title processes in Australia, yet it cannot afford to pay even for Northern Territory title searches over claimed areas.
I end on a note of some optimism and that is that the Territory government will continue direct face-to-face talks with Aboriginal representatives because, in that way, there is hope for real progress. That is a course that we will pursue. However, if we get to a stage of negotiating regional ...
Mr Bailey interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr PERRON: Mr Speaker, I am not surprised that honourable members opposite do not want to hear it all. However, it is relevant today and it affects the future of the Northern Territory, but I guess they have never been particularly interested in that, and the electorate has shown what it thinks of them. It remains to be seen how far the Commonwealth is prepared to go in sitting down at the table over regional agreements with the Territory government and Aboriginal organisations. We have flagged to it the sorts of costs that may be involved in compensation for land, which has been alienated since 1975, that may retain native title and may require freehold levels of compensation to be paid. Of course, the Commonwealth has undertaken to pay 75%. However, we do not accept the figure of 75%. We believe it is unreasonable. When the Commonwealth heard that the bill might be in the tens of millions of dollars, it shuddered with fright. There has been an initial meeting of officers over these matters, and the Commonwealth is just beginning to realise what the compensation clauses really mean to it and to the Australian taxpayer. When it realises the total bill, it will run a mile. The circumstances in the Territory do not present a happy picture.
Fortunately, there are other aspects of life and government and the economy of the Territory which are very buoyant ...
Mr Bailey interjecting.
Mr PERRON: We will go forward.
Mr Bailey interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I ask the Chief Minister to resume his seat. The member for Wanguri is testing me sorely, and I will give him one warning only.
Mr PERRON: Mr Speaker, fortunately, there are compensatory aspects to life in the Territory which make the place not as dismal as the picture I am painting here. Nevertheless, we would certainly progress much faster if we could resolve some of these issues.
Page 522
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016