Ms CARNEY - 2005-08-24
On 19 July 2005, Paul Tyrrell, the CEO of your department, wrote to the CEO of the Department of Planning and Infrastructure. Attached to that letter was a document, a wish list from both the major land councils in the Northern Territory,. I seek leave to table that document, Madam Speaker.
Leave granted.
Ms CARNEY: which I now table. The document is being reviewed by your government. In the document, the Central Land Council writes that it wants:
Will you now give an unequivocal guarantee that you will not create a single act that will affect all land tenures, and, will you also take this opportunity to reassure Territorians that you will not allow the recognition of historical and traditional rights on currently unclaimable land?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I have not seen the document because it was sent from one CEO to another. I can understand that the land councils, as we have started a second term of government, do have aspirations about what they would like to see come into place. Over the last four years, this government has worked closely and effectively with issues concerning indigenous Territorians as related to land councils pretty effectively. We have had our moments;, however, I would certainly say that we have not fought them out in public on the whole.
I will be meeting with the land councils later this year to talk through issues about what we would like to achieve for indigenous Territorians, with their relevant role and the role where government intersects with the work of the land councils. The work we completed with them over two years ago on agreed amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act has set a track record, and is the way we will be moving to the future. I hope that, one day soon, the federal government might introduce those agreed amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act in the federal parliament. We have been waiting two years.
Ms Carney: And the answer to the question?
Ms MARTIN: Madam Speaker, I have not seen the document the Opposition Leader is talking about. It is an aspirational list. I have not seen any of those items and am not, of course, in a position to comment on things I do not understand. We are a government that clearly governs for all Territorians and we will proudly do that for the next four years.
Leave granted.
Ms CARNEY: which I now table. The document is being reviewed by your government. In the document, the Central Land Council writes that it wants:
- … the creation of a single act that recognises traditional as well as historical … residential land interests and could apply to non-pastoral land tenures.
Will you now give an unequivocal guarantee that you will not create a single act that will affect all land tenures, and, will you also take this opportunity to reassure Territorians that you will not allow the recognition of historical and traditional rights on currently unclaimable land?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I have not seen the document because it was sent from one CEO to another. I can understand that the land councils, as we have started a second term of government, do have aspirations about what they would like to see come into place. Over the last four years, this government has worked closely and effectively with issues concerning indigenous Territorians as related to land councils pretty effectively. We have had our moments;, however, I would certainly say that we have not fought them out in public on the whole.
I will be meeting with the land councils later this year to talk through issues about what we would like to achieve for indigenous Territorians, with their relevant role and the role where government intersects with the work of the land councils. The work we completed with them over two years ago on agreed amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act has set a track record, and is the way we will be moving to the future. I hope that, one day soon, the federal government might introduce those agreed amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act in the federal parliament. We have been waiting two years.
Ms Carney: And the answer to the question?
Ms MARTIN: Madam Speaker, I have not seen the document the Opposition Leader is talking about. It is an aspirational list. I have not seen any of those items and am not, of course, in a position to comment on things I do not understand. We are a government that clearly governs for all Territorians and we will proudly do that for the next four years.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016