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Land rights overhaul unworkable: UN

15 August 2006 - A United Nations expert has warned federal laws overhauling land rights in the Northern Territory are unwise and unworkable.

Laws fundamentally changing indigenous land management in the NT are expected to pass parliament on Tuesday night, despite strong criticism they are paternalistic and will strip Aborigines of their property rights.

UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing Miloon Kothari - invited by the federal government to assess Australia's housing needs - says the laws could be unworkable.

He has also warned against individualising land title arrangements in indigenous communities and says the UN will ask the government to reconsider the policy.

The government wants to offer Aborigines low-interest loans and 99-year leases on their land to encourage private ownership and economic development.

The changes would scrap the NT's 30-year-old scheme of communal land ownership under land council administration.

But Mr Kothari, who has spent the last two weeks touring Australia's capital cities and some indigenous communities, says the move is unwise.

"I'm quite sure that it's not going to work ... and we are hoping that it will be reconsidered," he said as his visit wrapped up.

Mr Kothari said home ownership arrangements for non-indigenous Australians were not necessarily suitable for Aborigines.

"I think you have larger issues of ... self-determination, you have issues of community title, land titling, you have issues of just the sheer lack of family or community resources to be able to engage in the housing market," he said.

"To be individualised I think is not a very wise step."

Australia could borrow from schemes in other countries, like community land trusts and cooperatives.
Mr Kothari also said the government's changes were largely unknown in the affected communities.
"I think that the act has been pushed through too hurriedly," he said.

"Whenever I visited places I asked both civil society groups working with the indigenous and the people themselves and nobody had even heard of the bill in the Northern Territory.

"I think there's certainly a lack of information and for something so significant which so significantly changes the terms of land essentially from a community right and a question of identity to an economic good where money can be made from leases ... I think needs to be very, very carefully considered."
Some aspects of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Bill 2006 could breach international law, like the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, he said.

Mr Kothari said he and the UN Special Rapporteur on indigenous populations would write to the government asking that it reconsider the overhaul.

But his comments were dismissed by the government in the Senate.

"We don't think the UN is the font of all wisdom. Sometimes the UN gets it right and sometimes it gets it wrong," government frontbencher Rod Kemp told parliament.

"The mere fact you have the UN (make) some comment doesn't make it right.

"We just don't dip our lid to anybody, you see. We're an independent country and an independent government."

© 2006 AAP

Source The Age

Further information:

• Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee Inquiry into the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Bill 2006

Federal Government aiming to steamroll controversial changes to Land Rights laws through the Senate this coming Tuesday!!

!! Urgent Action Alert !! from Senator Bartlett (Australian Democrats)

4 August 2006 - All parties, including the federal government, recognise that the Land Rights laws for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory are of fundamental importance. They were introduced in the early years of the Fraser government and have received broad cross-party support since that time.

However, legislation making major changes to the Land Rights Act, which was only unveiled at the end of May, is scheduled to be pushed through the Senate when it resumes this coming Tuesday, August 8th.

The government allowed only an extremely rushed Senate Committee Inquiry. Even the Government Senators on the Committee described the time made available for the Inquiry as "totally inadequate".

However, even this very truncated process showed there are clearly very serious concerns and misgivings about some of the changes amongst Traditional Owners and some of the Territory Land Councils.

 While there are also some changes within the legislation that have broad support, all non-government submissions provided to the Senate Inquiry identified areas of major concern, including the submission from the Australian Mining Council.

The submission of the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner expressed very strong concerns about the lack of consultation with the Indigenous people who will be directly affected by the changes, as well as with the likely impact of some of the changes.

Evidence provided to the Inquiry on the single day public hearings were able to be held also made it very clear that there has been no meaningful consultation with the people whose land ownership rights will be directly affected by many of the changes.

An attempt will be made in the Senate to split the legislation to allow the non-contentious changes aimed at improving the workability of the existing Land Rights law to be passed straight away; while deferring the contentious aspects so consultation and negotiation with affected parties, including traditional owners, can take place.

If you share my view that the contentious changes proposed to this critical area of law must not proceed without genuine consultation and informed consent from Traditional Owners and Land Councils, please urgently contact your Liberal and National Senators, asking them to support efforts to allow proper consultation with Indigenous people to take place on the contentious aspects of this legislation before they are passed into law.

My most serious concern is the lack of consultation with the people who will be directly affected by the changes, and the total lack of respect shown by this approach. If it the changes had the informed consent of traditional owners, I would support the legislation even if I had personal misgivings.

However, some of the specific components of the legislation itself which do concern me include:

• the potential for governments to be able pressure Aboriginal people to sign over their land to the government on 99 year leases;

• the fact that the rent payments on such leases will come straight out of the Aboriginal Benefits Account, meaning in effect that money that was already going to be spent for the benefit of local Aboriginal people will now be used on paying the rent on Aboriginal land;

• greater powers for the federal Minister to override Land Council decisions, reduce funding to Land Councils and to enable smaller Land Councils to be set up even when a significant proportion of traditional owners may be opposed to this happening;

• the automatic wiping out of a number of current land claims, (and the potential economic opportunities that go with them), that cover intertidal zones not contiguous with Aboriginal land - including a number which have already been recommend for granting by the Land Commissioner who assesses claims.

You can read the legislation and related information by clicking here. All of the submissions to the Inquiry can be viewed here, and the transcript of the hearings can be found here. The full report is available here. My own comments in the Senate Committee report can be read here.

Senator Andrew Bartlett

Please urgently join the camapign

Don't let the sun set on Indigenous land rights

Further information: native title issues page - includes news index and external links

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