Page 3616 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 19 October 1993
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Ms Follett: Rubbish!
MR HUMPHRIES: I quote some things Ms Follett said on the previous occasion:
... [as] a consequence of Commonwealth legislation, the implications of the Mabo decision for the ACT are not straightforward. It is very unlikely that existing residential, commercial or rural leases will be affected by a Mabo-style claim.
Subsequently there was a claim lodged by the Ngunnawal people in respect of the whole of the ACT and very large parts of surrounding New South Wales. The Chief Minister did not say that an Aboriginal claim would not be made; she said that it was unlikely to be successful. That point was consistently made by the Government, I admit, for some time. That was a primary reason for the Government at that early stage describing as scaremongering calls by the Liberal Party for action to be taken to validate existing titles in the ACT.
Mr Berry: Which they were - scandalous scaremongering.
MR HUMPHRIES: Let us be clear about this. That was the extent of the Liberal Party's demands, if you like, its calls, in this debate. Mr Berry might make other assertions, but he will not find us at any stage saying anything other than that the uncertainty created by Mabo demanded that the ACT Government, either by itself or in conjunction with the Federal Government, think about validating existing land titles in the ACT. Again and again, that was the contribution we made in this debate.
Mr Berry: Just scaremongering.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Berry says that it was scaremongering to demand that existing titles be validated. Strangely, in the light of Mr Berry's view, that is precisely what the Federal Government, and I take it the ACT Government at the same time, has decided to do - to legislate to validate existing titles.
Ms Follett: I said that from the start.
MR HUMPHRIES: If that was all you were saying - - -
Ms Follett: That is not all I was saying.
MR HUMPHRIES: That was certainly all we were saying, and in the circumstances you ought to have the good grace to apologise for having attacked the Liberal Party position on this question. We have been consistent in this matter. We said that the Mabo judgment by the High Court in 1992 raised issues in respect of the ACT which needed to be addressed and that the best way of addressing those issues was by validating existing titles in the ACT. The Chief Minister does not have the good grace to admit that that was sensible advice to offer to her Government. She does not have the good grace to acknowledge that the advice we offered at that stage is now being adopted by this Government and taken up.
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