Page 4740 - Week 15 - Thursday, 16 December 1993
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This week Australia is hosting the third World Indigenous People's Conference on Education in Wollongong. The conference is a major event on the calendar for the international year and over 3,000 delegates will be attending from around the world to discuss and learn from the educational and life experiences of indigenous peoples throughout the world. The conference will initiate the drafting of an international charter of indigenous education rights and will be a celebration of the oldest continuous cultures in the world.
I am pleased to advise the Assembly that the ACT Government has provided financial assistance to enable a delegation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from the ACT to attend the conference. Members of the delegation are keen not only to contribute to the conference but also to ensure that the ideas discussed are reported back to the relevant ACT government agencies so that existing policies and programs can better meet the needs of indigenous Australians.
In reviewing the international year it is important that we reflect upon the High Court's Mabo decision and its implications. Members will be aware that I have consistently agreed that a national response to the High Court's decision is needed. It is in this context that I welcome the introduction of the Commonwealth's Native Title Bill into the Federal Parliament. The Government believes that, based upon its assessment of a necessarily complex piece of legislation and without the insights that would be available from seeing the proposed law in operation, the Commonwealth Bill has struck an appropriate balance between certainty of land administration and justice for the peoples who were inhabitants of Australia before European settlement.
In particular, the Bill creates a manageable framework within which existing titles may be validated and native title determined and managed. It also offers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples an important practical recognition of their rights and interests in native title land as well as an acknowledgment of the extent of dispossession of lands that has occurred. Of course there are issues in relation to the Commonwealth's legislation that remain to be settled. These include any amendments that may result from the debate in the Senate; and, as acknowledged by the Prime Minister in his second reading speech, negotiation with the States and Territories regarding the costs of the overall scheme is needed.
From an ACT perspective, these discussions will need to recognise that in the ACT the Commonwealth Government itself had complete responsibility for land management prior to self-government. Overall I am confident that, subject to a satisfactory resolution of financial issues and timely passage of an acceptable Bill through the Senate, the ACT will be participating in the national system and introducing complementary ACT legislation early in 1994.
Madam Speaker, as members will be aware, there will be very many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for whom the Mabo decision and the provisions of the Commonwealth Bill dealing with native title will do little. These are the people for whom dispossession is complete and for whom native title does not survive. So, while the practical effect of the High Court's decision will not touch these people, I hope that its symbolic impact and in particular the key role played by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives in negotiating a national response will create a platform for broader reconciliation.
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