Page 3474 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 11 October 1994
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for my party on Aboriginal affairs, made it clear that the Liberal Party in the ACT supported the process which Mabo had initiated and indicated on behalf of the party that we felt strongly that there ought to be appropriate steps taken to guarantee the rights which the Mabo decision by the High Court had opened up.
Mr Berry: You also tried to put the wind up everybody about it.
MR HUMPHRIES: No. I think it is important to bear in mind exactly what the Liberal Party said. The Liberal Party's only qualificational statement in respect of the question of native title was that there should be legislation to validate existing leases.
Mr Berry: Disgraceful!
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Berry says that that is disgraceful.
Mr Berry: No; you were disgraceful. Your behaviour was disgraceful, but you are up to par.
MR HUMPHRIES: That is what this legislation is doing tonight.
Ms Follett: That is not all you said.
MR HUMPHRIES: I invite the Chief Minister to tell the Assembly what it was that we said, apart from that.
Ms Follett: Not "we"; you.
MR HUMPHRIES: What I said, apart from that. I invite her to indicate to the Assembly what that was. We indicated at the time that we were concerned about the effect of not validating existing title, and we said that we supported the process but that it should be clear from the outset that existing title in the ACT was protected. Both the Chief Minister and Mr Connolly - I am not quite sure what he brought to the argument - indicated that the suggestion that there needed to be a validation of existing title was scaremongering; that there was no need for this to take place because there was no possibility of any successful native title claim being made against residential or commercial property in the ACT. I say to the Government: If that was so, why is this Bill before the Assembly tonight, and why does it make clear that existing title - past acts, as it is put in the Bill - is in fact valid, and has always been valid in this process? The answer, of course, is that the call that we made, at that time, was a valid call. It was a call for that protection to be put in place.
Mr Berry: You cannot justify what you did, Gary. You just cannot justify what you did, try as you might.
MR HUMPHRIES: Again, Mr Berry, I invite you to get up in this debate and say what it is in this process, in this debate about Mabo and its aftermath, that we have said that you would disagree with. Tell us what it is we have actually said - not the general innuendo, as Mr Connolly was referring to earlier today. I do not want to know about the innuendo. I heard the comments Mr Berry made this morning on radio about
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