Opinion: Labor delay on native title hurts economy and its legacy

A MINORITY group will will lose out if the Adani megamine project fails to get off the ground. And it’s part of a larger Labor failure.

Notwithstanding federal Labor leader Bill Shorten and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s assurances in support of the Adani project, the Labor Left is undertaking a concerted campaign against the mine.

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AS NATIONAL president of the Labor Party I saw up close that indigenous affairs were not high on the priority list in the cut and thrust of politics. There just aren’t enough votes in it.

Indigenous people represent around 3 per cent of the population, and most voters don’t turn their minds to indigenous affairs from one day to the next. It’s also why Aboriginal people become pawns in a wider game.

That’s what happened in the last sitting of Federal Parliament when Labor refused to pass a set of changes to the Native Title Act in the Senate, which would enable traditional owners to make indigenous land use agreements (ILUAs) in respect of their land.

These are a set of changes the Labor Party supports, all native title representative organisations and most Aboriginal people also support, and that the Australian Law Reform Commission recommended.

In fact, Aboriginal and native title organisations have lobbied for these changes for around a decade, when problems in the Native Title Act became apparent which meant native title holders couldn’t enter into ILUAs without unanimous approval of the original applicants to the native title claim.

Unanimous approval is a threshold no parliament, board, shareholder group, local council, not even your local football association, has to pass to make a decision. But it’s a threshold traditional owners remain subject to, until Labor can be bothered to pass the amendments.

Why would Labor refuse to pass legislation it, and almost all affected by it, supports?

Labor says that they need to consult more. But the groups they’ll consult will tell them exactly what they have been telling successive attorneys-general for a decade and have told Labor in recent months: that the law needs to be fixed.

The real reason is Aboriginal people are caught in a compromise between the Green Left of politics, which infests the Labor Left, and the Labor Right, over the Adani mine. By delaying the amendments, Labor has given the Green Left a concession.

Warren Mundine writes that Labor risks squandering the legacy that began with the Native Title Act 1993.

For at least another month, maybe longer, the Adani project will be in doubt because its ILUA with the Wangan and Jagalingou People Native Title Claim Group, which voted 294 to one in favour of the ILUA, didn’t receive unanimous support of the native title applicants. One more month for the minority Wangan and Jagalingou opponents of the mine to pursue further court challenges.

Notwithstanding federal Labor leader Bill Shorten and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s assurances in support of the Adani project, the Labor Left is undertaking a concerted campaign against the mine. And they don’t care about Aboriginal people or their native title rights.

It’s no coincidence that Adani’s board is yet to make its final investment decision on whether to pursue the mine. Opponents hope this delay and uncertainty will lead the Adani board to abandon the project, just as Woodside abandoned the James Price Point project in 2013.

Too bad for everyone else. Too bad for the 126 ILUAs now invalid since the Federal Court decision that prevents majority voting to approve ILUAs. Too bad the National Native Title Tribunal had frozen registration of all new ILUAs following that decision. Too bad many other ILUAs are now in legal limbo and vulnerable to litigation.

All these ILUAs impact major infrastructure and other projects across Australia, projects which will create jobs and boost the economy. ILUAs that will enable Aboriginal people to get off welfare and find jobs and opportunities in their own communities.

Labor’s inaction doesn’t just affect people with native title rights. It affects everyone.

Native title impacts most of Australia’s land mass. The idea that ILUAs could be negated by a minority of disgruntled individuals, often with activist backing, opposing what the majority of traditional owners want, is absurd. It threatens all development in Australia – which is what the Green Left want. And it threatens Australia’s economy.

For the past decade, major mining, infrastructure and other projects have bounced around courtrooms like footballs. Time and money has been wasted while traditional owner groups defend their ILUAs against activists using them to stop development.

This will now continue for the indefinite future.

Maybe Adani will abandon the project. If it doesn’t, how long will Labor keep delaying these amendments it supposedly supports?

Rousing speeches and symbolic gestures aside, Labor’s greatest achievement for Aboriginal people was passing the Native Title Act in 1993. Failing to pass these amendments means it may as well not have bothered.

Labor is allowing its own legacy to curl up and die.

Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO is former CEO of NTSCorp, NSW’s native title service provider, and a former national president of the Australian Labor Party

Members of the Seed Youth Indigenous Climate Network gathered on the lawn of Parliament House to urge politicians not to support the Native Title Amendment (Indigenous Land Use Agreements) Bill 2017.