‘Paternal rules stifle indigenous development’, says National Native Title Council
The system that relies on a network of charitable trusts to hold billions in mining royalties on behalf of traditional owners is broken: indigenous council.
The system that relies on a network of charitable trusts to hold billions in mining royalties on behalf of traditional owners is broken, according to the National Native Title Council.
The council, which represents Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people around Australia, is calling for a nationwide model that encourages enterprise and job creation.
NNTC chief executive Jamie Lowe said the practice of holding native title payments in charitable trusts replicated a welfare model.
He said traditional owners wanted to determine their futures and participate in the economy using money from native title agreements but “it is very hard to do that if all our money is tied up in charitable trusts. How can we do it? How can we raise capital and make other investments?”
He said the NNTC had begun talking to government, industry, land councils and other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations about nationwide reform amid calls for a full judicial inquiry into the governance of Indigenous corporations.
“The NNTC is working with other stakeholders in the sector on ways native title corporations can manage income and other benefits in an alternative ways to the charitable trust system, which is administratively complex and burdensome, and most importantly takes decision-making powers away from native title corporations and communities,” Mr Lowe said.
“Charitable trusts could be one option open to native title holders in order to deliver on particular services to their communities, but it should not be the only option available to them.
“To limit native title holders to that model is patronising and does not allow for self-determination. When native title holders are limited to this model and are forced to look to the trust for payments, it replicates the welfare model but perversely using their money.”
In recent months, three corporations or trusts have been placed under special administration by the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations. In South Australia, the finances of the Adnyamathanha Traditional Lands Association is also the subject of a police investigation.
Warren Mundine, a founding member of the NNTC, said there were a range of problems with what he described as an outdated and paternalistic system of charitable trusts that stifled economic development.
He said it was clear as early as 2006 that a proliferation of prescribed body corporates would run into governance issues, partly because they did not have the right governance support.
“We need a proper inquiry, a proper transparent open discussion that brings in people from mining, agriculture, traditional owner groups and Indigenous businesses,” Mr Mundine said.
“In the past 15 years, Australia has changed. We have produced more than 500 Indigenous lawyers, there are over 1200 Indigenous businesses and we need to have people like that at the table.
“You look at some people running these big trusts and you just think ‘What on earth?’ ”
Marcus Holmes, principal at Land Equity Legal — a native title, mining and environmental law firm — is among those concerned that the complexities of the charitable trust system make traditional owners reliant on non-Indigenous trustee specialists who charge very high fees.
“(They) can find it onerous and difficult to comply with trust and related governance requirements because of the complexity of native title trust management structures and reporting obligations that invariably far exceed what trust and governance law requires,” Mr Holmes said. “This can be beneficial for the large professional trustee companies … because they can make quite a lot of money out of charging fees.”
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