Australian Financial Review March 20, 1999 http://www.afr.com.au/content/990320/news/news9.html UN committee finds Australia's Native Title Act discriminatory By Geoffrey Barker The Federal Government is embroiled in an internationally embarrassing row over findings by a key United Nations committee that racially discriminatory provisions "pervade" its amended Native Title Act. The Federal Attorney-General, Mr Daryl Williams, condemned the finding on Friday as "unbalanced" and "an insult to Australia", and claimed the committee did not understand Australia's system of democracy. But Labor's spokesman on Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Daryl Melham, said the Government had harmed itself and Australia by ignoring advice from the Commonwealth General Counsel, Mr Henry Burmester, that the Native Title Act amendments would be in conflict with Australia's international obligations. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called on the Federal Government to suspend implementation of the 1998 Native Title Act amendments and re-open discussions with representatives of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. It said the aim of the discussions should be to find solutions acceptable to the indigenous peoples which would comply with Australia's obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Intensifying the Government's embarrassment, the committee found the Keating Government's Native Title Act recognised and sought to protect indigenous title. But, it added, "provisions that extinguish or impair the exercise of indigenous title rights and interests pervade the amended act". "The amended Act appears to create legal certainty for governments and third parties at the expense of indigenous title," the committee said. It said four provisions of the amended Act raised concerns about Australia's compliance with Articles 2 and 5 of the convention which commit Australia to eliminate racial discrimination and to ensure equality before the law, including equality of property rights. The provisions were the so-called "validation" provisions, the "confirmation of extinguishment" provisions, the primary production upgrade provisions and restrictions on the rights of indigenous title holders to negotiate non-indigenous land uses. Mr Williams retorted by noting media reports that "some committee members conceded that they had not understood the material presented to the committee". "As Australia stressed to the committee the Government sought to obtain a consensus in relation to its response to the Wik decision. Despite significant efforts such a consensus was not possible," he said. Mr Melham said the committee finding totally vindicated Labor's opposition to the amendments. "The Attorney-General is trying to shoot the messenger," he said. "The Government got into trouble on its own despite repeated warnings, and has been hugely embarrassed internationally," he said. c This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited. ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
