ABC Wik crunch-time The World Today - Tuesday, August31, 199912:37 COMPERE: It's crunch time on Native Title, according to Western Australia's Premier Richard Court, as today the Senate in Canberra appears poised to veto the Northern Territory Native Title legislation, which was drawn up under Mr Howard's Ten-Point Wik Plan, was passed by the Parliament last November. The Prime Minister's legislation handed Native Title powers over to the states and territories, of course, but at the insistence of independent Senator Brian Harradine, it also gave the Senate the power of a one-off review on the state legislation. And today the Australian Democrats have joined Labor and the Greens Senator Bob Brown in announcing that they'll disallow the Territory legislation. More from our chief political correspondent, Matt Peacock: MATT PEACOCK: For the Labor Party it's a case of "I told you so", the much vaunted certainty promised by the Prime Minister for the mining and pastoral industries is an illusion, with the Senate still holding the power of veto, that it's unwilling to relinquish over state and territory laws. The Northern Territory, according to Labor leader Kim Beazley, needs to learn how to negotiate properly with the Aboriginal land councils that it sought to abolish. And with all of the Native Title issue, he warns, the best solution is still direct negotiations. KIM BEAZLEY: I think what needs to be understood very, very clearly, by all those with an interest in this, is that the Aboriginal claimants don't have to use the Native Title Act. If they choose to they can stand outside it and go the route of common law claims. Wik's a common law claim that hasn't been settled yet. Mabo was originally a common law claim. They take years and years, and any development can be successfully stopped, effectively stopped, whenever there is a claim over a particular area. It's to avoid that sort of thing that we went down the Native Title route But that's why it's important that when you do something like that Northern Territory legislation, that all parties to it are happy with the outcome. MATT PEACOCK: The Northern Territory Government says, though, that it has negotiated with Aboriginal land councils; they, in turn, say simply that they don't trust the Government not to change its legislation after the Senate might approve it. And to solve that bind, according to Senator Brian Harradine, the Territory's Chief Minister, Denis Burke, had agreed last Friday to resubmit any changes that might be made. The next State expected to present legislation to the Federal Parliament for approval is likely to be Queensland, and there, according to its Premier Peter Beattie, Mr Beazley has promised that Federal Labor will pass it, probably guaranteeing its passage. But no such indulgence is likely for the State after that in the queue, Western Australia; which is why Liberal Premier Richard Court was on the phone last night with the Democrats seeking their support. There and in the Northern Territory, he says, thousands of mining applications are being kept waiting. RICHARD COURT: It's just not seen as an issue on the east coast. The fact that we have got our Title system log-jammed, that people can't get titles out the other end, and we've got this growing, growing litigation that's taking place, everything's bogged down in the courts; it really is not a high priority I can assure you on the east coast. But it is absolutely critical to the future development of this State and to places like the Northern Territory, but it would appear that the Federal Parliament is trying to basically sort of push the Northern Territory into subservience, saying that "we want to tick off everything that you do". Now for a Territory that is moving towards Statehood . . . 6BR COMPERE: Well I don't know whether it is, is it? Maybe they should have voted for Statehood. RICHARD COURT: Well first time it didn't go that way, but eventually I'm sure that will happen. And we are a State, we are a sovereign State; we have the responsibility for land and resource management, and I think it's becoming a bit ludicrous that we have the Federal Parliament telling us what and what we can't do. COMPERE: Richard Court, the Premier of Western Australia, speaking this morning on 6BR commercial radio in Perth, and also this morning our chief political correspondent Matt Peacock spoke to the Queensland Premier Peter Beattie. MATT PEACOCK: Mr Beattie what exactly has Mr Beazley promised you? PETER BEATTIE: Well I haven't spoken to Kim directly, but I've spoken to his senior staff and, obviously, I've raised my concerns about these issues. They assure us that because we've got a negotiated outcome on the issue of Native Title, where we sat down with indigenous working groups, the mining industry and the pastoralists, then they're not going to support a disallowance of a negotiated and sensible outcome for Native Title in this State. Now I'm pleased about all of that because, frankly, we've put through four pieces of legislation through the Queensland Parliament to establish the State-based regime here. It's a good one, it's workable, it supports jobs, it supports growth, but it's also fair to indigenous Queenslanders. So under those circumstances we think it should be supported. It's now been finalised, we're waiting for the final ticks in the Federal Parliament. MATT PEACOCK: Of course the Northern Territory Government says it sat down with its Aboriginal land councils too. It would seem that there might be one law applying for a Labor State and another for a conservative State. PETER BEATTIE: Well the Prime Minister referred these to the states to establish state-based regimes. Now, clearly, it was envisaged that there'd be some differences, otherwise why not have one Federal/national approach. Now I don't know about the Northern Territory, that's an issue you'd have to explore with Brian Burke. But I know in our case we sat down and we came up with a fair outcome. Now I don't have a problem, Matt; let me make this very clear. I do not have a problem with the Federal legislation being amended to mean that any changes to any state-based regime would be subject to disallowance. I don't have a problem with that. We all thought that was the case anyway, and there's some muck up in the Federal legislation. Now that's not our problem. We've gone away - because the Prime Minister threw us the ball. He said to the states: "If you want a state-based regime, go off and do it"; well we did it. And we worked very hard at it. I took personal responsibility for it as the Premier. I established a Native Title Unit in my Department and I spend a lot of energy and time getting the [inaudible] to work this through. Now when you get a fair negotiated outcome and you reflect it in legislation, our view is that that should be implemented and ticked by the Federal Parliament. COMPERE: Peter Beattie, a politician on the move there in his official ministerial car, speaking to our chief political correspondent Matt Peacock. © 1999 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce 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." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/
