Forwarded from Christine Howes:
from Ian at 4AAA
The Queensland Indigenous Working Group used a meeting with Federal
Attorney-General Daryl Williams (Thursday, Decemember 2) to raise
concerns
with both state and commonwealth native title legislation.
Working Group chair Terry O’Shane said the drafting of the state
legislation
was fundamentally flawed and breached Australia’s international
rights
obligations.
“We believe the legislation is a racist piece of legislation,” he
said. “We
believe that the federal legislation is exactly the same.”
“We are concerned that the governments, State and Federal, haven’t
taken
into consideration the report of the Committee on the Elimination
of Racial
Discrimination.
“Australia are signatories to this convention, and we believe that
they have
aborted any semblance of even paying lip service to the convention
in terms
of their obligations.”
Major sticking points in the state legislation identified by the
Queensland
Indigenous Working Group include the erosion of native title
holders’ right
to negotiate, and the reliance on discredited existing state
legislation for
the protection of indigenous cultural heritage.
National Indigenous Working Group deputy chair Les Malezer said the
Queensland government was effectively proposing to endorse racist
legislation passed by the Howard government.
Mr Malezer said the state native title legislation takes away the
rights to
negotiate from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
“It does not meet the minimum standards set in the Race
Discrimination Act
and in the human rights instruments of Australia,” he said.
“We’re going to have an extremely different result in Queensland
for people
depending on whether they’re black or whether they’re miners or
pastoralists.”
Mr Malezer said the endorsement of the Queensland legislation at a
federal
level would lead to widespread protest by Indigenous groups.
“If they go ahead and put this legislation into force, they will
get
absolutely no cooperation in this state from the native title
representative
bodies,” he said.
“They will get no cooperation from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander
organisations, or from the people.
“We will not go into the year 2000 and onwards cooperating to
implement
racist legislation.
“We will go in fighting for our rights, we will resume the land
rights
battle that we ran in the 1970s, we will protest in the most
vigorous way,
and we will protest during the year 2000 when there are Olympic
games.
“There is no longer a spirit of goodwill between ourselves and the
government.
The Queensland Indigenous Working Group encouraged the
Attorney-General to
reject the Beattie Government’s native title legislation.
“We’ve talked to the federal minister,” said Mr O’Shane, “and we
don’t
believe that the Attorney General should go to the parliament
proposing the
acceptance of this state legislation based on the lack of
protection that
exists within the State Cultural Heritage Act.”
Mr Malezer said the only recourse now available was for the
Attorney-General to refuse to implement this state regime, or for
the
Federal Parliament to reject the state regime.
“If those things don’t happen, then we have no more opportunity to
dialogue,” he said.
“We have no more opportunity to work with governments, to work with
parliaments for our human rights and our interests, and we have to
find
another way to do it.”
Federal Attorney-General Daryl Williams said Queensland has failed
to
consult on the complex legilsation, despite Premier Beattie’s
promise to do
so.
Mr Williams denied the federal amendments to the Native Title Act
were in
breach of Australia’s human rights obligations.
“I have explained, as I have explained many times in the past on
what I
regard as an ‘old hat’ issue now, that the government does not
accept the
decision of the CERD committee,” he said.
“As a government we do not accept at all that we are acting in
breach of the
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial
Discrimination, we do
not believe that we are acting in breach of the Racial
Discrimination Act in
any way.”
Mr Williams said the meeting with Indigenous representative bodies
was a
valuable adjunct to the submission process he is required to
undertake while
making determinations about the compliance of the state regime to
the Native
Tilte Act.
“The representatives of the indigenous representative bodies have
indicated
to me that they intend to make written submissions on the
Queensland
legislation, and to provide them by the time requested,” he said.
The final date for submissions on the Queensland native title
legislation is
14 January 2000, and Mr Williams said he would consider all
submissions
genuinely and openly.
“I will consider those submissions, and they will be taken into
account in
making a determination as to whether the Queensland legislation
does comply
with the Native Title Act.”
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