AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT'S AMENDMENTS ERODE COMMON LAW
RIGHTS OF FIRST PEOPLES - INDIGENOUS SOCIAL JUSTICE
COMMISSIONER
Extracts from The Australian newspaper, 19 Sept, of
report by Cameron Forbes on the tabling in Parliament of
the annual report of the Aboriginal Social Justice
Commissioner:
Dodson attacks shift on native title.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
Commissioner, Mr Mick Dodson, has attacked the
government's approach to the development of the
Australian nation and the values which will shape
its future.
In his annual report on the operation of the Native
Title act and its impact on human rights, Mr Dodson
says proposed amendments claimed to improve the
Act's workability "represent a fundamental shift
away form protecting indigenous rights to privileged
non-indigenous interests, principally the mining
industry."
"They represent an erosion of rights at common law,
they breach international human rights standards and
contravene the Racial Discrimination Act."
...[The report-R] is a response to government
proposals which include the removal of the right of
Aborigines to negotiate on mining exploration and
prospecting activity, limiting negotiation to the
production stage.
...
He says that the Government's claimed aim of
"workability" is a wooden horse concealing
amendments to erode the rights of indigenous
Australians as well as proposals which would work
effectively to extinguish native title on pastoral
leases, something the Government has pledged not to
do legislatively.
"There is a profound reluctance, perhaps inability.
to accept native title for what it is: a distinctive
title with rights defined by indigenous law and
entitled to protection on its own terms," Mr Dodson
says.
"The protection of native title rights and interests
in land cannot be arbitrarily removed by the
Government. Provisions, such as the right to
negotiate, are necessary to accord substantive
equality...The failure to do so is racially
discriminatory."
(extract ends)
Bruce Reyburn
19 September 1996