Debates Day 2 - Wednesday 27 November 2002
Parliamentary Record 9
Debates for 9th Assembly 2001 - 2005; ParliamentNT; Parliamentary Record; 9th Assembly 2001 - 2005
2002-11-27
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Debates
Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
Darwin
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DEBATES - Wednesday 27 November 2002 a very good and effective scheme put down on the books way back in 1979, way ahead of anyone else having a scheme like this. It was a novel, innovative first for the Territory. It still stands us in good stead today and it will continue to stand us in good stead with the benefits of these amendments behind it. Motion agreed to, bill read a third time. CROWN PROCEEDINGS AMENDMENT BILL (Serial 100) Continued from 10 October 2002. Mr MALEY (Goyder): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I indicate that the opposition will be supporting the bill. It was a very short second reading speech. I am not going to go into minutiae of what sections 13(1), (2) and (3) and section 21 of the act actually do and what they once did. However, they are being repealed. There is no information currently prescribed by the Supreme Court rules to be endorsed on a process against the Territory Crown, as the Attorney-General quite properly said. Accordingly, there would not appear to be any requirement for the current provisions in those sections 13 and 21. I echo what the Attorney-General said. They do not serve any other purpose and we will not be opposing this bill. In fact, we will be supporting this particular bill. Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I thank the opposition for their support. They took two steps: they did not oppose it and then actually supported it. That is good. This is just a technical amendment to a bill. These are sections that the courts have not found the need to use, so the bill is simply repealing section 13(1), (2) and (3) and section 21, to remove the possibility within the current act of the court annexing a statement of constraints, I suppose, on processes that are being taken against the Territory Crown. I hope I got that right. It is really at the request of the Justices that these amendments be introduced and, for that reason, we would want to accommodate them. Motion agreed to; bill read a second time. Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General) (by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time. Motion agreed to; bill read a third time. ASSOCIATIONS INCORPORATION AMENDMENT BILL (Serial 97) Continued from 17 September 2002. Mr MALEY (Goyder): Madam Speaker, I indicate the opposition will be supporting the passage of this bill. I do not intend to say too much on it. It relates to the prescribed property provisions of the Associations Incorporation Act as they apply to Aboriginal community living areas. The proposed amendment will permit the minister to consent to deal in land in a limited number of circumstances. The Attorney-General, in his very succinct second reading speech, talked about the spirit of an agreement between the Prime Minister and the then Chief Minister in 1989 and these amendments are confirming that agreement and reflect a clarification of probably an oversight in the previous legislation, probably could not have foreseen what was going to occur with the prescribed property. In any event, I do not intend to labour the point. The opposition will be supporting this legislation. Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Madam Speaker, through at least the first decade after the passage of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act in 1976, it was possible to identify two classes of Aboriginal people living in that vast expanse of the Northern Territory that lies outside the principal towns and population centres along the Stuart Highway. First, there were those whose traditional country, or part of it, lay within a previously designated Aboriginal reserve, or on some kind of unalienated Crown land. The Aboriginal reserves were simply transferred whole, or scheduled to Aboriginal land trusts established for that purpose. Other areas of unalienated Crown land were available for claim under the land claims process set up under the act, and such claims quickly followed to a range of areas from the Top End to the Centre. Then there were those Aboriginal people whose traditional land lay within the pastoral leases that had been granted, held and extended over much of the country that the Territory had to offer. The Land Rights Act allowed land claims to be made over pastoral lease land only when all the interests in the pastoral lease were held by, or on behalf of, Aboriginal people, although there are a handful of pastoral lease purchases funded by the former Aboriginal Development Commission during the 1980s. The phenomenon of Aboriginal tenure over a significant percentage of the Northern Territory pastoral lease estate is comparatively recent. Many Aboriginal people who had given the 3086