Mr MARTIN FERGUSON(1.04 p.m.) —It is with some sorrow that I rise to speak in this debate. I say that because I believe that the thrust of this bill is an endeavour to turn the clock back. I think it was with some pride that, in the last couple of years, Australia as a nation has sought to make a statement that it really wanted to deliver and develop the concept of one nation—a nation committed to doing something for the betterment of all Australians irrespective of their background.

In that context, I say that I very much support the thrust of the second reading amendment moved by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Mr Evans. The problem for the House today is that the thrust of this bill is really an endeavour by the Howard government to force a debate about Wik and native title, and it is a guise to launch a major attack on some of the most needy and disadvantaged people in our nation. That really is what the thrust of the bill is about—turning the clock back and walking away from the needs of the most disadvantaged of this nation.

For many years Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders were the people who were out of sight and out of mind. They very much sought the help of many members of the Howard government. But the Howard government considered them out of sight and out of mind, and had the capacity to turn their backs on the needs of the most disadvantaged people in the nation while they feathered their own nests in government.

My position is that I think the Australian community at large is of the view that it is no longer possible to argue that they are the forgotten Australians. The tide has turned. It is not just the alarming issues of poor health, appalling living standards, shocking education levels and the lack of employment that have kept indigenous Australians in the public consciousness.

The broader Australian community has come to look with pride on the expressions of a unique and vibrant culture which has correctly attracted international attention through artists and musicians and people such as Yothu Yindi and Christine Anu. Wherever we go as a nation now we stand with some pride when we consider the achievements of our indigenous people. But the problem with this government is that it likes to embrace the Olympic champions, the international artists and the international musicians, but when it comes to the nitty gritty of really trying to do something about the most disadvantaged in the community, it wants to drive a wedge between mainstream Australia and those in the most disadvantaged places in Australia.

I take, for example, Yothu Yindi in particular. Through their songs they have popularised the ambitions and struggles of indigenous Australians for land rights as an expression of their culture. Long years of deprivation, dispossession, abuse and neglect have left enduring scars, and so they ought to. None of us can be proud of those scars, but it comes back to an endeavour and a commitment to actually do something to ensure that we overcome those scars in the future.

But,  despite those scars, a vibrant culture is attracting the attention and support of the wider Australian community and the world. The Howard government has got to understand that, with respect to this debate, not only are Australian eyes on the House of Representatives today but also, more importantly, the international community is monitoring what happens with respect to this bill.

I suggest that the government's mishandling of the debate over Wik will reverberate around the world. No longer does Australia walk tall internationally. We have a Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Downer) who has no international standing at all. The debate about Wik will further diminish Australia's standing internationally.

I refer, for example, to the action in part of the Attorney-General (Mr Williams) which I suggest is part of a pattern of activity which reveals that this government see native title as an intrusion—an encumbrance—which they want to get rid of any way they can if at all possible. It is a problem that they want to sweep under the carpet because they are not committed to doing something to assist the indigenous people—some of the most disadvantaged people in this nation.

It really is a massive irony that this government is acting firmly and resolutely against property rights just because the property holders, on this occasion, are not white. That is what it is all about—property rights for the white community but not for those with black faces.

The Liberal and National parties, after all, are the parties that trumpet their core ideological belief in property rights—yes, property rights for the whites but not the blacks. The Liberal and National parties, after all, are the parties which strut the Australian political stage declaiming their belief in law and order.

In the Wik decision, the High Court, I would suggest, has decisively ruled that, yes, all Australians are entitled to property rights whether they have a black face or a white face. The High Court decision recognises the property rights—and correctly so—of indigenous Australians. The government might not like it, some pastoralists might not like it, some miners might not like it, but it is the law of the land and so it ought to be. It is the only way forward for Australia—a sense of security, a sense of opportunity for all Australians.

Yes, the ruling might be inconvenient to the coalition government. That is why they are prepared to ignore the High Court decision as they run off to church and profess that they want to do something about the disadvantaged in this country. But, when it comes to making hard decisions and taking decisive actions, the real problem is that they will go missing in action in the same way that they have historically gone missing in action when it comes to leadership, commitment and a willingness to do something.

I suggest that the government's pig-headed attitude to Wik may actually become a very costly enterprise to Australia at a time when we need stability and security so as to attract investment and create jobs. I refer to the Australian Law Reform Commission and the fact that it has pointed out and warned that the government's plans for native title will not deliver legal certainty but only deliver very costly litigation—all the way back to the High Court.

My colleague the shadow minister for Aboriginal affairs, Mr Melham, has correctly tried to constructively argue this same case through the long months of public debate about these amendments, but the government, for some strange reason, has turned a deaf ear to these warnings. I might also say that the government has become very sensitive when it comes to the Wik bill because there is not a favourable legal opinion lodged with the joint committee on native title except—and we are not surprised—for the legal opinion from the Attorney-General's Department, from an Attorney-General who has a huge question mark over his head today not only with respect to his future capacity to serve in the Howard government but also, more importantly, with respect to his standing in the legal community. And that is not to be dismissed. It is a major problem for the government and it is a major problem for law and order in Australia.

One of the greatest strengths of the Native Title Act as it now stands is that, wherever possible, it minimises the role of lawyers and it minimises the adversarial system of the courts. The Native Title Act, as it now stands, allows for a resolution of differences in a non-adversarial, informal setting with emphasis on mediation.

The coalition now wishes to undermine this important process and introduce a costly legal process. Litigation will not only hurt indigenous Australia but hurt the mining and farming communities and the wider economic interests of this nation. This is what this is all about: not just the needs, aspirations and rights of the Australian indigenous community but also the economic needs of a great nation—the Australian nation—a nation that ought to be committed to ensuring that we all have the same rights, irrespective of whether they are property rights or opportunities for decent health, education and training.

The right to negotiate, I suggest, has been a key part of the Native Title Act and it has been the opposition's contention all along that the decision to extinguish this right will be constitutionally invalid. I believe that this right to negotiate is a crucial element in allowing meaningful input by indigenous people into real decision making—a sense of emancipation and encouragement to participate—about the development of their communities, their lands and their futures.

Since the right to negotiate was established, we have seen the indigenous community come up with some creative uses of this new-found right. Win-win solutions for all Australians have been the end result of that right to negotiate, especially, for example, the negotiated regional agreements which have put a heavy emphasis on a range of core needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

My commitment to native title is based on a strong belief that we can only expect to achieve this important goal of reconciliation if we see native title as being part of a wider package which fronts up to the other stark problems that the indigenous community faces in Australia as we approach the 21st century.

Regional agreements front up to exactly that issue. People negotiate, through regional agreements, ways to resolve crucial health, education, housing and job issues for indigenous Australians. The ability to come up with regional agreements, based on the right to negotiate, has empowered many indigenous communities with the right to determine, often for the first time, their own priorities. A right to have some control of the future will, in time, impact on the stark statistics which confront us when we look at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population.

I refer to these statistics today because, as far as I am concerned, you cannot separate the Wik debate and the issue of native title from your commitment to do something about the basic issues of health, education and jobs. Reconciliation and an effective Native Title Act should be used by all sides—yes, all sides—to ensure that, as we go into the 21st century, we develop acceptable and effective plans to resolve the stark statistics of Aboriginal life.

The release of the findings of the national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander survey in 1995 has widened our knowledge of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population. The survey shows that, while a high incidence of health problems such as asthma, hearing problems, heart problems and diabetes were widely reported, access to health care, especially in rural areas, was severely limited.

Aboriginal people start life smaller and finish it earlier, with the life expectancy for indigenous females at about 62 years compared to an Australian average of 81 and the life expectancy for indigenous males at 57 compared to an Australian average of 75. At any age, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are more than twice as likely to die as non-Aboriginal people. At the most crucial age of 25 to 44, the risk is five times greater.

But not all the Aboriginal health statistics are gloomy. The death rate from cardiovascular disease has declined among Aboriginal males. Death from lung cancer is declining among Aboriginal men, although not among women. Alcohol related deaths are declining sharply as are male deaths from car accidents and homicide. The infant mortality rate continues to decline, but its rate of decline appears to have slowed.

Many of the health problems I have talked about can be tackled if we work with local communities to improve the standard of Aboriginal housing, which is an acute problem. An indigenous family is 20 times more likely to be homeless than a non-indigenous family and four times more likely to be in overcrowded accommodation. At least a quarter of the community lives in unsatisfactory housing. In rural areas, this proportion is roughly one in three. Overcrowding is particularly acute in rural areas where one household in three comprises six or more people, and three-quarters of these households had three bedrooms or fewer. In rural areas, about 40 per cent of these houses require major repair or replacement.

I am pleased to say that I have witnessed a number of places in Queensland, confronted with those difficulties, where this issue is now being effectively tackled by local Aboriginal communities. The communities are using the local housing crisis to provide new skills and to create job and training opportunities for their people and, in doing so, are resolving health problems for their old and young people.

Just outside of Townsville is the Shalom College which is run by the remarkable Uniting Church minister, Shayne Blackman, who has trained young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the skills to build appropriate housing in rural areas. As part of the hands-on training at Shalom College, the teenagers and young adults have built nursing homes for their elders and classroom facilities for the younger people attending Shalom College's primary and secondary school. It is about practical outcomes because they have a sense of capacity and opportunity. There are a number of other examples that I could refer to today, but time does not permit.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I suggest to you that there are solutions. But the biggest problem confronting indigenous Australia is employment. In some localities, the unemployment rate exceeds 50 per cent but, in the early 1990s, employment opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people grew more rapidly than non-indigenous employment. This was largely due to the major expansion by the Labor Party of the community development employment projects scheme, under which participants have the opportunity to work on community projects funded by forgone unemployment benefits. Most of the CDEP work was low skill and part time and, overwhelmingly, it was rural and remote based.

Because of the lack of jobs, the lack of education and the lack of skills, the annual income that indigenous Australians earn is very low. Three-fifths of people aged 15 or over receive $12,000 or less, while one in nine receive more than $25,000 per annum. Government payments are clearly the main source of income.

In conclusion, I suggest that the Wik ruling provided new and vital opportunities for indigenous Australians to confront their major social problems, their unemployment problems and the need to skill and train their people for new jobs that could be created by the rights invested in indigenous Australians by the Wik decision. If we are to allow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to create new opportunities for themselves, the Howard government should not be actively campaigning to undermine the High Court's Wik decision.

The government should act with respect for both the High Court rulings and the newly revived property rights of the first Australians. Some people on the other side might not like it, but the indigenous Australians are the first Australians and they have some rights and entitlements. The High Court has recognised them. It is about time the other side of the House recognised and respected the right of the High Court to make such decisions.

The Wik ruling can be a godsend for all. I know the `God squad' on the other side of the House do not have a lot of respect for the High Court when it comes to hard decisions. The Wik decision provides a path to help the reconciliation process, a path to help to resolve two centuries of disempowerment which has created the awful statistics which are all too often repeated in discussions about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

The time has come to take the hand off the prayer book, the hand off the heart, and to actually do something. Get your hands dirty. Respect the High Court decision, empower the indigenous people, respect the fact that in Australia black people as well as white people are entitled to property rights. Give them the capacity to further develop themselves. Give them the capacity to negotiate local arrangements and to do something in a practical way about health, education and the all important employment issues of jobs and training. Take your head out of the sand, stand on your high heels and actually do something rather than just talk about it.