Mr HAASE (5:17 PM) —by leave—I support the comments by the member for the Northern Territory and his commending of this report to the House. I congratulate the secretariat staff in their assistance with the preparation of this report, Ms Robina Jaffray, the Acting Secretary, and especially Ms Suzanne Wood, the Senior Research Officer who contributed such a great deal of hard work, and her work is ongoing. My comments will be brief and to the point, and the specific area I wish to comment on is that of the ILC. I quote from the report:

The primary function of the ILC and the basis for the establishment of it is, of course, to purchase land that would not otherwise be readily claimable by groups under native title. The subsequent challenge that the ILC has is determining the appropriate group of persons to divest that acquired land to. Even though it was designed to cut through many of the problems encountered by native title in the identification of the traditional owners of `country', the actions of the ILC in purchasing on the open market pastoral leases especially, continue to have the problem of identification of the actual traditional owners of that land. The report goes on to say:

This points out quite specifically one of the ongoing problems. One of the properties referred to in this report is Roebuck Plains Station in the Kimberley area of Western Australia. It was reported to us that the purchase of that station was quite clearly because it could not be purchased because of the questions of continual habitation by indigenous peoples, the traditional owners specifically. Having purchased that station for a considerable sum, the problem remains with regard to the divestment of that property. The identification of the traditional owners in that area, those who deserve to have that property divested to them, are still to be identified, and I am very concerned that there will be an ongoing problem possibly relating, finally, to court action to establish traditional owner rights of particular individuals before that divestment can in fact take place satisfactorily. So I urge the ILC to continue in their work to establish a policy on a national basis that will resolve once and for all, in a practical manner, the identification of traditional owners and allow for the speedy divestment of properties so acquired. I commend the report to the House.