Senator FERRIS(4.00 p.m.) —The subject of my speech will, I guess, soon return to the front pages of the newspapers where, until just recently, it occupied a prominent position almost every day of the week. I am of course referring to the native title debate and, more specifically, to the exposure draft of the amendments to the legislation which were released earlier today. These amendments will be introduced into the other place early in the next parliamentary session and are likely to be debated in this chamber later in the year.

As a member of the parliamentary Joint Committee on Native Title, I look forward to taking part in the community consultations on the legislation which are also scheduled for the spring session. A few weeks ago, again as a member of the committee, I was privileged to visit a number of islands in the Torres Strait, including the island of Mer, the home and final resting place of Eddie Mabo whose name has been popularly attached to the legislation.

Over the past two weeks there have been extensive briefings on the draft legislation with the backbench committee, pastoralists, miners, resource development agencies, Aboriginal groups and, of course, other interested parties. The exposure draft of amendments released today represents a significant step in the delivery of an election promise to fix the extensive problems that exist with the current Native Title Act.

It is five years since the original Mabo judgment and three years since the Native Title Act was passed. Even the Australian Labor Party has agreed that the legislation requires amendment, and in fact today's exposure draft contains a number of amendments which were originally presented to the parliament by the previous government. Everybody who has had contact with the present legislation agrees that it requires amendment—even the lawyers, who have arguably been the group that has benefited most from this act.

The High Court's discovery in late 1992 that native title was a valid and recognisable form of land title, and that generations of eminent lawyers and jurists had apparently overlooked that it had been sleeping beneath us for 200 years, threw into turmoil what had been an established form and settled system of land tenure and property law. It was an earth-shattering discovery which has had profound effects around this nation.

However, while the Native Title Act has proven to be a financial bonanza for lawyers, it has not done much for the Aborigines and, I might say, Madam Deputy President, it has done very little for the residents of the island of Mer who told us of the confusion and disappointment that, since native title had been discovered on their island, they had actually waited for something to substantially change, but of course it had not because it simply confirmed what they had believed all along.

However, today on the Australian mainland not one square inch has been found by law to exist anywhere in Australia, although one agreement was recently struck for a development in northern New South Wales where compensation paid for alleged—but not established—extinguishment was 50 per cent above the market value of the freehold land.

Since the Native Title Tribunal has been established, literally millions and millions of dollars have been spent on this very expensive bureaucratic structure. So far, all that really has been created is an administrative and legal nightmare. The latest tribunal annual report reveals that there are 18 tribunal members, 160 staff and registry officers in six capital cities around Australia. More importantly, it has before it negotiation and mediation of more than 450 land claims around this country.

The total cost of this cumbersome bureaucracy is $20 million a year, and staff costs increased from about $2.5 million in 1994-95 to more than $6.3 million in the following year. At the same time, travel for these staff almost doubled in the course of one year to more than $1.2 million. And still not an inch of native title has yet been legally found to exist. Surely this is a well-established case that something has to change.

So the 10-point plan which is embodied in the draft legislation that has been released by the government today is absolutely crucial in unravelling this costly and quite unworkable mess. In particular, the proposed legislation seeks to overcome the uncertainty in relation to pastoral leases caused by the operation of the existing provisions of the Native Title Act in conjunction with the very complex Wik decision.

The draft legislation released today is designed to provide legal validity for acts carried out between the commencement of the Native Title Act in January 1994 and the Wik decision on the assumption that pastoral leases and other tenures that were existing at the time extinguished native title. The new legislation will provide certainty to pastoralists that they can continue to carry on their primary production activities. It provides respect for native title, preserving the principles of native title as established in the Mabo case, and allows the claims to proceed. It provides confirmation of the common law relating to native title and, in particular, that it has been extinguished by current and historical freehold residential leases, commercial leases, and those agricultural and pastoral leases providing exclusive possession.

It provides that impediments to the development of municipal services in towns and cities should be minimised and that government powers to manage and regulate water should be put beyond doubt. It provides workability through removing impediments to development; builds on the government's proposed amendments to improve the processes of the Native Title Act 1993, and, importantly, it provides devolution to the states and territories in particular to allow alternative state and territory processes for granting mining titles on pastoral lease land. It offers a speedy and sustainable resolution of concerns and uncertainty, and, very importantly, the new legislation enables the right to renew mining leases without triggering the right to negotiate.

Native title is crucial in my own state of South Australia. A number of properties in our state presently have overlapping claims from different Aboriginal groups. Overall, while there are just over 16,000 Aborigines in South Australia, about 65 per cent of the state is under claim—much of it in the newly discovered resource-rich Gawler Craton in the north.

The legislation package released today does not—I repeat `not'—abolish native title. It retains and respects the concept of native title and primarily proposes changes to the administrative regime created by the Native Title Act to administer native title claims. The package will address much of the dismay and confusion that has greeted the Wik decision, particularly by members of the resource and pastoral industries all over this country.

I must say how disappointed I was just yesterday to see one of the Aboriginal leaders move so quickly to denigrate the government's attempts to restore equity and fairness to this act. I do hope we can look forward to a more constructive approach as the legislation is debated in this place and as the statutory committee undertakes its consultations around this country. This issue is too important to approach on a partisan basis. It has to be approached in a way that will bring this country together to end the division and the unfairness and to restore fairness and equity to all of those affected by it.