Senator BOSWELL (Leader of the National Party of Australia in the Senate)(6.41 p.m.) —The Senate is debating the Native Title Amendment (Tribunal Appointments) Bill, which allows me to make a few remarks on native title. I wish to bring to the attention of the Senate an article by Asa Wahlquist which ran in last weekend's Weekend Australian . It was entitled `Cultivating fear' and was clearly written with the intention of undermining the NFF President, Don McGauchie.

This feature contained many errors and misrepresentations about the role of the NFF and its president in the native title debate. The basic premise of the article was that a growing number of rural groups were breaking with the NFF leadership over the issue of native title. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Neither Rick Farley, John Purcell or Robert Hadler, all quoted in the article to support this view, currently hold any elected position with a major rural group. They are no longer active players in rural politics and they do not have a brief from farmers. On the other hand, Don McGauchie has been re-elected for a fourth term as NFF president. This would not have happened had he not enjoyed considerable confidence from the rural community. Asa Wahlquist described his re-election as extraordinary. That is to insult NFF voters and only goes to prove that the basic premise of the article is without foundation.

Mr Farley, on the other hand, is very much out of favour in the bush. It is quite wrong to put him up as an expert on rural opinion, yet it is obvious that Farley is the major source of this article. Rick Farley is developing into a spoiler in the interests which he once tried to represent. There is nothing new in his position to warrant the excited introduction which claimed that a growing number of rural groups are breaking ranks. Mr Farley is not a rural group but a native title negotiator whose views are already well-known.

The strategy is clear: try to discredit a chief spokesman on the opposite side, in order to win the debate. Go for the eyes and try to hit the pivot, in the hope of crippling your opposition. In this case, if you take McGauchie out, you leave the farmers without their strongest voice on native title. That is the object of this article. That is the reason behind the choice of the article.

A former rural group office holder, Mr John Purcell, is also quoted. Mr Purcell will find it difficult to live down the role he played in the Cape York agreement because it has caused so much bad feeling among pastoralists, both black and white, on the cape and has failed to move forward. Strangely, Mr Purcell seems to have changed his tune on extinguishment since he voted in favour of the NFF's policy at a meeting in January 1997. It should also be noted that the NFF has nothing against voluntary agreements for traditional access. This has long been its policy.

It is clear that the article is designed to undermine the farmers' champion on the native title issue, and it does so in a very one-sided way. Unlike the days under Rick Farley's mantle, when there was considerable unrest in the membership ranks over the NFF's direction and closeness with the Labor administration, the NFF has widespread support for its stance on native title. The article in fact mentioned by name the many supporters of the NFF such as the United Graziers Association in Queensland, the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association and the Pastoralists and Graziers Association of Western Australia.

These groups represent many thousands of those directly affected by native title legislation. These are the major stakeholders in the native title debate in the farming community. Yet the author failed to provide any comment from these organisations to balance the feature. Only disparaging comments were quoted at length, and those who made them do not even represent any rural group. The feature reported:

There are 28 State farming and commodity groups in the NFF, representing 115,000 farmers.

Yet the author could not find one current representative of any of these bodies to support her hypothesis that rural groups were breaking ranks with the NFF. There was no backup to this beat-up. The only critics the author could find were three former representatives, each now with there own axe to grind, and a mining representative—not a farmer.

It should be very obvious that mining companies are in a totally different position to family farmers when it comes to negotiating and to legal and financial resources. There is no comparison. In addition, large mining companies can simply walk away if negotiations fail to come up with a commercially viable solution. That is not so with farming families and grazing families. Where can they go? They cannot walk off and start up overseas instead, as mining companies can.

The feature was entitled `Cultivating fear'. It was the Wik decision alone which created the fear, the anxiety and the depression felt by so many in the bush. Rural families once trusted Rick Farley to deliver them certainty of tenure and title. Who can blame them now for being sceptical about the ramifications of forced coexistence in a land ownership regime which recognises two different types of title on one property?

McGauchie is right to be strong on this issue—here we are so far into the debate and still no-one knows what native title means. So much hinges on this. How could the leader of Australian farmers sign off on a deal when there are still so many crucial unknowns that will affect his constituents—so many court cases yet to come, so much money yet to be spent; time and worry.

The author of the feature presents the argument that all farmers are being branded rednecks for the sake of only a few thousand pastoral leases. How principled a leader would McGauchie be if he were to treat one section of the constituency different from the others?

It is no wonder that there is fear. In one of the most recent native title claims in areas of the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane, the Undanbi people continue to use the language of claiming exclusive possession, with ongoing rights to occupation, use and enjoyment, and of determining the future of the land, water and resources to the exclusion of all others. Point (f) of their application claims a right to live on and erect residences and other infrastructure on the land.

Senator Margetts —I raise a point of order, Madam Acting Deputy President. I rarely rise in these kinds of instances, but I call your attention to the fact that the bill we are debating is the Native Title Amendment (Tribunal Appointments) Bill. I would assume that Senator Boswell is meant to be actually speaking about the Native Title Amendment (Tribunal Appointments) Bill rather than a general issue. Because the two words `native title' might happen to be similar, that has nothing to do with native title tribunal appointments.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Knowles) —There is no point of order. This is very wide-ranging legislation. Senator Boswell, I would encourage you, when you continue your remarks, to address the bill. However, it being 6.50 p.m., I propose to move on to the consideration of government documents.