Senator CHRIS EVANS —My question is directed to Senator Minchin, the Special Minister of State and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister. Can the minister confirm that the constitutional provision for just terms compensation for Commonwealth acquisition of property rights applies equally to native title as it does to every right of every Australian? Has the government received any advice as to the amount of compensation payable should any federal government move to abolish the common law principle of native title property rights? Has the government received any advice as to the amount of compensation payable should a Queensland state government move to abolish native title? Who would be liable to pay this compensation? Would the Commonwealth provide financial assistance to Queensland for this purpose?

Senator MINCHIN (Special Minister of State;Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) —I presume this question is motivated by the quite extraordinary proposition from One Nation that native title be completely extinguished—a proposition which the coalition fundamentally and completely rejects as improper, unfair, unworkable and untenable.

The government's advice is that native title should be regarded as a property right which, certainly at the federal level, would trigger the provisions in the constitution which require that any acquisition of property requires the Commonwealth to pay just terms compensation. That requirement is extended to the states by virtue of the operation of the Native Title Act, and this is as it should be.

Native title is and must be treated as a property right requiring full compensation for any acquisition of that property right. We have maintained those provisions in our amendments to the Native Title Act. Under our Native Title Amendment Bill, compensation on just terms is required for any non-discriminatory acquisition of native title. Certainly, with respect to Senator Chris Evans's question, the legal advice to the government is to that effect and we completely accept it.

The proposition that you can simply extinguish native title arbitrarily across the board could involve very significant compensation claims and, potentially, payments. One of the many reasons the coalition rejected the proposition that we should extinguish native title on pastoral leases following the Wik decision was that compensation could be quite significant. No-one is quite sure what appropriate just terms compensation is for the loss of native title and merely in the case of pastoral leases, which cover 40 per cent of Australia, that could be quite significant. If you were to, as the One Nation party suggests, extend extinguishment to the whole nation, involving the acquisition of what the Native Title Act treats—and, we accept, properly treats—as potentially the equivalent of freehold on vacant crown land, the compensation payments for the acquisition could be immense. Therefore, that proposition should be, and is, rejected out of hand by the coalition.