Antinuclear

99 year leases for Australian Aboriginals – a cosy arrangement to suit mining companies?

as traditional owners in the NT enjoy free prior informed consent rights, it is imperative they understand what might be at stake before finalising any long-term leases.

It is far from clear if this cosy arrangement administered from Canberra will ensure best outcomes for traditional owners. 

Abbott government peddles De Soto on Arnhem Land rights  CRIKEY, PROFESSOR JON ALTMAN | DEC 04, 2013  Economist Hernando de Soto’s ideas on capitalism and poverty don’t fit the Australian Aboriginal experience. So why is the Abbott government trying to apply them, asks ANU professor Jon Altman?

The Coalition’s policy for indigenous affairs states indigenous people in remote areas have no property rights. Which is plain wrong; one-third of the Australian continent is under some form of statutory land rights or exclusive and non-exclusive native title determination following successful land claims and native title determinations over the past 35 years.

The election statement can be interpreted in various ways. It could be a genuine mistake. Or it could be electioneering hyperbole, like the adjacent suggestion in the policy statement that indigenous people in remote Australia have no jobs, which clearly many have. Alternatively, no property might be code for land that is held under inalienable group title rather than tradeable individual title, the hallmark of private property and western capitalism.

Most pertinently, if Aboriginal traditional owners in Northern Territory townships have no property rights, then what is it that Minister for Indigenous Affairs Nigel Scullion is seeking to secure through so-called whole-of-township leases?

A media release on October 17, just a month after the election, refers to an historic Arnhem Land agreement with traditional owners of Gunbalanya to lease the township to the Commonwealth for 99 years; soon after a similar agreement was secured at Yirrkala. Both agreements received front-page coverage in the Murdoch media. Such agreements, Scullion proposes, will open up business opportunity and home ownership for Aboriginal people on indigenous land. The Minister calls on communities throughout the NT to think about entering into similar arrangements with the Australian government.

Understanding what is at stake in this reform of land tenure in the NT is complex and politically fraught. But as traditional owners in the NT enjoy free prior informed consent rights, it is imperative they understand what might be at stake before finalising any long-term leases……….

This latest land reform intervention is replete with contradictions like so much in indigenous affairs. While ostensibly about providing certainty for all land users and placing land tenure on a commercial footing, much is made in policy rhetoric about “respecting cultural links to land” and “traditional land holding systems”. In reality, this reform is fundamentally about extinguishing land rights in townships for a century in return for money.

And while the executive director is required to operate independently and commercially, he is appointed by the minister, is implementing Commonwealth policy, and has his performance assessed by the Commonwealth. It is far from clear if this cosy arrangement administered from Canberra will ensure best outcomes for traditional owners. ………http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/12/04/abbott-government-peddles-de-soto-on-arnhem-land-rights/

December 7, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, Northern Territory