Equitable Treatment of Native Title Compensation and Benefits

Abstract

This Topical Issue is adapted from a submission in response to the Australian government’s discussion paper Leading Practice Agreements: Maximizing Outcomes from Native Title Benefits.

By way of background this is my third submission to a package of reforms proposals circulated for discussion by the Rudd and now Gillard governments that seek to promote ‘leading practice in the governance of native title payments and in agreement making’. These reform proposals have been progressively released by the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA), the Treasury and now the AttorneyGeneral’s Department. My first submission was lodged on 13 February 2009 and commented on the Australian government Discussion Paper ‘Optimising Benefits from Native Title Agreements’ and ‘the Report of the Native Title Payments Working Group’. That submission was not made public by FaHCSIA but has been electronically published as CAEPR Topical Issue 3/2009.

My second submission was lodged on 2 July 2010 with Treasury and made comment on the Australian government’s Consultation Paper ‘Native Title, Indigenous Economic Development and Tax’. This submission will be made public, but the consultation was suspended owing to the August election and so I append to this submission my recommendation to the earlier consultation paper. Impatient at the slowness of the process I have also made a version of my submission publicly available as ‘Native Title and taxation reform’ CAEPR Topical Issue 4/2010.

The reference to these earlier submissions is provided because they raise a number of issues of relevance to the current discussion paper, most especially in relation to the historical lack of clarity, since the 1950s, about the nature of payments made in benefit sharing agreements with Indigenous Australians. I will not revisit these issues in any great detail here but merely draw attention to them in case the inter-departmental process that is currently under way overlooks my attempts to provide some ‘whole-of-issues’ perspective on payments under both land rights and native title laws.