PRIME MINISTER
STATEMENT BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING MP
ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER LAND FUND
The Budget delivered this week meets the Government's commitment to
establish an Aboriginal Land Fund part of our comprehensive response to
the Mabo decision, and our determination to provide justice for all Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people.
The Government will allocate an amount of $ 200m in 1994-95, and $ 121m
adjusted for inflation thereafter for 9 years, to an Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Land Fund to be established by legislation to be introduced later this
year. The total amount of the allocations to the Fund as indicated in the Budget
papers is $ 1.463 billion. This figure is the expected total of cash allocations
to the Fund over 10 years allowing for maintenance of the allocations in real
terms. The Fund will be established under the ATSIC Act, and will be the subject of
further discussions with indigenous interests before the introduction of the
Bill.
The Fund will be invested so as to accumulate a self-sustaining fund for the
acquisition and management of both existing and newly acquired indigenous
land.
An Indigenous Land Corporation will also be established which will receive
draw downs from the Fund. Draw downs will be $ 25 million in 1994-95, and
up to $ 45 million in following years adjusted for inflation. ATSIC's existing
land acquisition and management program will be amalgamated into the
Fund. As an independent specialist body, the Corporation will be able to focus
specifically on land matters, and will have the necessary commercial
expertise in land acquisition and management. The Board of the Corporation
will include the ATSIC Chairperson and at least one ATSIC Commissioner.
Members of the Board will have specialist expertise. The details of the 43/ 94
Constitution of the Board will be the subject of discussions with indigenous
interests. Publicly available regional strategies will be the basis for the
Corporation's planning for land acquisitions.
As I stated in the Second Reading Speech on the Native Title Bill 1993, the
Government has always recognised that despite its historic significance, the
Mabo decision gives little more than a sense of justice to those Aboriginal
communities whose native title has been extinguished or lost without
consultation, negotiation or compensation. Their dispossession has been
total, their loss has been complete.
The Government shares the view of ATSIC, other Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander organisations and the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, that
justice, equity and fairness demand that the social and economic needs of
these communities must be addressed as an essential step towards
reconciliation. While these communities remain dispossessed of land, their economic
marginalisation and their sense of injury continue. This dispossession has
led to the social and economic marginalisation which the government is
intending to address through a package of social justice measures, of which
the Land Fund will be the major financial component.
The Government remains committed to working with ATSIC and other
indigenous representatives to remedy indigenous dispossession.
CANBERRA 12 May 1994