5 December 1997
E&OE........................................................................................................................
JOURNALIST:
Do you accept Kim Beazley’s backflip on freehold?
PRIME MINISTER:
It doesn’t go far enough. I mean what Kim Beazley is saying is, well I will confirm that the title to my house is ok but I won’t confirm that the title to a house in Canberra is ok. Once you concede, as he has done with his backyard backflip, that it is desirable to have a confirmatory clause you have got to go the full distance. Because the High Court didn’t only say in the Wik decision that the grant of an exclusive possession inherent in a freehold grant extinguish native title. It went a step further and said that it believed that the grant of an exclusive possession title extinguished native title. Now, if you are going to confirm one you logically must confirm the other otherwise you are creating two categories of Australians. You are saying that if you have urban freehold, backyard freehold as we commonly call it, we will confirm that but if you, for example live in Canberra which has a different kind of residential leasehold or if you are a commercial leaseholder we are not going to confirm that. And the fact that you confirm one without the other will put greater doubt on the one you don’t confirm.
So I would say to Mr Beazley, do the backflip properly, complete it, pick up our amendment and you will put beyond argument the concern that people have.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard is the legislation now presented to you by the Senate on Wik in any acceptable?
PRIME MINISTER:
I will obviously wait until I have seen the final shape of the legislation before the Government responds. But the defeat of almost all of the provisions in relation to the right to negotiate mean that the Senate is arguing for rejection of the Wik decision. You can’t implement the Wik decision unless you remove the right to negotiate, because the Wik decision says that if there is a collision of rights between native title holders and pastoralists the rights of the pastoralists prevail. While ever you have a right to negotiate the rights of the pastoralists cannot prevail. And what the Labor Party and the Democrats have done in the name of defending the Wik decision have in fact made it impossible for the Parliament, unless they change their mind, to implement the Wik decision. And this is a crucial criticism of everything that the Labor Party, the Australian Democrats and Senator Harradine have done. We want certainty, the Labor Party is determined to prevent it.
JOURNALIST:
So in its current form it is the first step towards a double dissolution?
PRIME MINISTER:
Stop sort of just running one step ahead of the other. I have given you an answer to that and you can ask those sort of questions as long as you like, you won’t get any different answer. We will deal with the legislation when it comes back in an orderly, professional manner. You know the strength of the Government’s resolve on this issue, but I want to see the final shape of the legislation when it comes out of the Senate. But unless there are dramatic changes, further backflips, further resorts to a modicum of commonsense by the Labor Party and the others in the Senate then they are obviously resolved themselves to prevent a sensible outcome. And it looks as though the Parliament will rise on the basis that the Australian Labor Party is trying to delay and to frustrate and the Democrats and Brian Harradine are joining them in delaying and frustrating a sensible resolution of this very difficult issue.
JOURNALIST:
In any of the Government’s talks with Brian Harradine has he shown any sign that he will back away from his stand on the right to negotiate?
PRIME MINISTER:
What matters is how people vote not what they say during discussions.
JOURNALIST:
But you would have a second go at the Bill, so would you be trying to convince him to change his mind?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he has just voted against it.
[Ends]