E&OE.................................................................................................
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. The vote in the Senate this
morning to approve the Government's Native Title Amendment
Bill is a wonderful outcome for all Australians. I thank the
Senate in particular. I thank Senator Brian Harradine for the role
that he played in resolving this matter in a way that I believe
over time will be widely applauded by the entire Australian community.
I would especially want to thank my colleague, the Special Minister
for State, Senator Nick Minchin, who has skillfully guided this
legislation through both the partyroom, the Australian community,
and most recently the Senate.
This vote this morning brings to an end 18 months of at times frustration,
intense delay, difficulty, complication, and in some sections of
the community, a certain amount of acrimony. It resolves in a fashion
that is, I believe, fair and equitable, one of the most difficult
socio-legal issues that Australia has ever faced. It does preserve
the principles of Native Title laid down in the Mabo case. It does
give security and predictability to the farmers of Australia. It
does protect the legitimate interests of the mining industry and
all of that means to the export potential of our country, and it
will at long last provide a workable mechanism for native title
claims to be addressed and resolved.
More importantly, I believe it will allow Australians to feel good
about themselves in that the institutions of our society have, at
long last, albeit through a very protracted process, been able to
come up with a solution to an extremely difficult and challenging
issue. No section of the Australian community has got everything
it wanted out of native title. No section of the Australian community
can run around and say we won and everybody else lost'
and it was never my intention that that be the outcome. And that
guided very much my handling of the matter from the time that the
Wik decision was handed down by the High Court in December of 1996.
It is a very good outcome indeed.
It allows the Australian community to move onto other issues. It
takes from the national political agenda something that was always
in the eyes of some, divisive. I believe it is an issue that the
Australian people would not have shirked from resolving if that
had been necessary through the ballot box, in a restrained and tolerant
fashion. But nonetheless it is overwhelmingly to be desired that
the matter was resolved in the way in which it was.
And I again thank Senator Brian Harradine for the contribution that
he made and I also thank my colleague Senator Minchin and all the
members of the Wik taskforce and my staff for the roles that they
played in bringing about this marvellous outcome this morning.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister you say that no section can say "we've
won", yet isn't that exactly what is happening? Senator
Harradine is saying he's not diminished Aboriginal rights and
yet you've got Mr Fischer still pushing the "bucketloads
of extinguishment" line. I mean, who's right in that sense?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't think anybody can say they've totally won to the
exclusion of others.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, you have said it is a wonderful outcome for all Australians.
The Aboriginal people don't seem to think so.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, you've got to make your own judgments about these things.
Perhaps some of their leadership was wrongly encouraged to believe
by the Labor Party that they could achieve an outcome that was never
realistic. The fact is that the principles of Native Title as laid
down in Mabo are still there. It is still possible to use the right
to negotiate' over vacant crown land. The principles of Wik
have been respected. But they've been respected in a way that
delivers greater clarity and greater predictability. Nobody can
say that the fundamental rights of Native Title enunciated in Mabo
and distilled in Wik have been taken away by this legislation. In
the end, the judgement of whether something is fair to a particular
group has got to be an objective judgement, and I believe that this
legislation achieves the right balance within the Australian community.
JOURNALIST:
Do you think that this legislation will survive a High Court challenge?
PRIME MINISTER:
As to its constitutionality, yes I am.
JOURNALIST:
Why?
PRIME MINISTER:
Because that is the weight of the opinion that we have received
and that is the trend of court cases confirming that opinion.
JOURNALIST:
How do we assess the success of the legislation down the track?
PRIME MINISTER:
How do we assess the success of it down the track? Well, the way
it works out obviously, and I believe it will be successful because
this is the first time we've got a decent framework to allow
native title claimants to go forward and be resolved but also to
prevent vexatious claims. We've toughened the registration
test because the old Keating registration test was too loose. We've
provided some predictability in relation to farming and mining activity.
We've provided a state based regime as an alternative to the
right to negotiate and I believe that that lays down a guide path
for the successful operation of the legislation. It was never going
to be easy, but it was never realistic to leave the Keating act
in place. The Keating act was flawed from the beginning and the
Keating act was rendered irrelevant almost by the decision of the
High Court in the Wik case because the Keating legislation had been
premised on another outcome of the High Court in that particular
case.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, before these final sets of negotiations with Brian Harradine,
you and Senator Minchin and the National Party said the sunset clause
was non-negotiable. What changed?
PRIME MINISTER:
We decided that in the end that was our contribution to achieving
an honourable compromise.
JOURNALIST:
Do you believe that this the circuit breaker that your Government
desperately needs?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Mr Smith, I never embrace expressions of desperation ever
never ever, to borrow a phrase! Of course I don't. But
this is a good development for Australia, and people want governments
to be, not only to be seen to be, but to actually resolve difficult
problems and I'm able to say to the Australian people that
I have been able to solve the vexed problem of Native Title in a
way that my predecessor could never have done, and I've been
able to resolve it in a way that is fair and honourable to all sections
of the Australian community.
Look, not every farmer in Australia has got everything he wanted.
Not every miner has got everything he wanted. Not every Aboriginal
person has got everything he wanted, but it is fair and equitable
and delivers security and predictability as much as any legislation
in such a difficult vexed area could possibly have done. That is
why I am very proud of what it has been possible to achieve.
JOURNALIST:
Why is it fair and honourable Mr Howard to accommodate the retrospective
change in the West Australian legislation which changes the entire
extinguishment regime for West Australian pastoral leases?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't share your interpretation of that but perhaps
we can go into it in more detail in another circumstance.
JOURNALIST:
Could you explain why you put the Telstra bill to the bottom of
the Senate list and is this a deferral til the next sitting
of the Parliament?
PRIME MINISTER:
To the next sitting of the Parliament? No no, the Telstra legislation
will be debated and will be voted on in the Senate this sitting.
JOURNALIST:
Previously you talked about Native Title as a land management issue
and since the Queensland election you've talked about it as
a potentially divisive issue. Has your thinking on the prospect
of a Native Title election changed since Queensland?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, those statements are not necessarily mutually exclusive, Raphael,
they're not. You can have a land management issue that is potentially
divisive and you can have potential division over land management.
I mean, it is a lot of things. It is, to many people, it is symbolic.
To many people it has a cultural content. To many people it has
a spiritual meaning. To other people it is a land management issue.
Much of the argument about the detail of the legislation concerned
land management issues, and much of the intense debate was about
whether you had rights of this variety or that character. It was...I
can assure you that the detailed discussions that I had with representatives
of the Indigenous Working Group earlier on and with others surrounded
the nitty gritty, the bread and butter of the legislation and certainly
strayed only fleetingly into the more general areas.
JOURNALIST:
So you weren't more worried after Queensland?
PRIME MINISTER:
No.
JOURNALIST:
How confident are you that the States will pass the complementary
legislation that's required, that all States and Territories
will....
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that is up to them. It will be desirable to have a degree
of uniformity but that is up to them. I'm not going to sit
in judgement on the States. We have done our job. It is now up to
each State to assess its responsibilities and to make its judgments.
JOURNALIST:
Labor has predicted bucket loads of litigation, will you fund and
expedite a High Court challenge on the Constitutionality to clear
up the matter as quickly possible.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, more in sorrow than in anger. Can I say that the Labor Party
has throughout this whole thing played a negative, destructive,
point scoring game and so have the Democrats and the Australian
Greens and I don't think the Australian public gives them any
marks for that at all. The Labor Party left us with this mess. It
was the flawed Keating/Beazley act that we had to address and we've
grappled with it, we've had no help from them - no help at
all - and it's taken agreement with Senator Harradine to resolve
the matter. I don't think they win any marks for this at all.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister are you confident of being able to reach a compromise
with the National Party or to get their support on the full sale
of Telstra, given that sections continue to be in open rebellion
against the privatisation?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think we should just allow events to unfold.
JOURNALIST:
Will you allow announce anything before the vote?
PRIME MINISTER:
Anything what?
JOURNALIST:
On Telstra?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, the situation regarding Telstra is that it has always been understood,
and I made it clear at the National Convention, that if the legislation
empowering the Government to sell the rest of Telstra were passed
it would then be economically possible to make available a social
bonus. Now, as to when you may announce details of that and in what
form that announcement would take, although obviously, some of the
social bonus if Telstra were to go through would be in the form
of spending on communications infrastructure in regional areas of
Australia and communications issues in regional areas of Australia.
As to when, what form, how, etcetera, is a matter that is still
under discussion but the Government remains committed to the legislation
and the reason that we are committed to the legislation is that
it is a very important part of our debt retirement strategy.
I mean, this will bring enormous benefits to future generations
of Australians to be able to enter the next century virtually free
of Federal Government debt. We'll be down to 1.5 per cent of
gross domestic product from a level of 20 per cent in the middle
of the 1990s. Now that is a huge benefit to the Australian community.
That's why we are committed to it and we believe that if it
does go through it will be possible and economically quite responsible
to use some of the proceeds to fund spending on socially desirable
things. That's the social bonus, and part of that will obviously
be spending on improving communications in regional and rural Australia
because there are some services in that part of the country which
are in need of more help and more spending and this is something
that we have had in mind for some time.
JOURNALIST:
Have you held or will you be holding discussions with Senators Colston
and Harradine on this issue?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I talk to a lot of Senators about a lot of things and I don't
ever rule out discussions with Senators. They are always people
that you should talk to.
JOURNALIST:
Even those Senators whose vote you won't accept, namely Senator
Colston?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, you understand the background of that George, and I have got
nothing more to say to that. But I am obviously willing to talk
to anybody.
JOURNALIST:
The Nationals also want you to wind back on certain areas of national
competition policy. Can we expect any more exemptions?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think these are things that from time-to-time come up and
we talk our way through them and I am not sort of giving a whole
sort of running announcements on policies as we go through. Look,
we worked our way through the Native Title Amendment Bill and we
got a fantastic outcome and I didn't give a running commentary
on those discussions. I mean what matters in these things, Craig,
is the outcome, not the doorstops each morning. What really matters
is where you end up and we have ended up with a terrific outcome
on Native Title. We have solved the most difficult problem that
I think any Government has faced for 10 years given the complexity
of the social and economic and political issues bound up with it.
So you keep your eye on the final outcome. The noise and static
along the way is of no moment when measured against the outcome.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, the Nationals want to see the same level of service that
the city gets in the bush, they are talking about high-speed digital
data transmissions. Is that what your Government is aiming to deliver
to the bush?
PRIME MINISTER:
A lot of people want to see the same level of services. The Liberal
rural members want to see the same level of service. Rural people
I talk to want to see the same level of service. Ann, there are
a whole lot of things being discussed and as I've said I am
not going to engage in that noise and static along the way. It's
the outcome that is important and I obviously want to see communications
justice for the bush. Communications justice for the bush will be
more assuredly delivered if there is a sale of Telstra than if it's
not....you know people should understand that if there were not
a full privatisation of Telstra the money is simply not there to
fund a lot of things that people want. I mean that should be understood.
We don't have an inexhaustible supply of money. There are other
things that have a call on the Government's resources and people
should understand that one of the benefits of selling the remaining
two-thirds of Telstra is that you have additional resources to spend
on things that people want. If you don't sell it, then that
capital is lying idle and tied up and unavailable for socially beneficial
purposes.
I mean there are two socially beneficial outcomes from the full
privatisation of Telstra. You get this terrific debt retirement
profile which gets us down to 1.5 per cent by the beginning of the
century and you also have money to spend on socially desirable things.
Now that is a win-win for all Australians. Not just for Australians
in the bush but selling Telstra delivers win-win for all Australians
and that's why I am committed to it. I think some of you are
looking a little cold. Do you enjoy having press conferences here?
You're all rugged up. This is the last one, I must go then.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, just to clarify, it sounds like the communications part
of the package you'd expect to unveil in the couple of days....
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I am not saying any more than I have said. Don't, don't
sort of hypothesize. I have indicated to you that if we can get
Senate approval to the sale of Telstra then we have money to spend
on certain things that we wouldn't otherwise have and we also
retire debt. I have indicated that one of the things that we would
spend it on is obviously communications in regional Australia because
that's something that is high on our list and it's been
high on our list for months and months and months. But as to the
details of where we will spend that money, in what way, in what
amounts, and on what things I have got nothing further to say this
afternoon.
JOURNALIST:
How confident are you with those two Independent Senators'
votes?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well as...Raphael, discussions continue. That's what I said
in the lead-up to the Native Title outcome and I am not going to
change and people can have their doorstops, they can say whatever
they like but I am simply saying discussions continue. It's
what happens out of those discussions that matters and I'll
be measured not by the doorstops and the static along the way but
I'll be measured by the outcome and we got a fantastic outcome
for Australia out of Native Title. And I naturally want a good outcome
on Telstra but we are having discussions, I am not making any lavish
promises or asserting any claims. I am trying to get the legislation
through the Senate because it will be good for Australia if it gets
through the Senate, and the bush will get communications benefits
it hasn't got a hope on earth of getting because there won't
be the same amount of resources available. So it's in the interests
of rural Australians that we get that extra money so we can spend
it on things that rural Australians need.
Thank you.
[ENDS]