Land Rights News --- "Broken Promises" [1987] AboriginalLawB 25; (1987) 1(26) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 8

• Broken Promises

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Broken Promises

From Land Rights News, Vol. 2, No. 2

Both Australian and Territory Governments have recognised a role for Aboriginal people in the management of national parks established on their traditional lands. But there is a growing difference in the level of Aboriginal management control being offered under Commonwealth and Northern Territory administrations.

In 1981 when the Northern Territory Administration passed the Cobourg Peninsula Aboriginal Land and Sanctuary Act, a new benchmark was set for judging Government commitment to Aboriginal involvement and ultimately self-determination.

That is not to suggest that there are no problems with the Cobourg model; it is administratively cumbersome, expensive, and works on an excessively formal and mechanical non-Aboriginal structure, which many Cobourg traditional owners have found frustrating and disempowering.

Nevertheless the Cobourg Act provides both the legal powers and safeguards that should be a minimum for all parks in the Northern Territory. (if not elsewhere in Australia. Ed.) in which Aboriginal people reside or have involvement.

The present Chief Minister, Steve Hatton. while he was Minister for Conservation, comedmitted the Administration to such a course at a meeting at Lila (Watarraka / King's Canyon) on September 12, 1985 when he said that:

• The (King's Canyon) board should have real management responsibilities and should not act only in an advisory capacity.
• The Government was going to have to build into the Act a broad new policy for parks which will include recognition of boards of management ... he had always encouraged legislative change.
• It would be necessary to resolve the power of the local management committee (LMC) and to embed that concept in legislation. He emphasised that should this not occur. the committee could only be an advisory group and he did not see this as appropriate.

Since then the Administration has proceeded to set up the concept of LMC's. with powers established under regulations only, with virtually no consultation, and certainly none with the traditional owners through the Northern Land Council (NLC). This is incomplete contravention of the explicit promises made at Lila. and ignores the legislative model put forward by the NLC on April 24. 1986.

The proposed NT Administration structure reduces the LMC's to mere advisory bodies. stripped of most of the Cobourg powers and susceptible to having their limited powers removed at the whim of the executive and Administrator, without the people most affected being aware of such actions.

Unlike the Cobourg arrangement, the LMC at Watarrka (King's Canyon) possesses:

• no veto of exploration/ mining;
• restricted powers to protect sacred sites;
• no veto on the establishment or location of capital works;
• no absolute say (as promised) on decisions about concessions in the park;
• consultative rights only on educational and interpretative programs;
• Consultative rights only on content of ranger training programmes; and
• no say in the expenditure of monies on management priorities.

While the NT Administration has been progressively moving to emasculate the powers provided to LMC's and to reduce them to mere cyphers, the Federal Government and the Australian Parks and Wildlife Service (ANPWS) is proceeding to substantially improve the rights of Aboriginal owners in its parks and to embody those changes in legislation.

The Uluru model negotiated between the ANPWS and the Anangu traditional owners. while not as powerful as that at Cobourg is a substantial improvement on the existing arrangements at Kakadu. The new arrangements at Kakadu are likely to be an improvement on those in place at Uluru.

The Federal arrangements and the fact that they are enshrined through general legislative provisions under the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1975 gives the lie to NT Administration claims that it is too complicated to establish the powers of such boards under legislation.

Having unilaterally established the powers and legal parameters for LMC's the Northern Territory Administration now appears to expect traditional owners and the land councils to accept their concept, without prior consultation for areas such as North Island, Malak Malak, Finke Gorge and Cobourg Marine Park.

In cases such as Cobourg Marine Park, Malak Malak, and North Island it has taken the NT Administration up to five years to propose inadequate management powers, while traditional owners have waited patiently for title to their lands.

Now, presumably, the Government expects the traditional owners to jump at their proposals to avoid further interminable delays at the whim of a generally hostile bureaucracy and Administration.

Small wonder then that many traditional owners consistently express a preference for Federal management and involvement.