Thursday, 17 August 2023

Recognition and settlement agreements

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (17:54): (420) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Treaty and First Peoples and concerns the negotiation of recognition and settlement agreements between the state and traditional owner groups as legislated in the Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010. That act allows the minister to enter into RSAs, and its various sections note what those RSAs may contain. They include land agreements, land use activity agreements, funding agreements, natural resource agreements and even an expansive section on the recognition of traditional owner rights.

The Dja Dja Wurrung RSA commenced in October 2013 and the Taungurung RSA in 2020. In October last year a further RSA was signed with the Horsham-based Barengi Gadjin Land Council to manage the area in question on behalf of the five traditional owner groups in that region. The action I seek from the minister is a justification of certain content in this latest RSA and an explanation of why it differs from previous agreements in crucial regards. As noted, the 2010 act does not provide for the local government engagement strategies, and yet they appear in each of the RSAs. In the BGLC RSA, the recent one, however, the section is substantially expanded. I would question: from where in the 2010 act does the authority for these clauses arise? Section D is on business support and includes a plan for negotiation with council, to include:

… a preferential contracting and procurement process under which council agrees to preferentially source goods and services from BGLC or other WJJWJ entities …

that is, the five groups of businesses, including for –

a. natural resources management;

b. cultural awareness training;

c. equipment or machinery hire; and/or

d. other goods or services for which BGLC and/or its subsidiaries or members have relevant supply capability or expertise.

So what I ask the minister is simple: will the scope of the local council engagement strategies in each RSA continue to expand in this manner? If so, where will the line be drawn and where does this figure in the Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010 under which the agreements are reached? This is not just an academic point, it is absolutely essential. I have looked at the act and the parliamentary debates on it, and I find no reference. This is a vastly significant law with very substantial consequences, and yet it seems clear to me that democratically determined legislation is being bent and stretched by agreements which move ever further from the wording and intent which received royal assent in 2010.