Mixed reactions to Native Title revamp
Attorney General Nicola Roxon used the 20th anniversary of the Mabo decision to announce a review of the Native Title Act passed under the Keating government in 1993, a year after the Mabo decision was handed down.
According to Ms Roxon money has been set aside in this year’s budget to help speed up the determination process.
Under the proposed reforms, the government will look at four areas:
- Legislate a criteria for a “good faith negotiation” on native title claims so that parties can no longer “sit back and wait for the clock to tick down until an arbitrated outcome is available to them”
- Make land use agreements more flexible so that a “wider range of topics will be able to be negotiated on between indigenous groups and land rights holders”
- Work with the stakeholders so that historical extinguishment of native title in parks and reserves is not a barrier to reaching agreements
- Clarify the tax treatment of payments from native title agreements so that income tax and capital gains tax will not apply.
Ms Roxon has been firm in her view that “incremental” changes are more likely to deliver wide spread benefits than a radical change will.