The Northern Territory's four land councils have united in calling for the Territory Coordinator Bill to be scrapped.
The Councils, in a joint statement on Wednesday, said the Bill excludes Aboriginal people from involvement in development decisions on their traditional lands and prevents them from protecting their land and culture.
"The NT Government plans to use its majority to steamroll the Bill through Parliament during sittings next week," the Councils warned after the Northern Territory Legislative Scrutiny Committee report on the bill was released.
The Bill formally appoints the Territory Coordinator who will hold "unchecked, expansive powers" to circumvent regulations and bypass Territory laws and government processes. This includes the authority to declare a Territory Development Area (TDA) or an Infrastructure Coordination Area (ICA) on Aboriginal land and Native Title areas without any prior consent or consultation with Traditional Owners.
The Territory Coordinator will be able to affect decisions and processes across 32 Scheduled Acts listed in the Bill, along with a host of regulations made under those Acts giving the coordinator "unprecedented and sweeping powers", the Councils said.
The addition of the Heritage Act 2011 to the list of Scheduled Acts will make it subject to the powers of the unelected Coordinator, demonstrating, in the words of the four Land Councils, that the NT government is "callously uninterested in the protection and preservation of our places of historical importance; and powers to enter private property including Aboriginal freehold land without a warrant are a breach of fundamental rights".
"It is also concerning that the Bill's Scheduled Acts can be updated at any stage by regulation," the Council noted. While the Northern Territory Sacred Sites Act 1989 is currently not listed, it can be added at the Territory Coordinator's request – "greatly increasing the vulnerability of thousands of critically important cultural and sacred sites".
While the Territory Coordinator cannot exercise powers over Federal laws such as the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth) and the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth), the Coordinator can modify the 32 scheduled pieces of Northern Territory legislation, most of which contain protections for Aboriginal culture and land rights.
Consultation on the Bill has been "tokenistic at best", the Councils said, with "almost no recommendations made by Land Councils taken on board from our comprehensive submissions".
"This feels like a sign of things to come. Instead of improving the Bill, the Territory Coordinator's decision-making powers in the final draft are expanded, and the public's right of review is removed," the joint statement read.
The removal of merits review from the NT Petroleum, Planning and Water Acts is also likely to be passed in the March Sittings of Parliament. The Council said that when taken alongside the Territory Coordinator Bill, "this represents a fundamental attack on the rights of Territorians to scrutinise government decision-making and protect the parts of the Territory's society and environment that are important to them".
Northern Land Council Chair Matthew Ryan said Traditional Owners "should not be sidelined by the NT Government, we should have a seat at the table when it comes to decision-making that affects our future".
"Most land from the Top End islands to Central Australia, including our coastline, is owned by Traditional Owners or is subject to Native Title which gives us an enormous stake in the Northern Territory economy," Mr Ryan said.
Anindilyakwa Land Council Chair Cherelle Wurrawilya said all activities on Aboriginal land must involve the owners of that land.
"After all this is privately owned land. Any other private land owner would have the same expectations. The right people must be consulted and give their free, prior and informed consent," she said.
Central Land Council Chief Executive Les Turner the bill is "deeply anti-democratic" as it "would give an unelected bureaucrat almost unlimited power to make up the rules on the run and ignore our elected representatives".
"Like Aboriginal people at the mercy of an all-powerful mission manager, this time all Territorians would have to submit to the Territory Coordinator who has been appointed specifically to undermine Aboriginal involvement in assessment and approval processes under current laws," he said.
Tiwi Land Council Chair Leslie Tungatalum noted that the people of the Northern Territory :have had a lot to say: about the Territory Coordinator through more than 540 submissions but the government won't release them.
"This is a government that claimed they would be transparent. Their actions speak louder than words," he said.
Greg McIntyre SC, a former Law Council of Australia president who represented Eddie Mabo in the landmark native title case and also appeared as an advisor to Nurrdalinji at the hearing, is quoted in the Inquiry report (page 48):
"This is an extraordinary piece of legislation which gives unprecedented powers to a public servant… It is a very unusual piece of legislation to have before any parliament," he wrote.
"It has extraordinary powers of allowing this Territory Coordinator to step into the place of existing decision-makers to vary conditions which they previously placed upon approvals."
