The federal government will be asked to fund a forum for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, groups and organisations, to ensure there is full and frank consultation about the proposals put forward in the Developing the North white paper.
The request was made at a community forum in Darwin on Saturday, led by panellists including Labor senator Nova Peris, Northern Land Council (NLC) chair Joe Morrison and North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (Naaja) CEO Priscilla Collins.
A government-funded forum could “bring together the Commonwealth and territory representatives, the office itself, and key Aboriginal people in the top end of the Northern Territory, and put on the table what the issues are and what the benefits to Aboriginal people are, and how we can work together the address them,” Collins said.
Collins told Guardian Australia outside the forum “if we’re serious about developing the north, let’s get together and actually talk”.
“We just need to get together and talk about the realities.”
The forum proposal followed 90 minutes of discussion at Charles Darwin University about the white paper and related Indigenous issues, including concerns about how the proposals would affect the Indigenous community.
Panellists raised housing, education, employment, and health as issues which should be addressed as a priority ahead of development.
Morrison described having a sense of deja vu about the notion of developing the tropical north which he said was “one of the nation’s holy grails”.
“The white paper that came out last week is not the first government paper that’s come out talking about the north’s potential,” he said.
“Typically though, it’s always talking about the north’s potential from a southerner’s perspective, not necessarily from the northern residential perspective, and that’s always been a problem, particularly from an Indigenous peoples’ point of view,” he said.
Morrison cited the white paper’s focuses on native title and property rights, underlying questions about transferability and exclusivity within native title rights, and water planning as particular areas where it must be ensured Aboriginal people give “free, prior, and informed consent.”
“How do we give Aboriginal people and traditional owners the opportunity to develop their own lands in their own ways? No one knows those landscapes better than the people who have lived there forever, and we should be asking and involving those people in the design of the future of it.”
Peris said the language used in the white paper was “concerning.”
“When you talk about native title processes that can ‘create more certainty for investors’, at the detriment of what?” she said.
“What does that mean, ‘to consult’? Or to ‘improve protections and cut red tape’ around Aboriginal cultural heritage? We should be concerned about that.”
Aboriginal people make up about one third of the Northern Territory population, with about 80% living in remote and rural areas, according to the chief executive of the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory (Amsant), John Paterson, who commented that without them much of the territory would be barely populated.
About half the land in the Northern Territory, including 95% of the coastline, was owned by Aboriginal people, he said.
Collins said it was “basic stuff” needed now, citing housing, education and employment.
“How about going and consulting with our mob and look at what their current needs are, what their future needs are. What we find as an Aboriginal legal service is a lot of the decisions are made by people in Canberra,” she said.
“At the end of the day Aboriginal people aren’t the ones to benefit, it’s the bureaucrats, the people who fly in and fly out on this stuff.”
From the audience Aboriginal activist, Maurie Japarta Ryan, raised prior consent, native title and land rights as areas where better consultation was needed. “You need trained interpreters to speak to countrymen out bush,” he said.
“There’s 15 languages around Alice Springs and I don’t know how many out here.”
Helen Fejo-Frith, president of Darwin’s Bagot community, said: “there are a lot of people out here who have suffered a lot, so they’ve got to start listening to us.”
Mark Motlop, co-chair of the Larrakia Development Corporation, called for more coordination between Aboriginal agencies, noting the Aboriginal Peak Organisations NT (Apont) alliance, of which Collins, Morrison and Paterson were CEOs, did not represent the education sector.
“Once we’ve got that up and running we’ve got the perfect vehicle there to be the key point to take our challenge forward. We work in silos.”
