REPORT TO THE SENATE
Evidence received from the Northern Land Council
in relation to the inquiry into the provisions of the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill
2010
Background
1.1
On 25 February 2010, the Senate referred the provisions of the
National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010 (Bill) to the Legal and
Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee (committee) for inquiry and report
by 15 March 2010. This reporting date was later extended to
30 April 2010.[1]
On 30 April 2010, the committee tabled an interim report which noted
that the committee intended to table its final report on 7 May 2010.[2]
On 7 May 2010, the committee tabled its final report in relation to the Bill.[3]
1.2
As part of the inquiry, the committee received evidence from the
Northern Land Council (NLC) about consultations with relevant
Indigenous traditional landowners regarding land at Muckaty Station in the
Northern Territory, in relation to the nomination of that land as a potential
site for the Commonwealth's proposed radioactive waste facility. The NLC
provided evidence (in both its submission and during the public hearing on
30 March 2010) which indicated that only one family group had rights
over the land nominated for the site.[4]
1.3
The evidence received by the committee concerning the Muckaty Station
site nomination reflected evidence provided by the NLC in 2008 to the (then) Senate
Environment, Communications and the Arts Committee's inquiry into the
Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management (Repeal and Consequential Amendment) Bill
2008.[5]
1.4
On 10 May 2011, Senator Scott Ludlam (Australian Greens,
Western Australia) raised his concerns with the committee in relation to certain
documents, sourced from the National Archives of Australia, which in his view 'revealed
substantial inconsistencies' in the submission and evidence provided to the
committee by the NLC in 2010.[6]
Senator Ludlam was concerned that these inconsistencies were 'so great as
to potentially constitute misleading the committee'. Accordingly, Senator
Ludlam requested that the committee investigate:
a) whether the committee was misled, to the extent that the
NLC's submissions are contradicted by the evidence attached;
b) whether the NLC knowingly misled the Committee;
c) if so, whether a possible contempt has been committed in
that regard; and
d) whether the matter should therefore be raised with the
President as a Matter of Privilege under standing order 81.[7]
1.5
The committee considered the matter on 12 May 2011, and
resolved to write to the NLC to seek clarification regarding the evidence
provided to the committee during its 2010 inquiry.[8]
The NLC responded to the committee's request for clarification on
6 July 2011.[9]
The committee considered the matter again on 15 September 2011 and
resolved to prepare a report for the Senate in response to Senator Ludlam's
concerns.
Issues
1.6
The process of identifying an appropriate site for the disposal and
storage of low and intermediate-level radioactive waste in Australia dates back
to 1980.[10]
On 7 December 2005, the Australian Government passed the Commonwealth
Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005, to facilitate the establishment of a
low-level radioactive waste facility in the Northern Territory. This
legislation was later revised to allow Indigenous Land Councils to nominate
potential sites for a facility. In May 2007, the NLC, on behalf of Ngapa
clan traditional owners, nominated an area 120 kilometres north of Tennant
Creek on Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory. On
27 September 2007, the then Minister for Education, Science and
Technology, the Hon Julie Bishop MP, accepted the nomination.
1.7
The provisions of the Bill[11]
include the repeal and replacement of the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste
Management Act 2005, and the restoration of some review and
procedural fairness rights in the process of selecting a site for the proposed
radioactive waste management facility. However, Schedule 2 of the Bill also includes
a saving provision which means that, despite the repeal of the earlier
legislation, the site at Muckaty Station will remain an approved site for a
radioactive waste management facility.[12]
1.8
The question of whether all relevant traditional owners of Muckaty
Station had been consulted about, and given their approval to, the Muckaty
Station site nomination was 'a highly contested feature of submissions to the
[committee's] inquiry' into the Bill.[13]
In its submission to the inquiry, the NLC noted that it had 'supported the
position of Ngapa traditional owners who overwhelmingly support the nomination
of their country at Muckaty Station for the Commonwealth's radioactive waste facility'.
On the issue of traditional ownership of the Muckaty Station site, the NLC
commented:
Although objectors claim that the nomination is highly "contested",
in fact it has not been disputed that the relevant Ngapa group (associated with
the Lauder families) are the traditional Aboriginal owners of the nominated
land.
As explained in the NLC's supplementary submission [to the Senate
Environment, Communications and the Arts Committee inquiry in 2008] but ignored
by objectors, there are other Ngapa groups which are responsible for other
land. Under both Aboriginal tradition and the Aboriginal Land Rights
(Northern Territory) Act 1976 (and the current legislation) those Ngapa
groups, although consulted, may only make decisions regarding their country.[14]
1.9
At the public hearing on 30 March 2010, the issue of traditional
ownership of the Muckaty Station site was also raised with the NLC. A NLC
member and Ngapa traditional owner, told the committee:
I am a Ngapa traditional owner of Muckaty Station and I represent
them today; I have got other traditional owners behind me. We have got
custodians: our children, their children and their grandchildren and so on. We
nominated our land in 2007. There are other groups in the land. We have five
clan groups on Muckaty land itself, but at this time as Ngapa traditional
owners we are just concentrating on our Ngapa site on Muckaty. Yes, the other
clan groups have got rights to make a proposal, but it is our decision; it is
our land. Ngapa is the main dreaming site on Muckaty itself. It is our decision
and it is our land, so we nominated our land for the government's consideration.[15]
1.10
However, other perspectives on the issue of 'ownership' of the
Muckaty Station site were also received in evidence and the disputed
nature of this issue was reflected in the committee's conclusions:
A major area of contention in the present inquiry, and in the
inquiry by the ECA committee [the Senate Environment, Communications and the
Arts Committee] in 2008, is the extent to which all relevant traditional owners
have been consulted over the nomination of Muckaty Station as a potential site for
the waste facility. This issue also goes to the question of whether the consent
to the Muckaty Station nomination was granted by traditional owners with the
relevant authority to make decisions affecting, or to 'speak for', the land in
question. The committee acknowledges the importance of these questions, and
notes that the inquiry provided an opportunity for all stakeholders to put
forward their views on these issues.
Despite this, the evidence received by the inquiry was not
sufficient to allow the committee to reach a conclusion on these matters,
which, fundamentally, must be determined by information which the committee
does not have access to or is not competent to assess. In particular, the
committee did not have access to the deed of agreement relating to the Muckaty
Station nomination, or to anthropological reports relating to the question of
traditional ownership of that country.
Further, the committee does not consider that it is its role
to determine whether the consultative processes around the Muckaty Station
nomination were adequate or whether the approval of traditional land owners has
been adequately sought according to legal and traditional requirements. These
disputes revolve around issues to do with Indigenous cultural practice and its interaction
with the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. The
committee believes that ultimately these matters must be resolved in a legal
forum or through a mechanism that is competent to resolve such disputes between
groups of traditional owners.
The committee notes that affected parties will have access to
procedural fairness processes and to judicial review under the Bill, and there
is provision for the establishment of regional consultative committees.[16]
1.11
On 9 May 2011, Maurice Blackburn Lawyers distributed a press
release titled 'Fresh evidence boosts traditional owners legal challenge to
Muckaty Station nuclear waste dump'.[17]
The press release referred to National Archives of Australia documents
'unearthed' by Maurice Blackburn Lawyers which provided 'compelling new
evidence that the Northern Land Council (NLC) did not correctly identify and
obtain consent from the traditional owners of the land before the [Muckaty
Station] site was nominated'. The press release quoted Maurice Blackburn Lawyers
senior associate, Mr Martin Hyde:
The Muckaty Land Claim documents obtained from the National
Archives show two things: first, that the nominated site is not exclusively
owned by the Lauder family, as is claimed by the NLC and, secondly, that according
to the NLC's own expert anthropological evidence tendered in the Muckaty Land
Claim, all Ngapa land on Muckaty Station is owned in common by three Ngapa
family subgroups and that no Ngapa land on Muckaty Station is owned by one
family group. There are serious questions to be answered by the NLC in light of
the information contained in these documents.[18]
1.12
In its response to the committee's request for clarification, the NLC
commented:
In summary, the material referred to in the Chair's letter
and the press release from Maurice Blackburn:
(i) was
considered by the NLC in the course of the nomination, along with other
material, and had been referred to in earlier submissions by the NLC to Senate
Committees;
(ii) has
been available to the public for many years; it is a mistake to think that it
contains new or fresh evidence about traditional Aboriginal ownership of the
nominated site, and as with the earlier land claim inquiry itself, it does not
deal with that question directly;
(iii) does
not support the proposition that one Ngapa local descent group cannot be the
traditional Aboriginal owners of an area of land on Muckaty Station (or
elsewhere) associated with Ngapa Dreaming.[19]
1.13
Further, the NLC noted that a number of different and conflicting claims
have been made in the Senate about the identity of the traditional owners of
the nominated site:
With respect to those making these (contradictory) claims,
the question of who are the traditional Aboriginal owners of any particular
area is a complex one that requires consideration of a range of material. To
fasten upon any particular piece of evidence in isolation, like a sentence in
the 1993 claim book, is apt to mislead.[20]
Conclusion
1.14
The committee recognises that this matter is currently the subject of
legal proceedings before the Federal Court of Australia. This was also referred
to in the NLC's response, which noted in that context that '[t]he convention of
the Senate is to refrain from inquiring into matters currently before the
courts'.[21]
In the view of the committee, however, the current circumstances do not
restrain the committee from examining and considering the issues raised by
Senator Ludlam with respect to the NLC's evidence to the 2010 inquiry. The
Senate's sub judice convention is a restriction which the Senate imposes
on itself, and its committees, whereby debate on matters is avoided if it could
involve a substantial danger of prejudice to proceedings before a court, unless
there is a overriding requirement for the Senate to discuss matters of public
interest.[22]
The purpose of the convention is to prevent prejudice to proceedings before a
court, and it does not necessarily prevent matters before a court being
simultaneously considered by a Senate committee.
1.15
In any event, Senate committees have a general and ongoing role to
protect the integrity of their processes. Under the Senate's resolutions, witnesses
appearing before Senate committees must not give any evidence which they know
to be false or misleading in a material particular, or which they do not
believe on reasonable grounds to be true or substantially true in every
material particular.[23]
In some circumstances, an omission by a witness to provide relevant information
to a Senate committee could raise questions about whether a committee has been
misled or false evidence has been received. In the view of the committee,
however, it is difficult to reach a definitive conclusion that that has
occurred in this particular case.
1.16
Importantly, the question of traditional ownership of the Muckaty Station
site was not a focal point of the committee's inquiry into the Bill – in
particular, the committee did not consider that it was its role to determine 'whether
the approval of traditional land owners has been adequately sought according to
legal and traditional requirements'.[24]
The committee noted in its report that this issue 'must be determined by
information which the committee does not have access to or is not competent to
assess'.[25]
While the committee's report acknowledged that it did not have access to
'anthropological reports relating to the question of traditional ownership',[26]
the committee did not pursue those anthropological reports as part of the
inquiry.
1.17
The documents referred to by Senator Ludlam may provide information relevant
to the question of the identity of the traditional owners with the relevant authority
to make decisions affecting, or to 'speak for', the land at the Muckaty Station
site. However, these documents do not alter the committee's view, as expressed
in its 2010 report, that conflicting views clearly exist regarding this issue and
that 'ultimately these matters must be resolved in a legal forum or through a
mechanism that is competent to resolve such disputes between groups of
traditional owners'.[27]
Accordingly, the committee cannot conclude that the evidence provided by the
NLC misled its inquiry into the Bill or raises any matter of privilege for further
consideration by the Senate.
Senator
Trish Crossin
Chair
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