The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Jabiru) Bill 2020 (the Bill) was introduced in the House of Representatives on 13 May 2020. It contains one Schedule with 12 items that amend the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (the Act), and one item that amends the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). The Bill is currently scheduled to be debated in the House of Representatives on Tuesday 25 August 2020 and in the Senate on Thursday 27 August 2020.
In 2013 an amendment was made to the Act to allow the township of Jabiru, and two adjacent portions of land totalling approximately 54 square kilometres, to be granted as Aboriginal land to traditional owners vested in the Kakadu Aboriginal Land Trust. The Bills Digest for the 2013 amendment provides further information.
The Bill is designed to allow traditional owners, the Mirrar people, to hold a township lease over Jabiru and to be involved in managing sub-leasing arrangements. The Bill also allows for the development of the land by sub-lessees.
Item 8 of the Bill removes the requirement for the initial grant of the Jabiru township lease to be to the Commonwealth. This will allow for the granting of a township lease for the Jabiru township and adjacent areas to the Executive Director of Township Leasing (a Commonwealth entity set up at the time of the Northern Territory Emergency Response to manage head leases over Aboriginal townships) on behalf of the Commonwealth and in partnership with traditional owners; or a community entity representing the traditional owners. The Bill also allows for the township lease to be between 40 and 99 years, rather than 99 years only, as required under the current provisions.
The consequential amendment to the EPBC Act (item 13 of the Bill) will allow for sub-lessees to develop land leased to them.
These arrangements bring the Act’s provisions relating to Jabiru in line with other township leasing arrangements in the Northern Territory.
This process is informed by a Memorandum of Understanding between the Australian Government, the Northern Territory Government, Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (holders of the Ranger Uranium mine lease) and Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC) for the ongoing management and development of Jabiru in the lead up to and following the planned closure of the Ranger Uranium mine, the lease of which expires on 1 July 2021. This continues a process of implementing a land rights and native title settlement between all parties agreed to in 2009; for more details, see the Bills Digest to the 2013 amendment.
In the second reading speech, Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt explained that township leasing provides for individual property rights. In practice this will mean that sub-lessees will hold individual leasehold property rights on Aboriginal land with rights to develop and use the land. The underlying title will remain Aboriginal Land Rights land.
Background
Kakadu, Jabiru and the Ranger Uranium mine
The part of Kakadu National Park within which the Jabiru township is located has been leased by the Kakadu Aboriginal Land Trust to the Director of National Parks since it was granted as Aboriginal Land Rights land in 1978, following the Fox inquiry into uranium mining in the Northern Territory. The Ranger Uranium mine and the township of Jabiru, intended to service the mine, were not originally included in the national park or the Land Rights grant. The Ranger Uranium mine is scheduled to close in 2021 (and the site must be rehabilitated by the company by 2026), so there has been pressure to reorient the town to tourism and service provision to ensure its future.
In early 2019 the Australian Government ($216m) and Northern Territory Government ($131.5m) announced a $347.5 million investment over 10 years to upgrade Kakadu National Park and support the transition of Jabiru Township to a tourism and services hub. In the wake of COVID-19, in July 2020 the Australian Government announced further funding to support tourism in national parks, including Kakadu.
These initiatives and the Bill support the implementation of the Jabiru Masterplan released by GAC in July 2018. The Jabiru Masterplan (2018-2028) expresses the ecological, cultural, economic and social aims for the development and use of the Jabiru township area by the GAC.
Township leasing
Township leasing under the Act was established by the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Township Leasing) Act 2007 (Bills Digest). Leases are administered by the Executive Director of Township Leasing (EDTL) and the Office of Township Leasing (OTL), or an approved community entity. They are intended to be a means by which Aboriginal traditional owners in the NT can leverage benefits such as individual home ownership for Aboriginal people and market rental payments through the application of a managed sub-leasing scheme. According to the 2018–19 Annual Report of the Executive Director of Township Leasing, the OTL held leases over eight townships, 26 housing developments, 17 Alice Springs town camps, and administered the leases of 74 parcels of land used for Commonwealth assets, and was actively contributing to economic development and individual home ownership in many of these towns.
Township leasing has its critics. The Centre for Independent Studies says these arrangements do not go far enough to enable traditional owners to manage their land, as management is overseen by a government administrator (the EDTL). In a Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research paper, Engaging Indigenous Economy, township leasing is characterised as paternalistic, and any benefit derived from freeing up markets is considered to be mitigated by remoteness and the inalienable underlying land tenure. The Commonwealth practice of paying rental payments to the Aboriginal traditional owners using money from the Aboriginals Benefit Account, which is funded by mining royalty equivalent payments for mining on Aboriginal land, has also attracted criticism in the past.