Ms CLARE - So long as you don't have an objection to me sipping my tea.

Laughter.

CHAIRPERSON - Thank you for your submission, as I have said. The process we have used through the hearings is that we ask those who have put forward a submission to speak to it, to add anything else they believe is relevant and then if the committee need to ask extra questions to clarify your position, they shall do so at the end of the process. So I'll hand over to you - I don't know whether both are speaking or just one - Jenny you've actually signed the submission. If you would like to make a start perhaps, and then we can move on to Robyn.

Ms HARRERA - Yes, thank you very much. We don't have a lot that we want to add to it; we put in our basic thoughts. But we would like to say that we do support the process of returning land and we hope the process will continue. From our input from all kinds of people, our feeling is that the process just needs some fine tuning; there may be small areas where it can be made more open, more accessible, but we support the process itself.

In regard to the question of when complaints and problems and disagreements arise, we do feel that perhaps there is an area there where some form of mediation or ombudsman or some way to bring people together perhaps in a less formal way to resolve a lot of these issues because a lot of them appear to come from confusion or misinformation, particularly on the question of access. That seems to be the area where so many people don't quite know what access means and whether it's access for people, whether it's access for vehicles, whether they can bring dogs onto the land. All kinds of questions there. So there may be an area there where some processes of mediation or even just a hotline or something can resolve a lot of those problems. Robyn has done quite a lot of work in mediation and she might just like to add to -

Ms CLARE - I worked on trialing the Aboriginal studies program at Friends School and I spent four years in the Kimberley and Pilbara region in north western Western Australia developing cultural awareness packages and workshops to help with the land claims there.

The judiciary would come and spend time with the Aboriginal people in learning the importance of special areas for Aboriginal people and just from that experience, I feel that to have processes where the stakeholders in the area might have workshops or go out bush with Aboriginal people might allay any of the problems that may happen later on.

CHAIRPERSON -Thank you. Anything else to add Jenny?

Ms HERRERA - The other question is that when land is returned, there needs to be sufficient funding available, particularly to deal with things like introduced weeds and pests and so on. I know there's been some programs where young Aboriginal people have been funded to go and do landcare work and that kind of thing.

But from what we can gather that's a fairly ad hoc approach and there may be an opportunity to put that on a firmer basis so that every land has some sort of backup, that the Aboriginal community can be certain that they will be able to bring the land back to as near as possible - you can't bring it back to exactly what it was before we all arrived. But where there's problems - for instance, my next door neighbour was very upset because at Risdon Cove the English willows were being removed and he said he knew the family that had planted them and he felt that that was a discourtesy and he couldn't see that English willows might not be the most appropriate trees to have on land that has gone back to the Aboriginal community. So there are all kinds of issues involved with that sort of work on the land itself. But some form of funding or support for unemployed young people to work on it and so on could perhaps be brought out a bit more.

CHAIRPERSON - Do you think Jenny, land ownership or the controller of the land is the most important perspective from the Aboriginal community? I ask that question because in New South Wales there was land transferred to the Aboriginal community and then leased back to National Parks so the Aboriginals had ownership of the land but National Parks were the responsible body to manage, allow the public through and so on. Would you like to put some relationship to that process into the Tasmanian context - either of you?

Ms HERRERA - Speaking personally, I regard it as Aboriginal land. But obviously in a community of 6 000 to 8 000 people, the actual means of controlling and running that land simply isn't there and the land does need to be cared for. But the Aboriginal people are saying themselves that it's that relationship with the land that's so important. But the business of how to run the land, caring for the land itself - and that's one of the most important things, how do we care for the land in the best way, not only for now but on into the future. We would certainly regard Aboriginal ownership under whatever system suits them best as vitally important.

Ms CLARE - Have they been consulted on how they would like to look after the land?

CHAIRPERSON -The committee, certainly, have had several meetings with the Aboriginal community. But originally the concept that has been put forward by the Government for legislation was a result of a request from the Aboriginal community for land transfers of specific areas and the Government have acceded to that request. What we have found as we've talked to them through the process is that there is a presumption of handing back massive hectares of land and yet in many cases much of the land has absolutely no capacity to make a financial contribution to the community, let alone to its own maintenance, and therefore it is a concern that all communities should address, whether they are Aboriginal or of European descent, in this process.

Ms HERRERA - Yes, and of course sovereignty itself and ownership and leasehold and freehold and all these things have different down-the-track responsibilities and so on. My impression is that they would like some form of recognition that it was their land but not necessarily every, you know, big amounts of land but that of course is for them rather than for us to be saying, but recognition that it all was Aboriginal land.

Ms CLARE - In my experience, an acknowledgment of the spiritual relationship with the land and the spirituality associated with that, if non-Aboriginal people accept that and have tangible evidence of it, then Aboriginal people feel stronger in themselves and able to move on with that. It seems to me that in the past we have taken away the land and we are now not acknowledging the spirituality and being acknowledged in some way - and giving back the land is also acknowledging the spiritual relationship with the land - that enables Aboriginal people to feel stronger.

CHAIRPERSON - You made comment earlier that you had actually done some work in the Pilbara region, was it, with Aboriginal communities. Would you like to make some comment on the Aboriginal communities you worked with there in comparison with the Aboriginal communities as you know them here in Tasmania?

Ms CLARE - It's very different. People talk about Aboriginal people generally and each community has its own flavour, its own way of approaching non-Aboriginal people and so, initially, when I was working there, a lot of listening needed to go on and I would see this as being a great opportunity for listening and to work out creative ways around the issues that might arise. There's a lot of potential in this opportunity.

Mr FLETCHER - Could I ask then: do you see that the Aborigines of the Pilbara region have any greater or lesser requirement for or right to land than the Tasmanian Aborigines? They would be equal, there is an equality about their presence. Why then when Aborigines of the Pilbara make a land claim for native title rights through a Federal-established tribunal, why then shouldn't the Tasmanian Aborigines have exactly the same process available to them?

Ms CLARE - I would think that they should have. I'm not understanding your question probably.

Mr FLETCHER - Well, instead of us sitting here trying to establish a range of criteria or a reason that is rigorous to transfer land, why don't the Tasmanian Aborigines follow exactly the same process as the Pilbara Aborigines do? Why shouldn't they be required to do that?

Ms HERRERA - The problem we've found - for instance, I inherited a small farm in Queensland with my brother and we were looking at a way to get native title over it or to share in some way, but we have not been able to find any Aboriginal group with a traditional connection to that because the movement of people was so extreme -

Mr FLETCHER - But that is to satisfy your need, isn't it, rather than the Aboriginal need.

Ms HERRERA - Well, it's both ways. I mean, if there were Aboriginal people there, we'd love to be able to sit down and talk to them. The same problem works here, I think, that because people were moved and moved and moved, the Federal Government, the way it is set up, that process, but there is no reason why the State shouldn't set up a slightly different process to deal with Tasmanian conditions -

Mr FLETCHER - So you're saying there is not this equality, as Robyn said, that each group should be treated differently and assessed differently?

Ms HERRERA - Well, that's going by what the Federal Government set up as its criteria of having to prove a connection to the land. That's the problem there where Tasmania is different to the Pilbara but the Tasmanian Government, looking at Tasmanian situations, if they set up some form of tribunal to look at the specific situation here, we would be very much in support of that process.

Mr FLETCHER - What I am trying to determine is whether you believe there is a reason beyond reconciliation, like, should the people of Tasmania or should the Parliament of Tasmania be generous to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community by giving them land simply because they think it's a good thing to do and simply because the Tasmanian Aborigines believe this land is important to them, significant to them. Now if I follow that path and they ask for more next year and more five years down and more and more and more, if the criteria is valid eventually we give them the whole of the island State of Tasmania, which is not going to happen. So what I'm trying to determine is, is there a process that allows an open transparent assessment, with some rigour built into it, that enables all the people of Tasmania to say, 'Yes, this is a fair process. We have confidence in this process. We embrace the concept of the land transfer' rather than the Parliament saying, 'Here is some land' and the people of Tasmania saying, 'Why did they give them that land? I think this is wrong'.

Ms HERRERA - It has to be more than a feel-good thing.

Mr FLETCHER - Yes, well that is what I am asking: is there a way of doing this? That is what I'm interested in.

Ms HERRERA - For instance, the Australian Government has sovereignty over Australia but that doesn't mean there isn't land owned by Japanese and German and American interests and so on, so that the question of sovereignty and recognition is rather different to the question of specific land ownership and so you would -

Mr FLETCHER - I don't quite understand your point there.

Ms HERRERA - Well, recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty over Tasmania is not the same thing as Aborigines owning all of Tasmania, for instance - I mean, there could be parallel forms of sovereignty whereby European sovereignty and Aboriginal sovereignty work together in the way that the Aboriginal provision of government was not based so much on land but on other aspects of life that they wanted to gain greater control over.

Mr FLETCHER - So are you putting to me here that there are in fact two nations: there is the Aboriginal nation and the Australian nation and that the sovereignty of each should be respected and treated separately?

Ms HERRERA - Not necessarily separately, they would obviously interact. But there could be a way of coming up with something unique to Tasmania even that would recognise what happened and of developing new ways of looking at it. I think it's people starting to say, 'Well, what do we mean by sovereignty or self-determination or land rights or native title' and this process, I get the impression, is really only in the beginning out in the community. It is not a matter of perhaps you saying, 'Tomorrow we'll recognise Aboriginal sovereignty' it's a matter of bringing these concepts into discussion and Tasmania developing in its own way which recognises its history and its culture and land and type of communities living here.

Mr FLETCHER - But, Jennie, you are saying to me that you think there may be a time when the Aboriginal people of Australia will have a sovereignty that allows them to be self-determining. They will have their own laws, their own land and -

Ms HERRERA - I would like to think so, that the two things would work in together. For instance, we know that there has been some working to get Aboriginal laws recognised in some parts of Australia where that legal system is still in existence but obviously that's not so much a thing in Tasmania where it was destroyed. But there are probably ways in which people can come together and look for new ways of working together and I don't know, maybe Quakers are going in a slightly different way to the wider community. But I think, for instance, when Rob Valentine talked about Aboriginal sovereignty at the East Timor rally last year, several people came up to me afterwards and said, 'Oh, wasn't that wonderful to hear Rob Valentine talk about Aboriginal sovereignty', which was very interesting. It doesn't mean that people went away and did anything about it but just the fact that they were taking that idea on board at this stage, I think.

Mr FLETCHER - It's a concept I find difficulty with - a great deal of difficulty with -

Ms HERRERA - But that's not really the issue today.

Mr FLETCHER - Yes, that's right.

Ms CLARE - Are you getting that feeling that Aboriginal people would like to have a space where they had their own laws and were separate from everybody else?

Mr FLETCHER - No, I don't get that feeling at all. I get a feeling that there is different groupings in an Aboriginal community, the same as there are in the broader community. There is like we are, I suppose, a political grouping within that have ambit claims of one form and another or have distant goals and that might be separate sovereignty and a separate nation of Aboriginal people or whatever. But then there is the majority of the people at the community level who want to live their life and be proud of their heritage, proud of their culture, proud of where they come from and be part of the broader community as well and have good health and good education and good law and order and things of that nature, so there are the various groupings. Anyway, am I talking too much?

CHAIRPERSON - As usual.

Laughter.

Ms CLARE - I can see your concerns.

Ms HERRERA - With the Quakers - there are sort of three areas, there are individual Quakers and what they're doing, which often comes back to something like The-Pay-the-Rent Campaign, which you probably know about -

Mr FLETCHER - Yes.

Ms HERRERA - and some form of recognition and all and so on, and then there is the actual land that the meeting house is on, which is only a little block, and they thought well obviously sharing that land isn't realistic but perhaps they could share use of the meeting house in some way. Then there's the Friends School, which obviously does own quite a bit of land and so they've been looking at how might that be shared or recognised or something like that. So a piece of land they've got out on the east coast, they are talking to the east coast Aboriginal community to see if they would like to use that land. Another thing they were looking at is perhaps setting up bursaries for Aboriginal children to come to Friends School, so it's not so much focus solely on the land, it's talking to the community and seeing what they might find the most appropriate way of the school recognising and supporting the Aboriginal community.

Mr WILKINSON - Jennie, you were saying in Queensland that you had a property there and you said that you were hoping that there was some type of Aboriginal history to it. Is that as I understood your comment a while ago?

Ms HERRERA - Yes, the group that was there appear to have been moved so far back and have lost connection with it so the actual Aboriginal communities in Toowoomba tend to be people who have moved in from further west. So it may be that the only appropriate way of recognising that that was Aboriginal land is perhaps to give part of the money to the Aboriginal community or something like that.

Mr WILKINSON - Because that's a bit like Tasmania in some ways, isn't it, because they've been removed.

Ms HERRERA - Yes.

Mr WILKINSON - What were you saying you'd like to do; if they came to you and said, 'We were on this land 40 000 years ago. You were here 100 years ago or 150 years ago', would you see it within yourself to give part of that land back or would it be more of a case of sharing it with them, in other words, allowing them to come on to enjoy certain ceremonies or whatever it might be?

Ms HERRERA - It would depend on what was most appropriate. I mean, the land was a small dairy farm so it doesn't have middens or sacred sites or anything like that but if they would like to use that as a place to bring city kids out into the country to go camping or something like that, it would be wonderful.

Mr WILKINSON - So rather than a gift back to them, it's a sharing with them?

Ms HERRERA - Well, that would depend on if they said, 'Look, we would love to have or own part of this land or own all of it or something' or 'We would like to buy it from you but we can't pay the market price' or whatever. It would be a matter of sitting down and talking about what they would like to do.

Mr WILKINSON - But it's not really up to them, is it, it's up to you because you own the land. So they could put forward their wishes but in the end it is up to you in relation to what you do.

Ms HERRERA - It is partly, but also we have to go away and live with ourselves so we have to do what we feel is right after the discussions.

Ms CLARE - One thing that I found a problem, in the north-west it's appropriate to ask the community if it's okay if you come onto the land and they sing the land so it's easier for you to be with that and let the ancestors and the spirits know that you are coming. Here in going to places of Aboriginal significance, it's tricky asking if you can go there. I don't know if anything can come out of that.

Mr WILKINSON - Can you expand on that, what do you mean by tricky? You don't know who to ask or are you scared that you are going to be kicked off?

Ms CLARE -Yes, and when you do ask you don't always get a response because there are probably a large number of Aboriginal groups in Tasmania who would need consulting. I am interested in going to Judds Cavern, for example, as a caver but I feel reluctant to go because that's on Aboriginal land - there are hand stencils in there - and I don't know how to go about finding out or saying to somebody, 'I'd like to go on your land and I'll be there on x weekend'. That's just a little aside.

CHAIRPERSON - Why does it differ to the other places? Here, surely you contact a recognised Aboriginal group like the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre and they'll tell you whether they are the management for that area or whether the Tasmanian Aboriginal Land Corporation, for instance, are the managers.

Ms CLARE - More often than not there's no response.

CHAIRPERSON - So it is not who you go to, it is the communication process that needs improving.

Ms CLARE - Yes.

Ms HERRERA - It is also, I think - I work at Runnymede, the National Trust house, and you get a lot of tourists who would love to have some contact with Aboriginal people or go somewhere and see something, particularly tourists from overseas, and they don't know quite how to go about it. So maybe there is an area there that needs more information out in the public domain. In here there is a lot of talk about access but it is not really spelt out so people think, 'Oh well I wonder what that means'. Does access mean 'I can actually drive there or go on a bus tour' or does it mean 'I must walk in' and so on. So perhaps there is room there for a bit more information.

Mr WILKINSON - The previous witness gave some information in relation to a Kooparooma and Niara Aboriginal Culture Centre. Do you believe Tasmania's lacking in not having one of those because of the instance you've just mentioned where people who are tourists come to Tasmania and have come to Runnymede and say, 'Where do I go to understand the Aboriginal culture?'

Ms HERRERA - I think there is, yes, because things like the Aboriginal Centre is only open in office hours.

Mr WILKINSON - I'm not being disrespectful to it, but if you go to the Aboriginal Centre you are not going to see much Aboriginal culture in itself.

Ms HERRERA - No, but if you want information and maybe the mainstream tourist information area could include a bit of information. Also of course the areas of land that have been handed back are often quite remote and people think, 'If I drive all the way up there and then find there's a gate with a padlock, what do I do?' So maybe that's an area that just needs a bit more consultation and information.

Mr FLETCHER - Can I ask you what you understand by the reconciliation process and have we made progress in relation to that matter over the last decade?

Ms HERRERA - I think Tasmania certainly has made progress. In fact my feeling is that Tasmania is moving forward gently while the mainland is perhaps not quite getting it right. One of the problems is that it has turned Aboriginal reconciliation rather than white reconciliation so there is this perception that it's Aboriginal people who are going to do all the reconciling and we will just sit back and wait for the better relations to flow from that. But in general, I think, Tasmania is moving gently ahead.

Mr FLETCHER - Can you think of any action Tasmania has taken from either community which has been very, very positive in the reconciliation process?

Ms HERRERA - I think that the feeling of joy when the first handbacks of land happened. People really felt proud and excited that this process was starting and that in general it had cross-party support. That was a very positive thing.

Mr FLETCHER - Can you cite a similar instance from the Aboriginal community's perspective?

Ms HERRERA - The fact that they are being consulted about things like the tracks along the foreshore of the Derwent, and things like that, because their image was of the council simply going ahead and doing things but now the councils are listening to them and saying, 'Is this appropriate? Will this interfere with middens?' Just the fact that they are being talked to, listened to, and what they have to say is being seen as important.

Mr FLETCHER - I thought your proposition to me was that - it's named Aboriginal reconciliation; this denotes that all the reconciling is being done by the Aboriginal people and very little is being done by the broader community.

Ms CLARE - And they have been doing it forever, adjusting to us, and we haven't adjusted to them. Part of the thing with the reconciliation as well, it seems to me that we'll become reconciled when - I shouldn't say that - part of the process is understanding the Aboriginal processes of their skin system. When we take on board some of their processes of a lot of negotiation - I am just talking about up in the north west - but it took a long time to get anywhere and in that long time, a lot of talking was done and that's what happens. A lot of yarning done in the pubs and parks and it is really valuable, this yarning that goes on. We are doing some yarning now. Laughter, humour and joy and accepting that the process is so important and acknowledging Aboriginal processes in the way we work. I remember standing up here demonstrating once on the lawns -

Mr WILKINSON - How many years ago was that?

Laughter.

Ms CLARE - Way back. It was a demonstration for something to do with Aboriginal issues. Someone was peeping out from the lace curtains and I was standing with an Aboriginal elder and she was so chuffed to think that someone was peeping out through the curtains at the people outside, whereas in the past they'd had to peep out of their houses in fear. That was a turning point to some extent for her. I didn't quite understand the subtlety of it but just seeing someone doing that was a turnaround.

Those little things can change thinking. You are saying what steps, what things have made these changes and sometimes it can be tiny things.

CHAIRPERSON - Quite evidently you were involved in 1995 when the first transfer of land happened to the Aboriginal community; you made some comment about the feeling at the time. In 1995 the Tasmanian community, I think it is fair to say, embraced the concept of transfer of land to the Aboriginal community under certain terms and conditions. The reaction has been different in the second round of transfer of land. Different sorts of reasons have come up. Some thought 1995 was the land transfer as far as reconciliation went, and there would be other demonstrative things we could do for reconciliation than land transfer. Others have pointed to the fact that there has been a loss of trust because some of the issues - locked gates, for instances, problems with access et cetera - have come up over those past five years. Would you like to make some comment on the difference of 1995 to 2000, why the same community feeling is not there, because it is not there, and that is evidenced in this committee with the submissions the committee have had over the past three months?

Ms HERRERA - I think it's still there though. I think there is still pleasure to know that the process is still going ahead. But the problem this time round that several people have said was that there was more secrecy about it, and they wondered why when the community was supportive that this hadn't perhaps been more open, and I think that maybe needs to be addressed, but that's not something we can do. That is more the Government talking about what it is doing and what it plans to do, and maybe encouraging more input. And those little problems like a locked gate can be blown out of proportion unless the Government is providing information and perhaps providing some means, perhaps through the Ombudsman's office, for those little things to be resolved. I have lived in country areas, and so has Robyn, and I know how little things can fester and be blown out of proportion.

CHAIRPERSON - If I put it to you that it had been Mt Wellington transferred and you struck a locked gate before you started to climb the mountain, even though a law had told you you had access over a particular path et cetera, do you believe that it should be interpreted as a small thing if the law states one thing and yet another thing is seen to have happened?

Ms HERRERA - I think there would be an area there to find out what was happening. I mean, obviously when it is bad weather you expect people not to go up, and so people may wonder what is happening, how do we find out, but if there is a gate there saying 'today this is closed because there is a special Aboriginal ceremony', I think people would accept that. But if they went every day and there is a locked gate, they would obviously want to know what is happening when they have been assured that there would be access. But there again it needs to be made clear what kind of access the bill is talking about. Is it vehicle access, is it people walking up with their children? Those little kinds of things perhaps could be brought out clearer to avoid perhaps some problems in that area.

Mr WILKINSON - You are saying you both lived in the country for a period of time. Do you believe there has to be an acceptance within the community where the land is to be handed back for there to be proper reconciliation? And if there is not this acceptance, should there be by the educative process that you were talking about prior to it being transferred back?

Ms CLARE - I think the education part is coming together. Have you guys been out with Aboriginal people out bush and hung out with them informally and had long yarns? Yes?

Mrs SILVIA SMITH - I have in a different process, not in this one.

Ms CLARE - It's sort of like the Russians. We were led to believe that they were all really dreadful people, and now everyone's coming together. I just think if people come together they find out the common humanity.

Mr FLETCHER - Robyn, it seems to me one of the problems - there have been two startling aspects of this inquiry as far as I'm concerned. One, an Aboriginal person on a very high profile piece of land that was Aboriginal land, when questioned informally said, 'Look, no-one ever uses this land. The Aboriginal people don't come here. It's a shame, isn't it, but no-one comes here'. From my area of the land, the land has been given back, and you can almost bet pounds to peanuts that a fence has been put up, a gate-keeper's been put on, some work is done with very limited funds on trying to control the weeds, which is impossible. But people don't go to that area of land unless it is once a year for a week for a special ceremony, but the rest of the time the land is there and nobody is using the land.

Ms CLARE - School groups go there, if we are talking about Oyster Cove.

Mr FLETCHER - No, we're not talking about Oyster Cove. And when I speak to people in outlying communities, whether it is Cape Barren Island or Flinders Island, and say to them - a community level group, people on the north-west coast - 'How has the last transfer of land affected your life?', and apart from the euphoria of the day or two of the handover and then on, it hasn't affected their life at all. They want to support more transfer of land, but still the issues of health and education and job opportunities for their young and the like, those sorts of things, are very high on their list of important things that need doing, so they are almost speaking as an assimilated person with the same pressures as I have, or as other people have, rather than having this spiritual link to the land which produces a different person. Somewhere that's in the back of my mind. I can't -

Ms HERRERA - But it's like the land that the National Trust has, perhaps. It's not the same because obviously it's not a spiritual connection, but I say to people 'You can go up and enjoy the gardens at Runnymede any time. You don't have to pay to go through the House'. And they are astonished, they say, 'Can I really go in there?' And so there is often this feeling that any public or community-owned land is off limits, even though there may be nothing to back up that belief. And so that may be at work to some extent in the Aboriginal community, where they feel that belongs to that community and therefore we can't go there.

Ms CLARE - Well, is it not just important to know it's there? Maybe people can't afford to go there.

Mr FLETCHER - That's a factor for sure.

Ms CLARE - There are any number of reasons. I'm really happy that some of the regions in the south-west are there. It gives me great spiritual nourishment just to know they are there, but I don't go there. And in the north-west, people couldn't get back to their lands because of various reasons, but knowing it was there was important, and that is a huge thing.

Mr WILKINSON - Can I get back to my question, please, about whether you believe that for reconciliation to occur there has to be acceptance within the community where the land is being transferred for there to be reconciliation.

Ms CLARE - It is the chicken and the egg thing, give it back and reconciliation happens or -

Mr WILKINSON - Or like in 1995 where there has been a great deal of consultation. Everybody accepted it with, as you say, a deal of euphoria at the time. This is a bit different, as you were saying, Jennie, because of the creeping up aspect of it, I suppose, where in the areas that the land is to be transferred back, a number of people are saying 'In some areas it's with the community'. It's a difficult question.

Ms HERRERA - It's a difficult one and of course other things come into play like the impacts that One Nation had in some areas or things that people mightn't necessarily come out and express, or just the fact that people are unemployed and they may be feeling - anything to grumble about sort of thing. Here is one group of people who perhaps seem to be getting more particular concern by the Government. Even just the amount of time the Government is spending on looking at the issue they may say, 'Why isn't the Government spending that amount of time on looking at unemployment or roads or something?'

Mr FLETCHER - Respite for people with disability, whatever.

Ms HERRERA - Whatever. So that all kinds of other issues may be coming into play that education might resolve. But if they're issues that people aren't being honest perhaps to themselves that this is why I'm against Aborigines getting anything because my own life is in a mess or something, no amount of education is going to resolve that. But I think the Government does need to be perhaps looking at how they educate and where they're educating and what amount of time and effort they're putting into it. I think every government can educate better.

Ms CLARE - I am conscious of during the blockade there was a great divide in the community and I would hope that that doesn't happen again. The process of coming to some resolution doesn't happen through dividing people. To make this process a conciliatory process through education, through workshopping together, hanging out together, in the most informal ways, not in this type of situation which is intimidatory. You do not learn on another level.

The people who I was working with, we learn in an abstract way, we are talking in an abstract thing. But a lot of stuff can happen, absorb, on another level. For me, it's really important to have education and mediation and workshops and Hamersley Iron up in the north-west wouldn't employ people, non Aboriginal people, at their company unless they had done some of the training that we'd done. It is just becoming a mandatory thing to understand Aboriginality.

CHAIRPERSON - If I might expand on that a little because in the main we are talking about two very small communities. One community we went into, I, as chair was absolute astounded that the community had a tremendous understanding of the Aboriginal heritage in their area and a respect for it, even to the stage as saying in some instances, 'I know where there is something very special to the Aboriginal community but I'm not going to tell anybody in case you get some yobbo who goes in there and desecrates it'.

So they have a tremendous understanding of the Aboriginal culture in their community. They have all lived as one in their community for generations. They are accepting of one another and yet they see the proposal before us at the moment where a land transfer is being transferred to an Aboriginal community - and I might say this is local Aboriginals in that community as well as the European community - are seeing that the transfer as proposed at this time by the Government is actually bringing in strangers, that is going to destroy a process they have lived with for a hundred years or more, where they have all recognised one another and lived and worked together, hunted and fished together. And now all of a sudden up comes a bureaucracy-type process that will put restrictions on everybody, including their own local Aboriginal community.

Ms HERRERA - When you say strangers, do you mean the bureaucrats or do you just mean outsiders?

CHAIRPERSON - They interpret the transfer of land, because it has to be transferred to an organisation, there has to be a corporate body who can accept the responsibility, but at a local level they interpret a transfer as not one of us. Somebody from the city is going to come out and tell us how to do it, I suppose is the best way I can explain it.

Ms CLARE - I'm from the Government, I can help you.

CHAIRPERSON - So I am asking you the question, I suppose, in a transfer of land, if you can achieve transfer at a local level is that a better process even in a State as small as Tasmania than at a State level, where you hand it to a State body representing the Aboriginal community.

Ms HERRERA - But it maybe in some cases where there's a lot of fears about a process but when it has actually happened they realise those fears were baseless. So maybe the Aboriginal Land Council needs to come in and say, 'We're not going to be here every week telling you how to run it. It's your local community and they're going to be the ones to benefit'.

CHAIRPERSON - But that's not necessarily so because after the 1995 process it was not the local communities that were managing the land in those areas - and I instance in the Circular Head area, it is being managed by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Land Council. The caves are being managed by them as well; Risdon Cove and Oyster Cove are being managed by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre; Wybalenna appears to be the one that will get up with local management when they work through a few issues where local Aboriginals on Flinders Island will manage Wybalenna.

Ms HERRERA - But of course when you look at it, all sorts of strangers can come on to your property and people tend to just live with that but where small communities maybe haven't thought that through it may seem more threatening. I mean all sorts of people can come into my backyard without my permission - the Hydro, Telstra, quarantine and Health department and the department of Agriculture and all sorts of things and I have no say over that. But I think perhaps in the city you just tend to live with that so the council can come in and do this.

CHAIRPERSON - I put the issues specifically because Robyn talked about the yarns. I think they've had the yarns in some of the small communities and they do understand one another. We have to ask ourselves as a larger community, are we creating destruction amongst the yarns by taking one particular process over another.

Mr WILKINSON - Quite bluntly what they are saying is, 'We don't want the southern people telling us what to do with our land', that's it bluntly. In a way I can understand that. They say, 'We've been the ones who have been enjoying it, we've been the ones who have lived with it; we've been the ones who are saying we're Aboriginal; we've been the ones who have been living our culture' and some as best they can. The two cultures are accepted, the European culture, the indigenous culture, they are both accepted within the local community. Sometimes what they're saying is, 'Don't come and spoil all that. If you do something, you're going to spoil all that and you're going to cause a division, and it is all right for you to say that everything will be all right, because you're down south. We've got to live in it.'

Ms HERRERA - I know, it's a big problem right throughout Tasmania with things like services going to Melbourne. We all feel that somehow we're not being listened to.

Ms CLARE - There was a community that I worked with, a saltwater community in the Kimberley, and they lived in the most idyllic place. They were living traditionally, hunting dugong and turtle; having their wonderful, unique ceremonies, and they were sitting in a wonderful position to have a tourism enterprise. They chose not to go ahead with it because it eroded their culture. So, gosh, the questions you're asking, I need time to have a really good think about them because I hadn't realised your dilemmas and how you were respecting all the dimensions of this. So there might be a creative solution around it.

Mr BAILEY - In relation to Aboriginal persons being accepted, you said that that should be settled by the Aboriginal community, and that is generally what is said.

Ms HERRERA - Yes.

Mr BAILEY - But under the current act and under the proposed bill, the ultimate determination of that can be applied by a Supreme Court judge, which may or may not be an Aboriginal person. How do you comment on that, which is the antithesis of saying it should be settled by the Aboriginal community, and yet there is an appeal process within the bill and within the current act which may go to a white person?

Ms HERRERA - It is very much sort of mixed feelings on that one. I know that court case that went through was rather bitter and unfortunate and there was a feeling of if only there had been some sort of accepted mediation process, that they didn't need to take it to court. So that maybe taking it out of Aboriginal hands has some benefit and maybe leaving it in has some benefit. I had very mixed feelings when I read through that part of the bill. But there again, with people sitting down and talking to each other, maybe it need never get to the stage where it has to be a court case.

Mr BAILEY - Following on from that, would you see that a representative tribunal might be better than the Supreme Court which might comprise, say, two persons from the Aboriginal Land Council, which is the owner of the land and the organisation driving this issue, with a retired or a current police magistrate or a retired Supreme Court judge, who might chair that panel or that tribunal without it then going to the Supreme Court, a costly exercise?

Ms HERRERA - In general, I think we would all say that if a tribunal can keep things out of that very expensive legal process and still meet people's needs, we would be very much in favour of that.

Mr BAILEY - Well, it seems to me that where there is dispute over whether a person is an Aboriginal person or not, and that person really wants to take it through, and if they are in necessitous circumstances but still have a passion to want to be part of that community, the cost of going to a Federal court or the Supreme Court of Tasmania would be prohibitive, particularly if the group that is responsible for determining legal aid in itself determines that that person is not of Aboriginal descent and then can't get the money to go before a costly court case. They are then denied the opportunity of, if you like, joining the club.

Ms HERRERA - Yes, it is a very difficult one, but I am sure that people getting together and talking it out can resolve maybe not every problem but a lot of the problems.

Mr BAILEY - With a tribunal it would be less formal than a Supreme Court hearing or a Federal court hearing, I would have thought. I would be interested in your views on it.

Ms HERRERA - Well, people feel more comfortable often about going to mediation rather than going even just for minor things. If they trust the process and feel that it is really there for them and is not just the Government trying to cut costs or something like that, if it is set up in a way that the community feels they can trust that they will get the best outcome through the tribunal rather than through the court, I would imagine it would - well, like the Mediation Centre certainly saves money by keeping a lot of cases out of court. By keeping them out of court it keeps them out of the media. It reduces that sense of division.

Mr BAILEY - If you accept that, do you then accept that a non-indigenous person ought to be part of that tribunal?

Ms HERRERA - I would actually have no problem with that, if that person is fully trained and is accepted by the Aboriginal community as somebody who really knows what they are doing.

CHAIRPERSON - Thank you, ladies, for your attendance this afternoon. The input that you have given us has been most beneficial.

Ms HERRERA - Thank you very much for inviting us along; it has been very interesting to hear what you are doing.

Ms CLARE - Well, good luck, guys.

Laughter.
 
 

THE WITNESSES WITHDREW.