Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Mr President, I, like the rest of my colleagues, have found this a very difficult matter with which to work. It is a matter which has caused great concern out there for many members of the public and it has not been an easy decision. In fact it has been extremely difficult - probably one of the most difficult decisions I will have to make in this House in the time that I might spend here.

In light of the matters that have been raised, I suppose I could probably sit down because just about everything has been said that can be said, but there are some further matters that are worthy of repeating and a few other matters that I would like to raise that have not been referred to today.

To start with, Mr President, I would like to reflect on the public meeting that took place on 11 March on Flinders Island. That meeting has been referred to but I do not think the motions that were passed were referred to. This was a meeting attended by 88 people. Two motions were passed there and I want to read those motions. The first motion said:

'That this meeting express condemnation of the State Government's deliberate attempts to divide our community, both Aboriginal and non Aboriginal.'

That was passed, 69 votes to 19. The second motion said:

'That this meeting does not support the transfer of Cape Barren Island, Clarke Island and Goose Island' -
which was there at the time -

'as outlined in the Aboriginal Lands Amendment Bill 2004.'

That motion was carried by a clear majority on a show of hands, Mr President, so the numbers were not recorded on that occasion. I thought it was worth mentioning those two motions that were passed.

I wanted to reflect on a couple of points from the second reading speech of the Leader. I refer to two dot points:

'as a government promoting unity and cooperation over division, we need to listen to other sections of the broader community on this issue, and we have done that.'

Then it was followed up a little later on in the second reading speech with the comment:
'This legislation really does come from the people of Tasmania.'

I heard the result of a survey that the honourable member for Apsley referred to where there was a clear majority of people opposing the return of that land so I wonder how the Government can say that, whether they have done a survey and whether they have really and honestly gone back to the people of Tasmania to ask what their position is. Those statements were made; they are in the second reading speech for us all to read, so I wonder how the Government is able to make those statements if there has not been some survey or something going out there in the public to gauge their attitudes and feelings in relation to this matter.

There are a few matters, Mr President: we all know what reconciliation is. I went to the Oxford Dictionary but if you go to all the dictionaries you will find the definition of 'reconciliation' is somewhat similar. It means to bring two or more different aims, points of view et cetera into agreement; to harmonise. I cannot say that the current position the Government wants to opt for will harmonise people. In fact there is a lot of evidence out there to the contrary at this time.

First, let me say that the removal of Goose Island from the Aboriginal Lands Amendment Bill is welcome and I commend the Government for looking at that and addressing that issue. That was an issue that meant a lot to the Flinders Island Council and I commend the Government for taking that course of action.
Mr Aird - Flinders Council.

Mr DEAN - Flinders Island Council.

Mr AIRD - Flinders Council.

Mr DEAN - Okay. The Flinders Council.

Mr Aird - It is just one of those irritations. There is more than one island amongst the Furneaux Group and the Flinders Council represents that group.

Mr DEAN - Mr President, I would hate to annoy the Leader for the Government so in future I will refer to them as the Flinders Council, the correct name.

Mr Aird - I am representing the sensitivity that the council have about it.

Mr DEAN - I want to comment on a couple of issues that were raised in relation to myself by some of the supporters of this bill back in November 2004 when a deferment of this bill was sought. I have always seen it as an extremely significant and important bill. Some might recall that when I made a comment along the lines that this matter required much deliberation and criticised the Government in actual fact for trying to rush it into the Chamber at the eleventh hour - that is, for a decision prior to us adjourning for that year - I was accused of showing some indifference to the bill by some of those people out there who were strongly supporting the bill. In fact on ABC Radio there was a statement to the effect that I found the other bills in the House at the time more important than this bill, that this bill was somewhat insignificant compared with the other bill that we were dealing with at the time. The position demonstrated by those people could not have been further from the truth, Mr President. I have never sought to downplay the significance of this matter and therefore I wonder why these comments were made. Perhaps it was a little bit of reverse psychology, I am not sure.

I do concur with the Government in that this is probably the most significant bill Parliament will deal with for many a year. I have already said that I believed it would probably be the most important bill I will deal with in my time. My position today will be the position I believe is in the best interests of all people. A lot of people have said this and are saying this out there, 'We are but one people, one Tasmania, one Australia,' and therefore I do not believe a decision that is likely to be divisive is a good position. Having said that, the evidence I have received, both verbal and written, tends to suggest that whatever happens today, a lot of hurt, resentment, ill-feeling, frustration, sadness, a feeling of being let down will fester probably for a very, very long time into the future for those people and communities directly involved in this very important matter.

That is regretted and there is a plea, and it would be a plea from me and, I would suggest, everybody else, for those people to harmonise whatever decision is made in this House. It is important that all people come together. The decision taken today ought not be impacted on by the very strong statements made by the late Premier, Mr Bacon - that is, his strong stance to see the land return occur and the promise of the current Premier to carry out that wish.

The decision today, Mr President, needs to be made on the facts as they exist and in the best interests of all people and in the best interests of reconciliation. The Premier's desire to carry out the wish of another ex-member is not sufficient reason to transfer or return a land title, in my view. This is not a decision that should be impacted on by the promise of another person.

As other members have referred to, I am guided somewhat in this matter by the findings of the Legislative Council select committee of 2000 into Aboriginal lands and I have read through that report in its entirety. This inquiry was completed by some very, very competent members of this House, Mr President. There was a government member at the time on that committee, Mrs Silvia Smith, and there were also two honourable members currently in this House, the members for Nelson and Murchison, involved in that inquiry.

I wonder what is the point of an inquiry of this magnitude - and in saying this, one needs to look at the list of references, the list of witnesses, the written submissions and documents taken into evidence in this inquiry. It was thorough and very carefully prepared and I commend all of those members who took part in that select committee inquiry. I want to refer to a couple of points in that inquiry, Mr President. I refer to pages 46 and 47 first of all. I want to identify some of the groups of people who were or became a part of this process and no doubt influenced, I would suggest, strongly the position of the members in coming to their conclusions and their recommendations.

We have the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania, the Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Commission, the First Aboriginal Contact Tasmania, the Flinders Island Aboriginal Association, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Land Council Aboriginal Corporation, the Tasmanian of Aboriginal Descent Association Aboriginal Corporation, Tasmanian Outer Islands Association, the Tasmanian Regional Aboriginal Council and we also heard the member for Apsley refer to some of the individual people who gave evidence to that inquiry.

When one looks at the list of people and the groups of people involved in that inquiry I think one can say safely at the end of it that the findings of that committee were well formed. I will refer to pages 38 and 39, Mr President, at the bottom of page 38 in the conclusions, and I refer to point 8 and point 9. Point 8 is: 'A process should be created to allow any future claims or proposals to be removed from the political arena and to be fairly assessed by an independent expert body'. Did that happen in this case? I do not believe it did.

The second point there, point 9, says: 'This process should involve open, transparent and rigorous assessment', and I guess you would have to ask there: did that apply in this case also? I am not so sure that it did.

You can look at the recommendations, Mr President, and I will read those recommendations. I am not sure if they were read by somebody else but if they were I apologise. The first recommendation here was that claims by Tasmanian Aborigines for land rights is not sufficient justification to transfer crown land.

Secondly, if the Tasmanian Government proposes in future to transfer land to meet a claim for land rights by Tasmanian Aborigines, it should first develop criteria against which the claim can be tested. The process for the development of criteria should involve - there are a number of points there that have been identified in that point and I will not go through those.

The last point is that a process of rigorous assessment be determined to identify sites on crown land with Aboriginal cultural heritage, values of special significance for management of their special values. We heard the Flinders Council representatives today make mention of this and their approach for the LGAT to put a position to the Government of an independent assessment or inquiry to be done in relation to land-return matters. The Leader, Mr President - I do not want to misquote him - made some comment on this in the second reading speech saying, as I understand it, that in effect they were satisfied with the position as it currently is in relation to this matter but in all future matters they wanted that sort of a situation to occur - that is, the independence of a committee to determine whether or not land should be transferred.

Well, I am going to ask the question: if the Flinders Council was satisfied with the way this occurred, why would they now be seeking through LGAT for that sort of a situation to occur in all future matters dealing with land returns or land transfers? I ask that question and I would suggest that they know very well or they believe that the situation in this instance was flawed and that is why they want to press that issue with the State Government. It is the only answer that I can come up with that is reasonable in that regard, Mr President.

It is pretty compelling stuff, and I am referring to the select committee inquiry. It would seem to me and I would suggest many others that in this instance the Government have ignored those findings and again I ask why. This was a very responsible inquiry, done by very responsible people and after a long period of inquiry. Why might the Government want to ignore it? I find it very difficult. I find it quite unbelievable and a situation just not real that our Premier should try to buy the Flinders Council. We know what the offer is and I do not think I need to go through those matters that the Premier put to the Flinders Council but I ask myself the question: 'Was that an ethical position to take?' Personally, Mr President, I say no as in my view it borders on an unlawful way in which to have an organisation accept a position.

To make those offers but only conditional on the land return bill being successful epitomises, in my view, an arrogant government. To offer to pay outstanding rates is discriminatory - and I wrote parts of this a couple of weeks ago - in my view and does nothing to give support to those residents who conscientiously have paid their rates. I was glad to hear the Flinders Council representatives today make a statement very similar to that. Whether or not that still remains on offer from the Government if this bill is successful I am not quite sure but the Flinders Council recognised also that that was a discriminatory move by this Government. I certainly looked at it and thought it to be very discriminatory as soon as I saw it and heard about it. Flinders Council did the same thing and I wonder why the Government would not think of that because surely, Mr President, if they believed that was discriminatory they would not have raised it in this situation.

I just want to refer to this - and other members would have received this same document from Mr Ken Worsley who I think was an ex-mayor of the Flinders Council.

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - Council clerk.

Mr DEAN - He was involved with Flinders as a council clerk. He has used some fairly strong words but he said he had no problem with me making comment today and using his name and that is the reason I raise that. I just take out one small part of his report here. It says:
'Even at this late stage' - and he is talking about the Premier -

'he should heed the experience of a Queensland Premier Peter Beattie who is busy defending bribery allegations on his offer to wipe a debt of $800,000 for Palm Island Council in exchange for supporting his opening of a State Government building on Palm Island. There is also the New England case in NSW where it is alleged that the sitting member Tony Windsor was offered "inducement" to vacate his seat.'

And we would all be well and truly aware of that case. When one looks at the Peter Beattie situation I ask the question: where is the difference between that and the current position that has arisen between our Premier and the Flinders Council?

What has this bill done so far? There are a number of things that it has done but these are the issues that I know it has created and there has been reference to this by other members here today. It has certainly divided Aboriginal against Aboriginal and that has come through to me very clearly, Mr President. I have spoken to a number of Aboriginal people. In fact one of my closest friends is an Aboriginal. He too espoused his concerns in relation to this matter and just how it was dividing his community and he demonstrated those concerns very strongly to me. It has certainly divided white against white and there have been many, many examples of that. It has certainly divided white against Aboriginal and vice versa. It has divided the Flinders Council, there is no doubt about that. There are certainly some difficulties within that council at the present time and there is a lot of healing necessary there. It has divided the council and the community and there has been quite a lot of evidence to demonstrate that. It has divided landowners and the Government and it has divided landowners and some Cape Barren Island people. Is there anybody else left? I dare say that those are also suffering pain, if there are any others; I do not know. But they would be suffering pain, there is little doubt about that.
As an example of the disharmony that has occurred, I want to refer to one matter, and I do not think the member for Apsley referred to this instance. It occurred on Cape Barren Island and it relates to a letter-tampering incident. I think most in this Council would be aware of it. The recipient of the letter in fact was Aboriginal, a long-time resident of the island and one known to be against this bill because she strongly believes the bill is divisive of the community and not about reconciliation. She espoused that view on many occasions and it was well known on Cape Barren Island that that was her position. Her mail was a target of tampering. An unlawful act was committed in relation to it by a senior person supporting the bill and working in the post office. It was a letter from the Legislative Council and, as I understand it, was fairly clearly marked from the Legislative Council or a Legislative Councillor and addressed to the ' victim' . This was a deliberate act committed for the purpose of, I have said, Mr President, gaining evidence, no doubt to use to the benefit of those supporting the bill. If that was not the reason then I do not know for what other reason somebody's mail would be tampered with. That is concerning. That caused a great deal of grief to the recipient of that letter and a number of other people who know about it. The act, as I understand it, has been proven and found to be right. As I have said, whatever happens, the healing process here will be hard and it will be drawn out. I would like to think that the healing process will occur very quickly but I really have my doubts.

On Friday 18 March my office phones rang constantly throughout the day in relation to this matter. My personal assistant - I felt sorry for her - kept complaining to me that her phone was running red-hot in relation to this matter. As she said, she lost count of the calls. I do not know why they occurred on that day. I suppose it was drawing very near to the date that was coming up for us to discuss it. There were many reasons being cited by the callers for and against. My personal assistant says that by far the greater majority were against it - that is, a land transfer. A consistent position was, she said, that these people were saying it is not reconciliation, it is dividing the community and that we are but one people. That was a very common comment that was being made by those people who were opposed to the bill. Many in this instance would not give their names; some did. But many would not and they made the comment that they feared recrimination if they were identified. That, Mr President, is a pretty sad situation in a democracy that people fear that if they do make their identities known, they could suffer as a consequence of it. Other comments made by some of those people against the transfer were, where will this all end? The islands today, Battery Point tomorrow, Tasmania the next, fishing rights - and we know that this is right because I think for those people who went to the public meeting at Cape Barren Island prior to Christmas, it was made very clear to us by a member present that, indeed, fishing rights would be next. Those who supported the bill made comments along the line that it is all about reconciliation, this will reconcile the communities, this is land return, it is not land transfer and it will go a long way to uniting the communities and bringing things onto an even keel.

They were making that point fairly strongly. But they were also making the comment that there was no division or a very small number of people who were really frustrated with what was going on. They were in denial mode about the division that had occurred and the ill feeling that was there. I question that because we know very well that there is a division there.

I do not want to take this too much further, other than to say that where sacred sites are identified the people support this land returning to or being transferred to the ALC and that is not in contention. I think there is a full concurrence and agreement of all people. There is no argument about that. On Cape Barren Island there are sites, I am told, that have particular significance to Aboriginals and it behoves us to ensure that such an area is properly protected and placed into the hands of the people to whom it has a special significance and meaning, and very clearly that is the Aboriginal community.

This is also what many people were saying and I have e-mails and other documents here that espouse that position. I dare say that other members would have those same or similar documents in relation to that. So there is an agreement out there that yes, those areas need to be protected, they need to be given to the Aboriginal community, for the benefit of those people, to be properly protected and so that they have control. But the very clear message is that Cape Barren Island and the other islands ought to be there for all people. We are one people. I guess I become quite emotional about this at times: I cannot see where this provision of land is going to help us unite, become one people. That is what this is all about; becoming one people so we can work together, act together, accept one another's views, accept our cultural differences. It is very important that that occurs, in my view.

I will conclude by saying that our islands ought not be locked up. They should be available to all people to enjoy at all times.