Aboriginal Affairs

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:06): My question is to the Premier in his role as the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Is the proposed Aboriginal representative body bill 2021 repealing or replacing progressive legislation already in place? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms BEDFORD: Concerns have been raised with me about the proposed bill, starting with parts 1 to 4, containing archaic definitions of Aboriginal persons, with further questions on how the bill will impact on the existing Aboriginal Heritage Act, the Native Title Act and others, including the Aboriginal Lands Trust Act, the Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act and the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Land Rights Act.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (15:06): Sir, as you would be aware, this is not a bill that has come to the parliament. It hasn't been finally considered by the cabinet. I think that we have been speaking about this for an extended period of time.

On coming to government, we inherited the South Australian Aboriginal Advisory Council, and I thank all the members on the South Australian Aboriginal Advisory Council for the work that they have done with the previous government. The same members actually transferred over to our government. They have been in place for 3½ years. They have been working with our first Aboriginal Affairs Action Plan, which identified that we wanted to have a higher level of engagement with Aboriginal South Australians and that we look to ultimately develop a model.

The Commissioner for Aboriginal Engagement in South Australia, Dr Roger Thomas, has been doing consultation right across South Australia with respect to where we would implement a new body. However, as I said, final consideration of that has not been made by cabinet, but it is something which I think is an important reform.

As I was saying, under the previous government we had the South Australian Aboriginal Advisory Council. This was completely and utterly appointed by the government of the day. What we would ideally like to do is to move towards elections, and in the first instance the advice that we have received from the commissioner is that it would be partially elected and partially appointed, but ultimately I think it is envisaged that this would be good to be fully elected over time.

There is still more work to be done on this. I think it is an important reform to have a voice to the government, to have a voice to the parliament, but of course it wouldn't change the very important legislation which we have here in South Australia and which has been identified by the member for Florey with regard to Aboriginal heritage, the APY Land Rights Act, the Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act and the also the Aboriginal Lands Trust Act.