Aboriginal Remains, Riverlea Park

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (14:41): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before directing questions to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs regarding the Riverlea housing development and the discovery of Aboriginal remains.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: As has been noted in this place before and in the media, the local native title body, the Kaurna Yerta Aboriginal Corporation, has stated that the community's preferred position was for the ancestral remains to be undisturbed. My questions for the minister are:

1. Is this one of the options being considered?

2. Is the consideration of a memorial garden and reflection centre at Riverlea also on the table?

3. Will the government be funding this?

4. Given that there are those in the community who are said to be unaware of the situation, is the minister confident that the consultation process has been adequate?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (14:42): I thank the honourable member for her question. Most of the answer will be as I have said in this place yesterday. I am not going to and in fact it wouldn't be at all appropriate for me to talk about specifics of a process that is underway under section 23 of the Aboriginal Heritage Act and is ongoing and, as I said yesterday, will be until early next year. Certainly, no decisions have been made, and nor should any decisions have been made, in relation to what the honourable member asked. They will be part of this section 23 process.

In terms of consultation, I know that I can speak generally that in these applications there is a very thorough and very wide consultation that takes place. That is why for much of the time, and certainly it has been the case under governments of all persuasions in the past, many of these applications take in the order of six to 12 months to make sure there is as thorough consultation as there possibly can be.