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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-03-06 Daily Xml
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Aboriginal Lands Trust

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (15:09): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs a question about the Aboriginal Lands Trust.

Leave granted.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: Yesterday in parliament, Report 3 of 2024 by the Auditor-General, Andrew Blaskett, was tabled. This report follows an earlier annual report tabled in September last year by his predecessor, Andrew Richardson. Yesterday's report summarises audit outcomes for 103 agencies, with particular focus on agencies with a modified independent auditor's report, significant matters raised through the audit, and other matters that, in the Auditor-General's opinion, need to be brought to the attention of the parliament and the South Australian government.

The report made for interesting reading, in particular concerns raised by the Auditor-General into the financial report of the Aboriginal Lands Trust (ALT). They include:

the ALT's valuation of its land and buildings as at June 30 2023 of $33.5 million was based on valuations performed between eight and 11 years ago, not complying with either the Treasurer's Instructions they be revalued by a qualified valuer every six years or its own accounting policies that require land and buildings to be revalued every five years;

the trust did not have adequate procedures in place to ensure revenue it received from the Head of Bight whale watching tourist centre represented all its takings, an issue the Auditor-General first raised in 2011-12; and

the trust did not have adequate procedures in place to ensure transactions with key management personnel and other related parties were identified. Consequently, the Auditor-General was unable to form an opinion as to whether the disclosure of them was complete.

The Aboriginal Lands Trust was established in 1966 to provide for the transfer of land by the Crown to the trust, to be held and managed for the ongoing benefit of Aboriginal South Australians. My questions to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs are:

1. Are you concerned over the ALT's financial reporting procedures, and why has there been wilful blindness to its statutory obligations?

2. What actions are the government taking to address the concerns raised by the Auditor-General?

3. The ALT holds titles to 65 properties comprising well over 500,000 hectares of land. Can the minister provide specific details of each of the lessees of these properties and the annual stipend the trust gets from each of them?

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Pangallo, that was hardly a brief explanation. I guess it was pertinent, but please can you reduce them going forward.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:12): I thank the honourable member for his question. As the honourable member outlined in his question, the Aboriginal Lands Trust came into operation in 1966. I think it was then Attorney-General and Aboriginal affairs minister, and later to be Premier, Don Dunstan, who introduced that legislation. It was, as I understand it, the very first Aboriginal land rights legislation this country had seen. I remember well in 2016 the 50th anniversary of the Aboriginal Lands Trust, celebrating some of the achievements of the trust over that time.

As the honourable member points out, the Lands Trust has under its care some just over, I think, half a million hectares of land right around South Australia. A lot of that land is land associated with former missions around South Australia. Places like Gerard in the Riverland, places like what was Point McLeay and is now Raukkan on the Coorong, places like Koonibba on the West Coast, Davenport, Umeewarra Mission around Port Augusta, and Point Pearce on Yorke Peninsula, are home still to significant populations of Aboriginal people in South Australia. Many of those places have a great deal of significance to the communities and families that live on those communities, being from places of missions—often Lutheran missions in this state.

In relation to income earned from their land, I am happy to see if annual reports have any information. I suspect they have information about income earned, but there is often minimal amounts of income earned from those lands because they are the home to many Aboriginal communities and families, not a commercial enterprise that is sought to be a money-making enterprise. I know that in some areas, like the farm at Point Pearce, it does return a limited, but some, commercial return, both for the Point Pearce Aboriginal community and for the Aboriginal Lands Trust.

In relation to audit findings, I am happy to raise the most recent audit findings with the Aboriginal Lands Trust. I have regular meetings with the Aboriginal Lands Trust. I do note that there has been in recent times—I think towards the end of last year, the start of this year—significant change in the management of the Aboriginal Lands Trust, but in terms of things like the revaluation of what, as the honourable member said, is a very significant landholding of some 500,000 hectares, I am happy to pass on the concern of the honourable member but also ask about the findings of the last audit report.

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