WA Greens: 'Constitutional change is needed'
WA Greens Senator DEE MARGETTS has been embarrassing the Coalition with the findings of parliamentary committees revealing the Native Title Amendment Bill to be unconstitutional and racially discriminatory. Margetts spoke to Green Left Weekly's JENNIFER THOMPSON about why constitutional change is urgently needed.
The Greens referred the bill to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee because the Australian Law Reform Commission wasn't permitted to give evidence to the Coalition-dominated Joint [Parliamentary] Committee on Native Title. Nobody amongst the "wallet of QCs", said Margetts, was able to argue clearly that the bill was beneficial for Aboriginal people.
But, she said, it was asserted that the government could go to the High Court and argue that the Commonwealth's ability to make special laws for the people of any race — the "race" power of the constitution — could be used in a malignant way. "That's an appalling perspective, that the government might go off to the High Court and argue that it can harm a race of people."
The committee's hearing, Margetts said, raised the spectre of the scenario described by ATSIC QC Jacob Fajgenbaum of the government asking the High Court to rule that the constitution allowed it to enact racially discriminatory laws, a system of apartheid. The need for constitutional reform is obvious, she concludes.
"Obviously there are positive things we should have in the constitution: a bill of rights; the rights of citizenship; to have ecologically sustainable development ... It's very sad that most of the suggestions about constitutional change are coming from the right wing of politics and that the debate has been overtaken from the republican side, by a minimalist line."
Of the National Indigenous Working Group's six-point plan, Margetts said the principles are generally fine. "We're working quite closely with the NIWG to see if it is possible to get a solid approach on the native title bill."
The Greens have not yet seen the ALP's proposed amendments. To the suggestion that the ALP supports raising the threshold test for registering and proving native title claims, Margetts predicts that the threshold test will be a major issue.
She is also worried about the ALP supporting the validation of those acts since 1994 of particular concern to the mining industry — land grants and mining and development approvals. "We know from the 1993 [Native Title] Act that the ALP was prepared to validate past acts ... That leads to further extinguishment ... it was a problem then and it's more of a problem now", especially, she said, if it is permanent extinguishment.