Aboriginal Land Councils Land Claims

Mr IAN COHEN: My question is directed to the Minister for Lands, Minister for Rural Affairs, and Minister for Regional Development. In relation to the logjam of outstanding land claims by Aboriginal people documented by the New South Wales Auditor-General, has the Government suggested that land councils should pay for surveying? Does the Minister believe that this sort of cost shifting from government to the land rights network is appropriate given that the money in the trust fund of the New South Wales Aboriginal land councils is compensation, not taxpayers' money? Has the Minister formally sought discussions with the Aboriginal land councils and with the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs about working together to ease the logjam of outstanding land claims?

The Hon. TONY KELLY: The Government has moved to increase settling some of these claims. In fact, the Treasurer provided $1.38 million over four years to expedite them. In 2005-06 and 2006-07 an inordinate number of claims were lodged—just over 8,100—which took the number on the register from about 1,000 or 1,500 up to 9,500. We must investigate every claim thoroughly. As the Auditor-General stated, many of the claims relate to freehold land and that is obviously not claimable, but we must still go through the process. That is the reason I approved 12 claims in the past year and rejected about 375. It is a difficult process. The other issue holding them up is surveying. The Department of Lands is providing surveying services before the blocks can be transferred. It has made an offer to the Aboriginal land councils that if they would like to get this valuable land earlier, they could assist by providing the surveying services.