Aboriginal land provides an excellent example of different standards being simply accepted without question. In the Northern Territory 45 per cent of land is Aboriginal land. However as I have said before, being land rich but dirt poor is not good enough. There is no romance in communal poverty. It crushes individual motivation and condemns all too passive acceptance of more of the same. Something has to change and it will.

The government’s commitment to protect the right of communal ownership of Aboriginal land is rock solid. It will be preserved for future generations. Within that framework we have started a new and productive debate about how Aboriginal people can draw economic benefits from their land. Recent announcements in conjunction with the Northern Territory are the first steps in helping Aboriginal people to own their own homes and to develop businesses in townships, just as we non-Indigenous people have always been able to do.

The current arrangements actually leave many Aboriginal people without control over their lives. This is because traditional owners are but a subset of people who live on Aboriginal lands. The historical displacement of Aboriginal people has left many Aboriginal residents of communities on Aboriginal land which is not their own country and therefore they have no traditional power and no real security of tenure. They live effectively in a feudal system at the pleasure of the traditional owners, which unfortunately sometimes involves arbitrary decisions that pass out largesse to favoured family and friends.

While acknowledging the justice of the land rights decisions, I think there is an underlying injustice here that needs remedying. Our proposals to streamline leasehold arrangements, where traditional owners agree, and to provide incentives to purchase homes will go some way to improve this situation. When implemented, they will provide incentive for the development of businesses to service Aboriginal towns and the people in them. Importantly, they will also give people the chance to effectively own their own home.

The National Indigenous Council in this area has done some tremendous work. The general reception to our recent announcements on land rights and native title has been refreshingly constructive. I am all for a robust debate on the merits of different approaches. But at last it seems that maybe we are slowly moving away from some of the old entrenched ideological positions in Indigenous affairs and towards a more business-like appraisal of the benefits for Indigenous people. This can only be for the better.