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Minister for Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough at a meeting with Tiwi Island traditional owners and community last year.
(AAP Image/Terry Trewin) |
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Confusion could have caused lease: TLG
Issue 129 - 17 May 2007
By Tara Ravens
DARWIN
Issue 129, May 17, 2007: SOME of the traditional owners who accepted a 99-year lease over a community on the Tiwi Islands may have thought they were signing for a benefit payment, the president of the Tiwi Local Government (TLG) says.
The 1,500-strong community of Nguiu, on the Tiwi Islands north of Darwin, became the first Aboriginal community in Australia to sign a head lease over their town last Wednesday.
The move allows the land to be subleased to commercial business development under the federal government's controversial changes to the Land Rights Act.
It also is hoped the agreement will boost private home ownership on Aboriginal land, which was signed by over 100 mostly adult Mantiyupwi traditional owners on Wednesday at a Tiwi Land Council (TLC) meeting.
But TLG president Lawrence Costa said there had been talk on the islands that some of the traditional owners (TOs) thought they were signing to get a $50 "sitting fee" for turning up to the meeting.
"Other TOs here thought that they did sign it but they thought they were signing to receive their sitting fee ... they feel pretty bad about it," he said, adding "this is what all the rumour and gossip here is at the moment".
Mr Costa said he had not been consulted about the agreement and many people on the islands were not aware the lease scheme had been agreed to.
"We weren't told about and we certainly didn't know it was happening and we weren't notified of anything," Mr Costa said.
"(But) I gathered it was only a matter of time before it happened anyway.
"We were surprised (but) my personal view is that it is a decision for the traditional owners.
"I would have liked there to be more workshops and more communication, it was my understanding that TOs went to that meeting and others went to that meeting without understanding what they were signing."
Traditional owner Adam Kerinaiua said he had not been invited to the meeting but he had heard the agreement was written in English.
He said it should have been translated into Tiwi so that people could understand it properly.
"Once you sign off on the agreement, that's it, you'll lose control of your land and outsiders will come and eventually start building things on this community," Mr Kerinaiua told the ABC. - AAP
 
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