COMMENT

Today’s (2/6/00) AFR contains an article “Beasley walks tightrope over native title”. Crunch time is nearly here and if the Labor Party and/or the Democrats can’t be persuaded to see the cost, in lost opportunities, employment, spending in regional areas and in long term damage to our already crippled industry, recovery will be a long way away. Those of us with more than a passing interest in access to ground in Queensland, NT and WA would like to see a resolution to the argument between the State and Territory governments, Labor Party and Democrats at the Federal level and the Federal Government. The mineral industry should be, and be seen to be, the natural partner to remote area aboriginal native title claimants; the pastoralists won’t or
can’t afford to support them and funding for ATSIC (much of which is mis-applied) is shrinking, resulting in greater ambit claims by the indigenous community generally.
If you hold a view on these matters and would like to make your view known, you can obtain a contact list of Federal MHR’s(including e-mail addresses) and Senators from the following web pages:

House of Representatives:

Alphabetical Member List

Email Contacts

Senate:

Parliament House telephone and facsimile numbers

Electorate Offices

E-mail addresses

Or you can write:

Senator MH Lees (now Senator Natasha Stott-Despoja)

Leader of the Australian Democrats

Parliament House

CANBERRA ACT 2600