Nigel Scullion is making a guarantee to amateur fishermen in the Northern Territory that he will not grant long-running Aboriginal land claims until questions over how to ensure their continued access are answered.
The long-running claims, some of them lodged almost two decades ago, are over the beds and banks and pastoral land surrounding parts of some of the Northern Territory's most popular fishing rivers.
"There is a notion that there is a document that would rent or lease to pastoralists in perpetuity to remove any doubt about their capacity to continue to work, and the commissioner recommended that I go ahead with the grant on the basis of that," he said. He said a third condition before he granted any land claims was clarity from the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority about the impact sacred sites in the claim areas may have over access agreements.AFANT's chief executive David Ciaravolo said there must be much more discussion with Indigenous traditional owners and governments before any permit scheme was settled.
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