AIATSIS submission to the Native Title Organisations Review

This submission addresses a number of the issues raised in the Discussion Paper released by Deloitte Access Economics in June 2013 as part of the Review of the roles and functions of native title organisations (NTOs). The organisations under review include Native Title Representative Bodies and Native Title Service Providers (NTRBs/NTSPs) and Prescribed Bodies Corporate, or Registered Native Title Bodies Corporate (referred to here as RNTBCs).

The scope of the Review is wide-ranging, and AIATSIS acknowledges that it is NTOs themselves who are best placed to speak about their circumstances. Indeed, it is our research partnerships with these bodies, and the expertise within them, that informs our research and conclusions. We defer to the submissions of the National Native Title Council (NNTC) and individual NTRBs/NTSPs and RNTBCs as to the operational and policy matters at issue in this review.

This submission addresses those issues under review for which AIATSIS has demonstrated research expertise. To this end, based on current research, the AIATSIS submission pays particular regard to the post determination environment, including the circumstances of RNTBCs, the increasingly diverse demands on NTRB/NTSP services and the ongoing structural competition between resources required for successfully claiming native title and those needed to support the enjoyment of native title.