Bakrie warns, settle Australian land titles

Bakrie warns, settle Australian land titles

SYDNEY (AFP): Indonesian businessman Aburizal Bakrie warned here yesterday that investors could be frightened off if uncertainty over land rights for Aboriginals persisted.

"If that continues to be an issue, a big issue, everybody will be afraid to own land on Australia or invest, even in manufacturing industries or property or agriculture," he told The Sydney Morning Herald.

"If foreign investors are not sure if they hold the land or not it will be very difficult," Bakrie was quoted as saying. His family owns about 2.5 million hectares (6.2 million acres) in the Northern Territory, mostly made up of the vast Tipperary station.

The Bakrie Group, which is one of the biggest foreign landowners in Australia and owns Indonesia's largest feedlot, would this year import 65,000 head of cattle from Australia, the newspaper said.

In a list of foreign-controlled pastoral companies published in same newspaper last week, the group was listed second behind the U.S. concern, Qld and NT Pastoral Co, and ahead of Desa Cattle Company of Malaysia and National Mutual of France.

Among individual landowners, the Sultan of Brunei owned a total of 6.1 million hectares (15 million acres) of pastoral land, the newspaper reported.

Aboriginals prepared yesterday for a political fight over land rights.

The fight will focus on a 10-point plan drafted by Prime Minister John Howard in response to a court ruling that native title can coexist in some cases with the pastoral leases which cover more than 40 percent of the continent.

At Timber Creek, 600 kilometers (370 miles) southwest of Darwin, Aboriginal leaders representing about 65,000 people, rejected Howard's plan and burned a copy of it.

They said it threatened their fundamental rights and reconciliation with non-indigenous Australians for the benefit of a handful of rich landowners.

Howard's plan would effectively, but not entirely extinguish native title on pastoral leases, impose a sunset clause on native claims and rule out claims on waterways, ocean resources and land required for infrastructure.

It would significantly upgrade pastoral rights and allow state governments to offer exclusive land tenure.

The government would fund the potentially huge compensation payable to Aborigines who lose their native title rights.

"I think it is a declaration of war. That means there is going to be a political war between the government and Aboriginal people," said Galarrwuy Yunupingu, chairman of the Northern Land Council.

Howard has "made an enemy of the Aboriginal people of this nation", he said.