Indigenous Youth Climate Network, Seed, has sent a powerful message to the Federal Government as it heads back to Parliament this week ahead of tomorrow's Federal Budget.
Volunteers spent almost four hours and used around 1000 candles to create a larger than life message for the Turnbull government at the front of Parliament House.
The candlelit message reading 'Land Rights, Not Mining Rights' points to a decision this week on proposed changes to native title legislation.
The Youth Climate Network hopes it will sway the Opposition to vote against the changes which they say will make it easier for mining companies like Adani to build mines without consent.
Nicole Hutton, from Seed, says the lack of consultation with Indigenous groups is a sham.
"We hope that sending our message to the Parliament will allow them to scrap the changes to native title this week. We don't want to see these current proposed changes to go ahead. We want them to scrap them and to come back to us and consult us properly on what these changes should be, so that native title is strengthened rather than weakened," she told NITV.
Larissa Baldwin is the National Co-Director at Seed and says the group is highly concerned that the changes to native title will be quietly rushed through Parliament while there is excess noise about the Federal Budget.
"The introduction of these amendments is a shameful attempt by the Government to change the rules to suit their mates at Adani, and the mining lobby, at the expense of Aboriginal rights," she said.
Ms Baldwin says the proposed changes will only serve to make it easier for mining companies to get their projects off the ground.
"It will undermine our ability to say no. But also make it harder for us to challenge dodgy deals in court. We’re sick and tired of this Government making changes to laws that impact us without proper consultation of what we need and want," she said.
“If this bill passes this week it will be a shameful day for the Turnbull Government, and a day our communities won’t forget.”
The amendments will reverse the effect of a recent Federal Court decision in Western Australia which requires unanimous sign-off for an Indigenous Land Use Agreement from a native title claim group.
