Last week, seven Executive Members went to Adelaide to complete petroleum negotiations with Ahava Energy and to obtain certain legal advice from Ron Myrkle QC, a former Federal Court Judge from the Victorian Bar.
The Executive completed the Petroleum negotiations and signed off on the conjunctive oil land access agreement with Ahava. This means that the Petroleum exploration will now commence on the Lands. Tjilpis will be employed to supervise the exploration work. APY obtained a letter of comfort from the State to ensure that our 1/3 share of royalties under the Petroleum Act is passed on to Anangu. In addition, APY negotiated substantial additional royalty and other benefits.
On Monday the 16 February APY was advised that, the Registrar of Aboriginal Corporations (Anthony Bevan) had appointed a Special Administrator to AP Services for an initial period of 6 months however the administration is expected to run for 12 months until February 2010.
Me Bevan appointed the Special Administrator for a number of reasons including: AP Services had been losing money for the past 17 months; breaches of the CATSI Act; and, a factional dispute within AP Services.
At its meeting on 5 and 6 November 2008 the Executive Board established Advisory Committees under Section 12A of the APY Land Rights Act in relation to: Housing; CDEP training and employment; Services; and, Natural Resources Management (NRM). Each community will be asked to nominate a member for each of the Committees. The appointees will be paid positions of up to $22,000 per year tax free, plus the cost of transport, accommodation to attend meetings and on-going management training. The SA Minister for Aboriginal Affairs must approve the remuneration and we will be discussing this with him in Adelaide during the week 10-14 November.
Members will be aware of recent articles in the Advertiser saying the State Government wants to take away powers to deliver services from APY and to introduce local government on the APY Lands. The quality of service delivery to Anangu is what is important in the short term, not whether APY does or does not have power to deliver services. APY does not and has not been delivering the services. Anangu know that. Problems with service delivery are three fold.
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