Transfers of community land and other wealth to unaccountable indigenous organisations should never take place without meaningful consultation with everyone that will be affected.

This has all too often been the problem in Australia – government consultation is highly selective and designed to produce a pre-determined outcome. It’s become little more than a bureacratic box-ticking exercise.

Last year’s referendum, however, demonstrated beyond any doubt why consultation needs to include everyone.

Before and after the 2017 release of the so-called ‘Uluru statement’, there was a great deal of consultation with indigenous organisations, activists and academics ahead of the referendum on the voice to Parliament. There was quite literally no consultation with the other 97% of the Australian people. We were simply instructed to vote ‘yes’ and threatened with vilification if we didn’t.

The small regional Queensland community of Toobeah has been a victim of this selective consultation exercise. For more than four years they’ve been kept in the dark about the fate of their local recreational area, which has been the heart of the town for more than a century but now is seemingly about to be transferred to the ownership of an indigenous organisation headquartered more than 400km away.

Generations of families in Toobeah have enjoyed this community land in their town, paying good money to maintain it.

Pauline Hanson is not one to idly stand by and let such a transfer happen without the Toobeah community being asked their views. Upon being approached by concerned members of the community, she wrote to the state government and the local council demanding the transfer process be paused until residents are asked if they approve of their land being taken from them, and this week she travelled to meet with them in person.

“More than half of Australia is already under native title,” Senator Hanson said. “At some point Australians are going to have to say enough is enough. Australia is home to all Australians and belongs to all Australians.”