The Real Issues...
> A Stalled Process
> Why Our PM Can’t Say Sorry
> The Stolen Generations
> Wik people celebrate historic land claim
victory.
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The Wik people have won a historic court ruling that
they hold native title over 6,000 square kilometres of
Cape York. |
> Conservation and Cultural Survival through Coexistence
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PDF file of keynote address to public forum "The Reform of CALM: Are the proposed new conservation laws adequate?" By Peter Yu |
> NT accused of rushing through mine exploration licences
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Northern Land Council says the Northern Territory Government is depriving Aborigines of their right to negotiate on native title. |
> Native Title Extinguished
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Background on history of native title in Australia and the recent Native Title Amendment Act. |
> The Spirit of Mabo
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Essay by Sean Flood, member of the National Native Title Tribunal and NSW Magistrate. |
> Please Explain
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The United Nations condemns the Coalition Government’s Native Title Amendment Act. |
> Native Title Forum
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Transcript of story looking at legal issues of native title, from Radio National’s The Law Report. |
> Keepers of Lake Eyre
> Northern Land Council
> Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation
> National Native Title Tribunal
> Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission
> ATSIC
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Land Rights and Native Title in Australia
When British colonists arrived in Australia in 1788 they considered the country to be rightfully theirs. They disregarded 40,000 years of habitation and the complex and the highly developed social, political and spiritual systems of the indigenous inhabitants, dismissing the aboriginal people as sub-human or savages. History existed only if evidenced as in written history in the European tradition. Oral records of history and culture meant little to the colonising European powers.
For over 200 years the concept of Terra Nullius remained a central tenet of Australian common law.
The Mabo Decision (Mabo vs Queensland in 1992) marks a historic turning point in the debate over indigenous land rights in Australia. The Australian High Court found that Eddie Mabo had proven that there was a system of ownership along blood lines, and that this system of ownership was recognised within the indigenous culture on Murray Island despite colonisation and displacement.
In response to the Mabo decision, the labor government introduced the Native Title Act, which recognised prior ownership as legitimate native title. Native title was not a gift. The high court had only recognised the rights to property which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders had always held.
However under the Act, native title could exist only on Crown Land and was extinguished by privately owned land or freehold title, and some pastoral leases.
The High Court's Wik decision of 1996 found that native title could co-exist on pastoral leases but in the event of inconsistencies between the rights of a native title holder and a pastoral leaseholder, the interest of the latter would take precedence.
In 1998 the Federal Government made several changes to the Native Title Act including a new registration process making it harder for claims to be lodged, and handing over significant responsibility for operation of the Act to State Governments thereby threatening the consistency and quality of process.
This legislation may contravene the Racial Discrimination Act of 1975, and will probably not survive a High Court challenge.
http://www.lakeeyre.green.net.au/
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Native title is not granted by governments, but rather exists on land and in water where indigenous cultures have maintained links with their country and continued to follow traditional laws and customs.
It was not until one man, Eddie Mabo, fought for native title rights to his Murray Island home that the indigenous people of Australia were recognised in White man's law as the rightful owners of their land.
In Western Australia Aboriginal people are not even mentioned in the national park laws. |
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