Legislating for Land Rights in Australia

2001 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Aboriginal People ◽  
South Australia ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Land Trusts ◽  
Terra Nullius ◽  
History Of ◽  
Policy Work ◽  
The Government

A commitment in applied anthropological policy work to maximising cultural appropriateness or even to supporting what indigenous people say they want is not always possible. This proved to be the case in connection with formulating recommendations for land rights legislation in Australia's Northern Territory. Until 1992 the only rights in land that Aboriginal people had as the original occupiers of the continent were statutory (that is, through acts of state and federal parliaments). No treaties were signed with Aboriginal people and until that date the continent was treated as terra nullius, unowned, at the time of colonisation in 1788. From early on in the history of European colonisation, however, areas of land had been set aside for the use and benefit of Aboriginal people. These reserves were held by the government, or by one of a number of religious bodies that ministered to Aboriginal people, usually supported by government funding. Beginning with South Australia in 1966 all of the states, except Tasmania, have passed legislation that gives varying degrees of control of these reserves to land trusts governed by Aboriginal people. Each of these pieces of legislation had/have different shortcomings which included some or all of the following: the total area that had been reserved was small; the powers granted over the land were limited; the majority of the Aboriginal population did not benefit from the legislation; and none of them addressed the issue of self-determination. In 1973 a Royal Commission into Aboriginal Land Rights, with a single Commissioner, Mr. Justice Woodward, was established by the newly elected Federal Labor government, the first in 23 years. It was planned that it would deal with the continent but that it would begin by focusing on the Northern Territory which until 1978 was administered by the Federal government. At the time there were 25,300 Aboriginal people in the Territory making up 25% of the population.

‘Japan Fight. Aboriginal People Fight. European People Fight’: Yolngu Stories from World War II

2008 ◽  
Vol 37 (S1) ◽  
pp. 65-72
Author(s):  
Noah Riseman
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
World War ◽  
Prisoner Of War ◽  
War Effort ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Australian Soil

Abstract Did you know that a Bathurst Islander captured the first Japanese prisoner of war on Australian soil? Or that a crucifix saved the life of a crashed American pilot in the Gulf of Carpentaria? These are excerpts from the rich array of oral histories of Aboriginal participation in World War II. This paper presents “highlights” from Yolngu oral histories of World War II in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. Using these stories, the paper begins to explore some of the following questions: Why did Yolngu participate in the war effort? How did Yolngu see their role in relation to white Australia? In what ways did Yolngu contribute to the security of Australia? How integral was Yolngu assistance to defence of Australia? Although the answers to these questions are not finite, this paper aims to survey some of the Yolngu history of World War II.

The State and the Minority Group: Land Rights between the State and Kpaduma Indigenous Group in Abuja, Federal Capital Territory (fct), Nigeria

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Seun Bamidele ◽  
Olusegun Oladele Idowu
Keyword(s):  
High Intensity ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Forced Displacement ◽  
Urbanization Process ◽  
Indigenous Group ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government

Abstract The politics of land rights and low or high intensity protest in the twenty-first century has produced several land-related protesters with a variety of strategies. This study focuses on the challenges of urbanization as it affects the Kpaduma community in Abuja, Federal Capital Territory (fct), Nigeria. Kpaduma, an indigenous group, has a history of protest at various times with the government over its ancestral land. The last protest in 2016 brought massive destruction of settlements and forced displacement. Quite a number of works have been written on the land protests, with particular reference to their causes and consequences. However, the post-protests situation, particularly regarding the tense relationship and urbanization process in the locality, is yet to be sufficiently explored. This study investigates the state of relations between the government and Kpaduma as well as the urbanization processes in the country’s capital after the forced displacement of Kpaduma.

THE MEREENIE LEASE NEGOTIATIONS IN THE AMADEUS BASIN-AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

1999 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 562
Author(s):  
R. Liddle
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Joint Venture ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
South Australia ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Power Station ◽  
Channel Island ◽  
Central Australia ◽  
Territory Government

Following the discovery of oil and gas, the Mereenie Joint Venture (MJV) applied for a production lease in November 1973. However, the Aboriginal Land Rights Act NT 1976 came into operation in January 1977 and the MJV was thereby required to negotiate with the Central Land Council in order to be granted the lease. The CLC was reluctant to proceed with negotiations because of the difficulty of identifying traditional owners. After 22 communications with the Council, the MJV grew impatient and the Northern Territory Government advised them to engage the author to assist in expediting the negotiations. After an intense period from March to November 1979 in which the traditional owners were identified and some violent exchanges occurred, agreement was reached on the financial terms. The Mereenie lease, which was the first petroleum lease on Aboriginal land, was granted on 18 November 1981. At present oil is piped to Brewer Estate in Alice Springs and then transported by rail to Port Stanvac in South Australia. Gas is transported to the Channel Island Power Station near Darwin via a 1,485 km pipeline. Aboriginal traditional owners receive royalty payments from all petroleum produced from Mereenie, in addition to sharing a 10% statutory royalty under the NT petroleum ordinance. The Mereenie agreement stands as a precursor to all agreements on Aboriginal land in central Australia.

Aboriginal Studies at Year 12 in South Australia and Northern Territory

1989 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 21-26
Author(s):  
Adele Pring
Keyword(s):  
Aboriginal People ◽  
South Australia ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Aboriginal Communities ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Form ◽  
Senior Secondary

Aboriginal Studies is now being taught at Year 12 level in South Australian schools as an externally moderated, school assessed subject, accredited by the Senior Secondary Assessment Board of South Australia.It is a course in which students learn from Aboriginal people through their literature, their arts, their many organizations and from visiting Aboriginal communities. Current issues about Aborigines in the media form another component of the study.

Terra Nullius? Temporal Legal Pluralism in an Australian Colony

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 463-485
Author(s):  
Shane Chalmers
Keyword(s):  
South Australia ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Legal Pluralism ◽  
Temporal Dimension ◽  
Common View ◽  
Terra Nullius ◽  
Australian Colonial ◽  
The Status ◽  
Indigenous Land Rights ◽  
Indigenous Land

There remains a puzzle as to the status of Indigenous land rights in Australian colonial law. The common view is that the laws of the British colonies, and subsequently of the federated state, did not recognise Indigenous land rights until late in the 20th century. Against this, a smaller body of scholarship argues that recognition had already occurred much earlier, the clearest instance being in the colony of South Australia in the 1830s and 1840s. The result is an apparent duplicity in the colonial law, whereby Indigenous land rights appear to have been both recognised and denied. The article shows a tendency in the scholarly literature to resolve this duplicity in absolute terms, based on positivist analysis of law. In contrast, by taking a critical legal pluralist approach, the article shows how different and even contradictory manifestations of the same law subsisted simultaneously through time. This both sheds new light on the question of the recognition of Indigenous land rights in Australian colonial law, and contributes theoretically to ‘critical legal pluralism’ by developing its temporal dimension.

Representatives in orbit: livelihood options for Aboriginal people in the administration of the Australian desert

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Ganter
Keyword(s):  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Publicly Funded ◽  
Public Servants ◽  
Livelihood Options ◽  
Government Bureaucracy ◽  
The Government ◽  
Territory Government ◽  
Numeric Representation ◽  
High Degree

Aboriginal people comprise ~30% of the Northern Territory population, but make up well under 10% of the government bureaucracy designed to serve that population. This paper is based on PhD research into Aboriginal experiences of participating in this bureaucracy. Interviews were conducted in 2007 with 76 people of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background who had worked in the Northern Territory Government since self-government in 1978. The process of recruiting interviewees revealed a high degree of career mobility between government and the Indigenous sector of publicly funded organisations which operates at arm’s length from government. This finding was quite pronounced in the desert centre of Alice Springs, at the periphery of the Northern Territory administration, where those who were encouraged as a livelihood option to build Aborigines’ numeric representation in government were unable to represent their people in more substantive ways without coming into tension either with the terms of their employment or with their communities. The paper explores the ways in which Aboriginal public servants sought substantively to represent others and the phenomenon whereby many who sought representative roles in the government of the desert were in orbit and thus neither inside nor outside but somewhere at the edges of government. The paper concludes by observing that the knowledge and experience of Aboriginal people who orbit at the edges of government may be made more accessible through collaborations with the Indigenous sector than solely through government employment.

“He is Not a Samoan” (1927)

Tautai ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
Major Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government ◽  
Violent Community

This chapter examines the ongoing fallout from the rise of the Mau in Sāmoa and New Zealand. One major development was the founding of the Mau newspaper, the Samoa Guardian in 1927 and how this publication was intended to be mouthpiece for the movement and combat the extensive conservative press coverage that supported the government. It also focuses upon the debates in the New Zealand parliament that entwined the Sāmoan present with the Māori past, especially as it connected the non-violent community of Parihaka with the Sāmoan Mau. It also outlines the main parliamentary actors, especially Labour Leader Harry Holland and Sir Māui Pōmare, both who impacted this history in considerable ways. These debates articulated many ideas about British Empire, its past and how it could operate in the new conditions of the 1920s. The discussion also centered on the history of exile and how it had been used in numerous contexts. The chapter also delves into the little known but highly significant confidential parliamentary inquiry – the Joint Samoan Petition Inquiry Committee – which held in camera hearings where Ta’isi was virtually the sole witness. This inquiry preceded a Royal Commission to be held in Sāmoa and the chapter shows how the petition inquiry was a ploy to keep Ta’isi and his legal team out of Sāmoa so they could have little influence on the more public royal commission that was orchestrated by General Richardson.

Dhangu Djorra'wuy Dhäwu: A Brief History of Writing in Aboriginal Language

1994 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary-Anne Gale
Keyword(s):  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Literal Translation ◽  
History Of Writing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Aboriginal Languages

Since leaving ‘the bush’ I have been continually surprised at the ignorance that still exists about Aboriginal people and their languages. When people chat to me, and it is revealed that I used to work in Aboriginal schools in the Northern Territory, they say things like “Do you speak Aboriginal then?… Maybe you could make a sign for us saying ‘Welcome to our Kindergarten’ in Aboriginal?” I then have to explain that there are many, many different Aboriginal languages, not just one, and to say or write such things in any one of these languages requires a lot more than a mere literal translation. When I began doing research on the topic of writing in Aboriginal languages. I was again surprised at the sorts of comments people made to me. Comments like “How can you do research on writing in Aboriginal languages; I thought the Aborigines didn't even have an alphabet!”

Films : “On the Job” – A series about people and their work

1984 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 57-58
Keyword(s):  
Western Australia ◽  
Aboriginal People ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
South Australia ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Job Seekers ◽  
Aboriginal Women ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Development Committee

A series of seven films has been produced for the National Aboriginal Employment Development Committee by Film Australia, the production division of the Australian Film Commission. The films are the outcome of eighteen months in the field by Producer Elisabeth Knight and Director K. Gow. They travelled thousands of kilometers with their film crew and visited twenty major locations spanning and circling the continent, from Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory to Broome in Western Australia, to Port Lincoln in South Australia; from Mackay, Queensland to Brewarrina, New South Wales, to Melbourne.The four We Did It films show Aboriginal people at work, talking about how they got their jobs, what they like about them and some tips for other job seekers. The four films show Aboriginal people from Victoria (12 minutes), South Australia (11 minutes) Western Australia(12 minutes) and Rockhampton and Mackay (11 minutes) in a range of jobs and apprenticeships – nursing, the Public Service, education, horticulture, library work, building and mechanical trades.Women of Utopia (19 minutes) is a first-class introduction by a group of Aboriginal women of Utopia Station in the Northern Territory to the process by which they make their distinctively beautiful batik fabrics.This Is Working (27 minutes) features four different projects being undertaken by Aboriginal people in New South Wales, thereby creating jobs for themselves and developing skills and expertise.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document