Native Title Case Study

The law reform process has been effective to a certain extent in achieving just outcomes in regards to native title. This can be seen through both the Eddie Mabo case [1992] and the Yorta Yorta case [2002] as although the cases had been concluded with final decisions, there were still measures that could have been taken, and areas where it could have been improved to achieve a just outcome.

The Aborigines Protection Act 1909 (NSW) was a law that changed Indigenous Australian lives forever. The act enabled the New South Wales Board for the Protection of Aborigines to essentially control the lives of Aboriginal people. It was the Aborigines Protection Act 1909 (NSW) that had major provisions that resulted in the containment and suffering that Aboriginal people endured. This suffering included the practice of forcible removing Indigenous children from their families. These major provisions help us understand what the Aborigines Protection Act 1909 (NSW) involved and the impact it has had on the daily lives and cultures of Indigenous Australian peoples today.

Since the time of federation the Aboriginal people have been fighting for their rights through protests, strikes and the notorious ‘day of mourning’. However, over the last century the Australian federal government has generated policies which manage and restrained that of the Aboriginal people’s rights, citizenships and general protection. The Australian government policy that has had the most significant impact on indigenous Australians is the assimilation policy. The reasons behind this include the influences that the stolen generation has had on the indigenous Australians, their relegated rights and their entitlement to vote and the impact that the policy has had on the indigenous people of Australia.

Imagine for a moment, if everything you owned was taken away from you. The Indigenous people of Australia have unfairly been robbed of their land, culture and people. They were among the first people to inhabit this country, and sadly their land and culture are under threat of being lost forever. To the indigenous people, land is an important part of their life, their substance needs and spiritual belief all come from the land. However, we owe the Indigenous people a lack of compensation but then again not giving any back. Therefore, it’s time for us to treat them fairly and give respect to their land.

It also found it was out of step with international human rights and that Aboriginals had been dispossessed of their land rights unlawfully. Native Title Act 1993 After the Mabo case which recognised the existence of native title rights, Land Councils lobbied the Federal Government to legislate to protect any native title that had survived 200 years of colonisation. The Native Title Act 1993 is part of the Commonwealth Government's response to that historic High Court decision.

In 1976 the Fraser government passed the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. Several state governments passed their own Land Rights Acts, which recognised aboriginal and Torres Strait islander claims to land and guaranteed them royalty payments from mining companies working there. Some laws enforced by the government became challenging for most indigenous people to abide by. Through the analysis of this information we understand the impacts the government and its laws had towards the indigenous society of

The efficacy and implementation of the Northern Territory Intervention has received wide spread criticism due to the lack of prior consultation with the Indigenous Community leaders as well as the questionable reforms subsequently implemented. Amongst these reforms were the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) (Korff, J, 2016) and forceful leasing of Indigenous land to the commonwealth as documented in The Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act, 2007 (Cth). The Northern Territory Intervention consequently has had numerous negative impacts on the community, “The intervention has had consequences that will have repercussions for generations” (Dodson, 2016)

The case of Mabo decision with Queensland government was one of the most significant legal case in Australia, which recognised the land rights and the original ownership of Murray islanders in the Torres Strait. It was acting by Murray islanders and the High Court upheld. Based on the successful legal case, there are some key issues in the process for Indigenous’ land rights, which were changed in Australia law and affect future rulings in Australia, such as the Native Title ruling of the Aboriginal people’s land rights after the High Court passed the Act in 1993; in addition, due to this alteration of Australian laws, it not only had a big impact of Murray islanders but also on some other groups of Aboriginal people’s land rights reform.

As of the pressure being built up from pastoralist and mining companies, John Howard’s Liberal-National Party introduced the ‘Ten-Point Plan’ in May of 1997. The government promoted the plan as clear and simple solution to ’problems’ faced by the industry because of the native title. However, it found to be more problematic and demanding than it first imagined. The Howard Government wanted to clarify to the Aboriginals what grants and rights they had over the land. By doing so, this reduced the amount of native title land that could be claimed by Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islander people. This meant that the Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders had to deal with limitations on their ability to negotiate with industries, mining companies

The Effectiveness of the Law in Achieving Justice for Indigenous People In relation to Australia, the term ‘Indigenous peoples’ refers to two distinct cultures of people who inhabited the land prior to European settlement – The Aboriginals and the Torres Strait Islanders. This population declined dramatically over the 19th and early 20th century due to the introduction of new diseases from European settlement, Government policies of dispersal and dispossession, the era of protection, assimilation and integration causing a cultural disruption and disintegration of the Indigenous peoples. In the 20th century the recognition and protection of Indigenous peoples land rights and human rights have been

The change in legal affairs for the indigenous was a result of the change in rights and freedoms. Throughout the 19th century white settlers moved the Aboriginal people off their land and into reserves. This resulted in Aboriginal people experiencing dispossession, which meant that they didn’t exist. In the early 1970s the Whitlam government began to work on

The Yirrkala Bark Petition of 1963 was a result of Governments giving native Aboriginal land to mining companies on a mining lease. The Aboriginals claimed that their land was being taken away from them without compensation. The aim of this particular protest was to gain back the land that had been given away through the mining lease and be apologised to by the Australian government. These aims are summarised in the aborigine’s simple desire to be accepted into the Australian community and to be granted rights as well as acknowledgment that they have ties to the land. The local Yirrkala elders signed an ornate and artistic petition to have the mining lease revoked. As a result, the government set up a committee to oversee the decision made and to mediate future decision on similar matters. Despite the lease going ahead, it was acknowledged that there were Aboriginal sacred sites on the land where the lease was valid and it was agreed that those sites would be protected. This decision alone didn’t have a great effect however it showed the Aboriginals that the Australian government acknowledged there ties to the land and it showed the Australian government that the Aboriginals did have rights to regions throughout Australia even if those rights were not to be recognised for almost 30 years.

The term ‘Native Title’ refers to the right of Indigenous people to their traditional land. In Australia it has a legal significance of the right to an area of land, claimed by people whose ancestors were the original inhabitants of the land before European settlement. Also who can prove that they have had a continuous connection with the land. Native Title is the term given by the High Court to Indigenous land rights by the Court in Mabo and others v State of Queensland (No.2) [1992] HCA 23. The case required

Over the past years, Canadian courts have repeatedly urged that aboriginal title conflicts should be resolved through negotiation, rather than litigation. The primary reason being that litigation is costly and time-consuming. For example, the decision for the Delgamuukw case took a duration of thirteen years. Furthermore, litigations that deal with the issue of aboriginal rights and title are “generally narrowly focused” and “ultimately leaves the question [posed about] how aboriginal rights and title apply unwarned.” For instance, the courts of Canada repeatedly failed to come up with a clear definition on the legal scope of Aboriginal rights despite the fact that they have several opportunities to do so. The Delgamuuku case clearly illustrates this when the Court “did not define how aboriginal title applied for the First Nations involved.” Instead, the Court came to the conclusion that a new trial was required, which ultimately will be more expensive and take longer.

According to the Cornell University Law School’s ‘Legal Information Institute’, self-determination ‘denotes the legal right of people to decide their own destiny in the international order’. As a major concept of international law, self-determination gives people the right to control their own fates under certain fundamental criteria, and can be claimed by a minority that bases its lifestyle on an ethnic identity that is distinguishable from regular society, with a strong desire for cultural preservation. It has been considered to be a framework with the ability to guide legislative reforms within Australia, with an underlying ‘rights- based’ approach to Indigenous Issues. Self-determination is considered to be an important aspect of the legal system in regards to Indigenous Peoples, as it provides them a process of choice, to guarantee the practice of Indigenous social, cultural and economic needs.