Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

issues with relevant communities’ (submission 345 page 72). The KLC noted thatIndigenous people lost land entitlements by being removed from their traditional countryto missions. The practice of gathering children together in missions on country belongingto others created problems communities must grapple with today.Today around the Kimberley there are several large communities of people who have elsewherebeen referred to as ‘the historical people’. These are people who live in ex-mission communities onland which is not their traditional country, but is only their home place. They are the people whowere taken away, or the children and grandchildren of people who were taken away.The mention of native title on the country they call home has often caused them great concern.They are afraid that they will have to leave once the land is handed back to the TraditionalOwners. They are afraid the Traditional Owners will use their new control over land to kick themoff, or that it will no longer be appropriate for them to continue to live there.So far there have been two claims in the Kimberley where this has been a factor. The TraditionalOwners and the KLC have developed an approach where community areas are not claimed,although the surrounding country is. This is to ensure that members of the community who are notTraditional Owners do not feel threatened or obliged to leave. Traditional Owners will seek tocontrol their country, but will have to be able to accommodate the needs of the communities thatlive there and have lived there for a long time. Traditional Owners recognise that it is not the faultof those ‘newcomers’ that they are there, and that for many it is their only home.Where the KLC does lodge a claim on behalf of Traditional Owners over an area where other groupshave a strong historical connection, we are committed to helping to negotiate a solution over theirrespective land needs. People hold very strong historical connections to former mission or institutionland and these connections must be acknowledged (submission 345 pages 21-22).RecommendationThe return of land used by the churches would express their recognition that thepolicies and practices of forcible removal were wrong. It would indicate their refusalto profit from a practice most have publicly acknowledged was wrong.Land holdingsRecommendation 41: That churches and other non-government agencies review theirland holdings to identify land acquired or granted for the purpose of accommodatingIndigenous children forcibly removed from their families and, in consultation withIndigenous people and their land councils, return that land.