Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Australian Politics and Policy
Land rights
During the 1960s, Aboriginal political activism accelerated. The Yirrkala Bark
Petitions, protesting against the granting of mining leases over Yolŋu land without
consultation, were presented to the federal parliament in 1963. Vincent Lingiari
led the historic Wave Hill walk-off in 1965 to press for equal wages for Aboriginal
stockmen. A 1967 referendum, which sought a mandate to remove sections of the
Constitution that discriminated against Aboriginal people, 26 wassupported.Prime
Minister Gough Whitlam introduced a Bill for the Land Rights Act and, after the
Whitlam dismissal in 1975, the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act
1976 (Cth) (ALRA) was passed by the federal parliament with bipartisan support
in December 1976.
The Self-Government Act is at loggerheads with ALRA, however, because:
very little thought was given back in 1978 to what legal and institutional relationships
needed to exist between the new government, land councils and traditional
owners to allow for a smoothly functioning polity. Those relationships remain
confused and ill-defined. 27
At issue is the fact that 51 per cent of the NT’s land mass is designated Aboriginal
land over which the NT government has no control. Equally, Aboriginal people
have limited control over their land because power in relation to decisions about
Aboriginal land is vested in Aboriginal land councils 28 to act in the interests of
traditional owners. This, said Parish, has resulted in a ‘largely unplanned system of
separation of powers’, with no constitutional foundation, between the federal and
NT governments.
The two largest land councils – the Northern (NLC) and Central (CLC) – are
often criticised for not representing the wishes of some or all traditional owners. In
a 1998 review of ALRA by John Reeves QC, the Act was found to have ‘generated
internal disputes by concentrating benefits in the hands of individuals’ and resulted
in ‘selected individualism’ that also affected royalty distributions. The absence of
amoreproductivepartnership,hesaid,was‘tothedetrimentof…Aboriginal
Territorians’. 29
Most recently, these land councils have been criticised for entering into a
memorandum of understanding with the chief minister in relation to treaty negotiations.
Groups such as the Yolŋu of Arnhem Land, represented by the independent
member Yingiya Guyula, claim to have been left out of the process.
26 Note that the referendum did not confer voting rights on Aboriginal people. The federal
parliament provided for Aboriginal people to vote in 1962.
27 Parish 2018.
28 There are four land councils in the NT: the Northern Land Council, Central Land Council, Tiwi
Land Council, and Anindilyakwa Land Council.
29 Brennan 2006, 3.
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