Advice on legislation or legal policy issues contained in this paper is provided for use in parliamentary debate and for related parliamentary purposes. This paper is not professional legal opinion.
Briefing Paper No.02/1997 by Stewart Smith
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- An era of reconciliation between indigenous and modern
Australians has led to a variety of processes whereby Aboriginal people can
claim land. As a result, Commonwealth national park lands have been returned to
traditional owners on condition of lease back to the government as a national
park, and in New South Wales vacant Crown land has been claimable by Aboriginal
people. In New South Wales, the process of Aboriginal reconciliation gained a
firm footing with the passing of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983. The
Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 aims to assist Aboriginal self determination by
improving financial independence and increasing access to land (page 3). The
Act established Aboriginal Land Councils to make claims on Crown land. Criteria
for claimable land included available Crown land that was not needed for
residential development or an essential public purpose.
- From commencement of the Act to the end of the 1995-96
financial year, 5 863 claims for Crown land have been lodged. 4,542 of these
claims have been finalised, with 1 132 claims granted covering an area of 55
463 hectares of land valued at $184 million. At 30 June 1996, 1544 claims
remained under investigation by the Department of Land and Water Conservation
(page 5). Section 28 of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act provides for the payment
of 7.5 percent of land tax from 1984 to 1998 into the NSW Aboriginal Land
Council account. The Act requires fifty percent of this money to be invested,
and the interest from this to be reinvested, and the balance is used to meet
expenditure for the operations of all the Land Councils. From 1999, the NSW
Aboriginal Land Council is expected to be financially independent. It is
estimated that there will be $530 million in the investment fund by October
1998 (page 5).
- Currently, the National Parks and Wildlife Service is
responsible for caring and managing Aboriginal heritage in the State, and
several national parks are on land which is of cultural significance to
Aboriginals. The process of reconciliation over the last 20 years has led to a
rethink of the traditional approach (page 5). On a Commonwealth level, this has
resulted in two major national parks (Uluru and Kakadu) being handed back to
the traditional owners on condition of lease back to the government as a
national park (page 9). The national parks are then jointly managed, with an
Aboriginal majority Board of Management developing in consultation with
conservation agencies a management plan for the park.
- In New South Wales, legislation handing over national park land
to the traditional owners, on condition of lease back to the government as a
national park, was first introduced into Parliament in 1991 (page 11). Initial
and subsequent attempts to pass this legislation were unsuccessful. In December
1996 the National Parks and Wildlife Amendment (Aboriginal Ownership) Bill 1996
was introduced and passed (page 15). This Act established a process by which
lands of Aboriginal cultural significance can be revoked as a national park and
vested on behalf of Aboriginal land owners in an Aboriginal Land Council. The
land is then leased back to the Minister administering the National Parks and
Wildlife Act for use as a national park. National Parks included for initial
hand back include: Jervis Bay; Mungo; Mootwingee; Mootwingee Historic Site;
Coturaundee Nature Reserve; Mount Grenfell Historic Site; and Mount Yarrowyck
Nature Reserve.
