| land rights and native title: news index (return to land rights page) |
| Forget a treaty, say Pearson, Yunupingu 25 April 2008 - TWO of the nation's most powerful Aborigines have dismissed the treaty movement as a political "dead horse" and have urged their fellow indigenous leaders to embrace the mainstream push towards constitutional recognition of Aboriginal people. |
| The gains must not be squandered 24 April 2008 - Aboriginal children "can't eat the constitution," Professor Marcia Langton said at the 2020 Summit. She is one of various high-profile indigenous commentators who have criticised the indigenous stream's emphasis on constitutional reform since the weekend. She is right, of course. Constitutional reform alone will not fix the problems facing indigenous children and their families in Australia. |
| Ruling big setback for Noongar claimants 23 April 2008 - Perth's indigenous Noongar people have had a major setback in their native title claim over the city after a court upheld a West Australian and federal government appeal against their claim. |
| Indigenous mining share deal 1 April 2008 - More than 2500 of the country's most disadvantaged Aborigines will become shareholders in an Australian Securities Exchange-listed mining company under an innovative native title agreement. |
| Annual Social Justice and Native Title Reports tabled in Parliament today 20 March 2008 - Media Release - Amending the Northern Territory intervention legislation to maximise protection of children from abuse while ensuring the basic human rights of Indigenous people are protected is one of the major elements of a 10 point plan outlined in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Report 2007 tabled in federal Parliament today. |
| Justice on ancient land 11 December 2007 - A special sitting of the Federal Court in a remote corner of Western Australia has ended a 10-year legal and artistic challenge for native title, |
| Native title gains continue to bring win-win results for all parties 10 December 2007 - HREOC Media Release - Yesterday’s Federal Court decision recognising the Eastern Kuku Yalanji People’s native title rights over nearly 127,000 hectares of far north Queensland’s Daintree area is another example of how negotiation and cooperation bring the best outcomes for all parties, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma said today. |
| Title triumph as heritage land is returned 10 December 2007 - More than a century after being marched off their land and on to missions by successive waves of pastoralists and cane farmers, the Kuku Yalanji people of the Daintree rainforest yesterday had almost 1300sqkm of World Heritage-listed land returned. |
| After 12 years, title win state's biggest 30 November 2007 - In the state's largest native title determination, the Githabul people of northern NSW have won rights over an area of 112,000 hectares, including nine national parks and 13 state forests, in the Kyogle and Tenterfield shires. |
| British based mining companies 12 November 2007 - EDM 210 - British House of Commons - That this House notes that London is the world's biggest centre for mining investment and that the activities of mining companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) are causing significant concern around the world; |
| Sweeteners to ease uranium objection 9 October 2007 - INDIGENOUS communities will be offered sweeteners to help pave the way for a dramatic expansion of uranium mining under a plan being considered by the Howard Government. |
| Tiwi Islanders hail historic lease 31 August 2007 - THE nation's first long-term lease on Aboriginal land came into effect yesterday after a community on the Tiwi Islands formally agreed to hand over control in the first step towards private home ownership and economic development. |
| Police unite against NT permit plan 13 August 2007 - POLICE in all states and territories have rallied to reject the federal Government's planned abolition of the permit system controlling access to Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory |
| NT indigenous leaders seek meeting with PM 4 August 2007 - Galarrwuy Yunupingu, former head of the Northern Land Council, said Aboriginal leaders from areas targeted in the intervention had decided to jointly call for the meeting because "it's quite a worrying time in the communities". |
| How did $100,000 in NT mining royalties end up in Mal Brough's Queensland electorate? 12 July 2007 - NIT - Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough took $100,000 from a government-controlled bank account that holds mining royalties on behalf of Northern Territory traditional owners and gave it to the organisers of a festival in his own Queensland electorate of Longman. |
| Report finds joint economic aspirations are possible 14 June 2007 - HREOC -Economic development can and does happen on Indigenous land, and when the preconditions are right, Indigenous Australians can and do achieve great things on the land, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma said today following the tabling of the Native Title Report 2006. |
| Aborigines burn the way to climate control 6 June 2007 - BBC UK - A crackling fire snakes towards Dean Yibarbuk's bare legs, as he and a group of fellow Aborigines walk through this isolated corner of the Australian Outback, pouring long trails of burning kerosene into the grass. |
Call for human rights probe into 99-year leases |
| Aboriginal community wins 30-year fight for land 27 April 2007 - Middle east Times - An Australian Aboriginal community celebrated the end of a 30-year struggle for their land Friday when a court recognized them as the owners of a remote cattle station at the center of landmark protests. |
Gunditjmara People congratulated on land claim |
| Tears of joy as land struggle comes to end 31 March 2007 - They call themselves the Fighting Gunditjmara, and the perseverance that they pride themselves on has paid off in spectacular fashion. |
| Indigenous peoples shouldn’t take fall for housing problems 13 March 2007 - Responsibility for the mismanagement and failure of the federal government's Community Housing and Infrastructure Program (CHIP) should not be blamed on Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma said today. |
| Indigenous Environment Alliance formed to protect the Murray-Lower Darling Country 2 March 2007 - An alliance of Indigenous Traditional Owners and Environment Groups has formed for the protection and restoration of the ecological and cultural values of the Murray and Lower Darling Rivers. The groups have formalised their alliance in a Cooperation Agreement. “The importance of looking after country to both traditional owners and environment groups provides a logical and sound foundation for an agreement,” said Matt Rigney, Chairperson of the Murray and Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations (MLDRIN). |
| Wongatha fail in WA goldfields claim 5 February 2007 - Two thousand Aborigines were disappointed when their native title claims over Goldfields land were dismissed on technical grounds by the Federal Court. |
| Ruling close on big native title claim 4 February 2007 - One of Australia’s biggest native title claims is due to be settled on Monday, nearly eight years after it was registered. |
| Australian land agreements questioned 30 January 2007 - (The Mining Magazine UK) - Nearly half of the land use agreements signed by indigenous Australians with mining companies and government partners have failed to deliver significant benefits for them, an Australian university study concluded. |
| Land-use deals fail to deliver for Aborigines 30 January 2007 - Fifteen years after the High Court's historic Mabo decision, an explosion of land-use agreements between Aborigines, mining companies and governments has failed to deliver significant outcomes for many of the indigenous people who signed them. |
Protesters demand rock art explanation |
| Work starts on Burrup LNG plant 8 January 2007 - Work will begin today on Woodside Energy's Pluto liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant on the Burrup Peninsula in north-west Western Australia. |
| Aborigines claim ownership of tribal homeland 3 January 2007 - (The Independent UK) - The Githabul, an Aboriginal tribe, call the rainforest a "supermarket", full of their traditional foods, such as turtles and spiny ant-eaters known as echidnas. But when they hunt these native creatures, they risk being prosecuted and fined. |
| Joy for Aborigines as 'people of rainforest' win control of land 3 January 2007 - (The Scotsman, UK) - ABORIGINES yesterday won a ten-year fight for control of World Heritage-listed rainforests in the centre of Australia's wealthy east coast, sealing one of the country's biggest native land deals. |
| Australian Tribe Gets Rights to Parks 2 January 2007 - (Guardian UK) - An Aboriginal tribe has been granted joint management rights over several state and national parks under a deal that recognizes its traditional ownership of the land, officials said Tuesday. |
| Birrup tragedy: Campbell sends in the bulldozers 22 December 2006 - Senator Rachel Siewert has slammed Environment and Heritage Minister Ian Campbell’s decision this morning not to heritage list the ancient rock art on the Burrup Peninsula. |
| Aboriginals of Australia: Aboriginal Group Takes Action Over Mine 22 December 2006 - (UNPO, Netherlands) - One of Australia's most influential Aboriginal land councils is taking legal action against the Northern Territory Government over the expansion of the territory's largest zinc mine. |
| Archaeologists' group backs push to protect rock art 6 December 2006 - A group representing Australian archaeologists has backed a call for emergency heritage listing of the Burrup Peninsula, in north-west Western Australia, to protect ancient Aboriginal rock art. |
| 99-year leases threat to Indigenous communities, say Sisters 29 November 2006 - Indigenous land owners who speak English as a fourth or fifth language are being pressured to make hasty decisions over their land and the Government's move to impose 99-year leases is a threat to basic rights, say two women religious leaders. |
| Gas plant
threatens Australia's ancient art 30 September 2006 - The Independent (UK) - The petroglyphs carved into the red rocks of the Burrup peninsula, on Australia's north-west coast, chronicle the lives of the Aboriginal people who have roamed this rugged region for tens of thousands of years. |
| Country
continues to be destroyed without any consultation with its Traditional
Owners. 20 September 2006 - Media Release - Jidi Jidi Aboriginal Corporation members, particularly Elders with the chief duty to protect their Ancestors Country and sacred sites from harm, are getting very upset at this destruction of their lands and the Western Australia (WA) State Government will do nothing to help them. |
| Land
rights overhaul unworkable: UN 15 August 206 - A United Nations expert has warned federal laws overhauling land rights in the Northern Territory are unwise and unworkable. |
| Generations
of Aboriginal people could lose control of land if new law is passed, Oxfam
warns 14 August 206 - Future generations of Aboriginal land owners could lose control of their land if proposed changes to the Land Rights Act get the green light this week in Parliament, warns Oxfam Australia. |
| Oxfam
apposes land rights laws 13 August 206 - Aid agency Oxfam is warning that generations of Aboriginal people could lose control of their land if changes to land rights laws are passed. |
| Postpone
the passage of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act Bill 11August 206 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma has grave concerns about the amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory) 1976, which is currently being debated in the Senate. |
| Land
rights changes need injection of common sense 8August 206 - More than 20,000 Australians tell Senate to defer Land Rights changes |
| Future
of rock to become 'global issue' 8 August 206 - The possible destruction of part of a massive Aboriginal rock art site in Western Australia for a major gas facility was set to become an international issue, Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said. |
| Labor,
Democrats vow to block new land rights laws 7 August 206 - The Federal Government will forge ahead tomorrow with a Senate debate on the most significant changes to Aboriginal land rights in 30 years, despite last-minute pleas yesterday to split the legislation or delay it. |
| Federal
Government aiming to steamroll controversial changes to Land Rights laws
through the Senate this coming Tuesday!! 4 August 206 - !! Urgent Action Alert !! All parties, including the federal government, recognise that the Land Rights laws for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory are of fundamental importance. They were introduced in the early years of the Fraser government and have received broad cross-party support since that time. |
| 20,000-Year-Old
Human Footprints Found in Australia 3 August 206 - (National Geographic USA) - About 20,000 years ago, five human hunters sprinted across the soft clay on the edge of a wetland in what is now New South Wales, Australia. |
| Submission
to the Senate Community Affairs Committee Inquiry into the Aboriginal Land
Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Bill 2006 11 July 2006 - |
| Brown urges
govts to save rock art 15 July 2006 - The Greens are calling on the federal and Western Australian governments to help save ancient Aboriginal rock art on the state's Burrup Peninsula. |
| Government
accused of playing down Aboriginal rock art destruction 20 June 2006 - An organisation which works to conserve Australia's Indigenous and historic heritage says Western Australia's Resources Minister has been misinformed about the number of Aboriginal rock art carvings destroyed on the Burrup Peninsula in the state's north-west. |
| Action plan
over Aborigine strife 19 May 2006 - (BBC UK) - Aborigine communities are beset by many problems. Officials in the largest Aboriginal community in Australia's Northern Territory are considering plans to send residents to camps to escape violence. |
| Bulldozer
threat to ancient Aboriginal art 19 May 2006 - The Telegraph (UK) - A remote stretch of the Australian coastline that is home to the largest collection of Aboriginal rock art in the world is under threat from a plan to exploit the area's oil and gas reserves. |
| Owners
speak out about Kakadu's uranium 7 March 2006 - The Howard Government has used a native title claim to pressure Aboriginal owners to approve mining of the massive Jabiluka uranium deposit in Kakadu National Park, it was claimed yesterday. |
| Social
Justice Commissioner argues a different approach to the Indigenous land
tenure debate 16 February 2006 - The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissioner, Tom Calma, argues in the Native Title Report 2005 that the Australian Government's proposal to encourage individual leases on Indigenous land will not necessarily lead to improved economic outcomes for Indigenous people. |
| High
Court challenged 4 February 2006 - The High Court cited terra nullius in ruling in favour of land rights in 1992. Historian Michael Connor, in his book, says the judges were wrong and damaging to do so in the Mabo decision. |
| Turning
back the tide of history 8 January 2006 - The law is facing the competing versions of history as it handles native title claims. Ann Arnold examines what it means to deal with Australia's undocumented past. |
| Lives
swamped by the riches of uranium 14 July 2005 - Yvonne Margarula doesn't care that she is blocking development of Jabiluka, one of the world's biggest known deposits of uranium worth an estimated $10.5 billion as world prices soar. |
| Island's
name is now truwana 29 May 2005 - CAPE Barren Island will be known by its Aboriginal name, says the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. |
| Catching
the secret new wave 30 April 2005 - The land rights movement gave Aborigines places to call their own. Samantha Selinger-Morris discovers a guide book that takes you to them. |
| Turning
back the clock for Aborigines 11 April 2005 - In the early 1960s, as a young man, I saw bulldozers rip through our Gumatj country in north-east Arnhem Land to mine bauxite at Gove. |
| Aborigines
fear land law changes 8 April 2005 - A push by the Prime Minister, John Howard, to radically overhaul Aboriginal land rights could run into constitutional difficulties and lead to massive compensation payouts, the Federal Government has been warned. |
| Aborigines
win veto on Kakudu uranium mining 25 February 2005 - Uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia will be allowed to further explore the valuable Jabiluka lease in Kakadu, but traditional Aboriginal landowners have the right to veto any future mining. |
| Wik People win
back their land 14 October 2004 - After 10 years locked in the courts, a political battle that threatened to split the Coalition and landmark legislation limiting native title, the Wik and Wik-Way people yesterday formally settled their claim over a huge tract of land in western Cape York. |
| Grappling On Stage
With the Issue of Land Rights 29 August 2004 - The Nation (Kenya) - Whether in Kenya or in Australia, the issue of land continues to be a political, social and economic hot potato. This was made perfectly clear during the staged readings, from August 20 to August 24, in Nairobi, of the play, Yanagai! Yanagai! by Australian playwright Andrea James. Coming at a time when the issue of land ownership is at the top of the news agenda, the readings could not have been more topical had they tried. |
| Dja Dja Wurrung
Native Title Group appeal 23 August 2004 - ANTAR Victoria - Gary Murray, Secretary of the Dja Dja Wurrung Native Title Group has approached ANTaR to request we distribute as widely as possible information about their current dispute with the British Museum over ownership of two bark etchings and an emu figure and gather support. Please help! See below. |
| land rights and native title: news index (return to land rights page) |