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Yorta Yorta to take title case to UN

By Fergus Shiel Law Reporter

13 September 2003 - The Yorta Yorta people of Victoria and NSW are preparing to lodge a complaint with the United Nations, claiming that the High Court's rejection of their native title bid denied them their inherent cultural rights.

Last year, the High Court rejected the 4000-strong Yorta Yorta people's claim, upholding an earlier Federal Court ruling that the tide of history had washed away their traditional rights.

Having run out of legal options at home, Yorta Yorta elders will meet soon to ratify the formal complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee.

Yorta Yorta spokesman Henry Atkinson said: "There will never ever be a way that governments or anybody will kill the spirit of our people.

"They may have stolen our children and our language and even tried to steal the colour of our skin but they will never, ever steal the spirit of the Yorta Yorta people."

Their lawyer Peter Seidel, of Arnold Bloch Leibler, said the complaint to the UN would go beyond symbolism - it would be an important legal-political document.

Mr Seidel said the point of the complaint was that the law of native title in Australia now applying to the Yorta Yorta breached the international covenant on civil and political rights. "It breaches it, we say, because it denies the Yorta Yorta the opportunity to access protections under the Native Title Act including the crucial right to be involved in decisions
protecting their traditional country," he said. The complaint is expected to be filed in the next couple of months.

The Yorta Yorta claim, first lodged in 1994, was Australia's longest-running native title case.

Source: The Age

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