Ideas@TheCentre
Dump deal showcases Aboriginal property issues
Recent controversy over the establishment of a nuclear waste storage facility on Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory highlights the inadequacy of Indigenous land rights.
The Northern Land Council nominated Muckaty Station as the site for the government to build a national radioactive waste facility, after getting agreement from one of the Warlmumpa clans. (The council is set to get millions from the dump deal.)
But members of the other six Warlmumpa clans oppose the plan, arguing that they are the rightful custodians of Muckaty Station and should have been consulted. The matter is now before the Federal Court.
Such conflicts could have been avoided if individual landowners had been identified when the land was returned to Indigenous people.
Unfortunately, utopian ideals of Aboriginal communities – where everyone coexists happily and shares their resources – meant that identifying individual landowners was not deemed necessary. Individual property rights were even seen as detrimental to traditional Aboriginal culture.
In the Northern Territory, the two large Northern and Central land councils are responsible for all the mainland Indigenous lands. Decisions traditionally made by Aboriginal communities are made by distant land councils in which the locals have little say.
Legislation provides land councils with a lot of discretionary power. For example, under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, land councils may (not ‘must’) compile and maintain a register of who in the opinion of the council are the traditional owners.
The definition of traditional owner is vague: ‘Traditional Aboriginal owners ... means a local descent group of Aboriginals who have common spiritual affiliations to a site on the land ... that place the group under a primary spiritual responsibility for that site and for the land and are entitled by Aboriginal tradition to forage as of right over that land.’ With such wording, it is no wonder that identifying the rightful traditional owners is marred with disputes.
Reforming the current legislation and administration arrangements will involve a formidable disentangling of vested interests, but it must be done to end the infighting among remote Aboriginal communities.
Sara Hudson is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.
