Antinuclear

Australia’s continuing land grab from Aborigines

It’s the same the whole world over Online Opinion,  By John Tomlinson – , 23 January 2012 “………..When the British came to Australia they “acquired” which had, until then, been communally owned by members of various Aboriginal language groups. With the exception of a few trinkets handed over by John Batman in Victoria the rights of the existing owners were entirely ignored. Various devices were put in place to give the appearance of civility to this brutal dispossession. Myths about Australia being “terra nullius” –a land belonging to no one – gained ascendency by the 20^thcentury. The High Court’s Mabo judgements put a bit of a spike in that hoary one but politicians rushed through legislation cunningly called the Native Title Act to “legitimate” all prior alienation of Indigenous land and to legalise ways by which future governments could continue to acquire land.

Judges were able to find that “the tide of history had washed away” the Yorta Yorta people’s claim to Native Title. The High Court’s Wik judgement found to the dismay of the Howard Government that Native Title had not been totally extinguished on pastoral leases. Where the leases specified a pastoralist was entitled to do certain things on his or her property they were still able to carry out such activities but if they wished to extend the activities then Native Title considerations might apply. The Government legislated to “provide certainty” to pastoralists and delivered, in the words of Tim Fisher (the then Deputy Prime Minister), “bucket loads of extinguishment.” This Howard Government could not bring itself to acknowledge the reality of Aboriginal prior ownership; preferring instead to speak about Indigenous “custodianship” of the country.

……..Mal Brough may have been the one to introduce the Northern Territory Intervention but it has been continued and extended by Rudd, Gillard and Macklin. Macklin has even gone so far as to use the Aboriginal Benefit Account (into which mining royalties owed to Aboriginal communities are paid) as her own little slush fund……”

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13154

January 23, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL