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Native Title workshop blog
by fiona martin taxation and business law, australian school of business, unsw
This year is the twentieth anniversary of the Federal Native Title Act 1993 (NTA), therefore a good time for celebration and reflection on what this has meant for Indigenous Australians and the wider Australian community. I was therefore very pleased to receive an invitation to this two-day workshop hosted by the Indigenous Law Centre (ILC) with the support of the UNSW Faculty of Law and the Gilbert + Tobin Centre for Public Law. The first day commenced with an introduction by Associate Professor Sean Brennan, one of the conference organisers who
confirmed that the three main themes of the conference were: • native title and economic empowerment • native title and political empowerment • the impact of native title on wider Australian law and society. This was followed by an address by Professor Megan Davis via video as she was unable to be there in person where she set the scene for an informative and lively discussion of native title issues. Throughout the day and the following day there were many interesting presentations from a range of Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics and native title practitioners including Professor Jon Altman, ANU,
Professor Tim Rowse, University of Western Sydney, Brett Walker, SC and Dr Lisa Strelein, AIATSIS. With my taxation law background and research into the income tax implications of native title payments I was particularly interested in those discussions which focussed on native title and economic empowerment. Professor Ciaran Faircheallaigh gave a clear and incisive discussion of the economic opportunities created by recognition of native title rights. He argued for changes to the NTA to allow for such things as royalty negotiations and the remove of the arbitral function of the National Native Title Tribunal. He also pointed out that progress in this area was uneven, both between companies, projects and native title groups within regions and across
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www.firstnationstelegraph.com different parts of Australia. He concluded with the argument that recognition of the inherent right of Indigenous Australians to selfgovernment within the Australian state would provide a basis for redefining relations with State and Federal governments and be a move towards addressing the current malaise in Indigenous affairs policies. Danielle Campbell of the Central Land Council (CLC) Community Development Unit and Dr Janet Hunt told us about the advancements for Warlpiri people that mining payments are helping to fund. For example, several years ago the CLC negotiated a mining agreement between a gold mining company and the Warlpiri people of the Tanami Desert. As a result of this agreement the Warlpiri Education and Training Trust (WETT) was established. WETT programs involve language and cultural support through the community schools, an early childhood program, and support for Warlpiri students completing secondary studies, a youth and media program and a learning community centre program which
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provides education and training for adults. The programs are intended to supplement but not replace core government education and training programs and the funds are administered by the CLC through its Community Development Unit. The penultimate speaker was Professor Marcia Langton, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, AO. Professor Langton took us to the website of the Agreements, Treaties and Negotiated Settlements Project (ATNS) of which she is a Chief Investigator. She highlighted how this Project has now recorded a significant number of Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUAs) under the NTA. But she also pointed out that many of these agreements are with groups of Indigenous Australians identified through their current regional residence rather than their pre-colonial groupings and family relationships. This can place considerable pressure on relationships which may also be exacerbated by lack of funding for corporate bodies required to be established under the NTA. The final session which provided
an insightful overview of the workshop was a panel consisting of Les Malezer, Co-Chair, National Congress Australia’s First Peoples, Heron Loban, Law lecturer and Indigenous lawyer, James Cook University, Professor Brad Morse, Dean, Faculty of Law Waikato University, New Zealand, Raelene Webb the new President of the National Native Title Tribunal and Tony McAvoy, Indigenous barrister and native title specialist. They each highlighted their own impressions of the positives and negatives of native title including that it can act as a way of bringing people together and a catalyst for change and economic development but that it can also be an exhausting and frustrating process.
The conference was a brilliant success and the depth and breadth of expertise in one room made for an amazing array and variety of perspectives. I commend the organisers, Sean Brennan, Brendon Edgeworth, Megan Davis, Leon Terrill and Janette Murdoch for this experience.