Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976

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The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 was a law of the Australian federal government signed by the then Governor General of Australia , John Robert Kerr , on December 16, 1976 , whereby the Aborigines were granted land rights in the Northern Territory . It came into effect on Australia Day , January 26, 1977. Today, about half of the Northern Territory's land area belongs to the Aborigines.

The starting point was the Aboriginal land and civil rights movement that had existed since the 1960s. This led for the first time in 1961 to the granting of the right to vote and in 1966 to the Aboriginal Land Trust Act , whereby property rights to land could be leased to Aboriginal land trusts for 99 years. In February 1973 a commission headed by Judge Woodward was set up by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam of the Labor Party to reconsider the land rights issue. His successor in government, Malcolm Fraser of the Liberal-Conservative Liberal Party , then concluded that the new law should be created.

The Aboriginal Land Rights Act gave the traditionally living Aborigines the right to own their ancestral areas, former reservations and unused state land (" Crown Land "). It did so when the Aboriginal Land Trusts became landowners. The land given to the trusts is administered jointly by a body elected by Aborigines, the Land Councils . Their tasks include, for example, negotiating mining rights with mining companies and making decisions about road construction. The Aboriginal Land Commissioners are or have been judges in either the Supreme Court or a Federal Court who advise the government on land rights issues. The most important task of a commissioner was to receive the claims of Aborigines on land and to formulate recommendations to the federal government and the administration of the Northern Territory.

There are four Land Councils in the Northern Territory:

The Land Rights Act was partially amended in 1987, 1989 and 2006. After that, the decision of a council to search for mineral resources in a certain area must be given within a certain period of time, and if approved, the following construction, e.g. B. a mine, approved. In 1989 it was then regulated that state land which had been leased by farmers in 1976 ( pastoral leases ) and was therefore excluded from return at the time could still be returned. The design is subject to the self-government of the Northern Territory. A significant change in 2006 was that land and houses in cities that were previously only allowed to belong to one Land Trust can now be transferred to individual persons for up to 99 years and thus become tradable. The federal government hoped that this would lead to more private economic activity.

Following a supreme court ruling by the High Court of Australia in 2008, the Tiwi Aborigines were given ownership of the coastal land, including land that falls dry during the tidal range . This right means for the Northern Territory that about 85% of the coastline is affected.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Land Rights Act - Changes to the Act. Northern Land Council, 2003, archived from the original on March 11, 2012 ; accessed on February 10, 2014 .
  2. ↑ tiwilandcouncil.com ( Memento of February 8, 2013 in the Internet Archive ): Welcome to the Tiwi Land Council website , in English, accessed on February 25, 2013