Abstracts and Biographical notes

Parry Agius
Implementing the South Australian Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUA) Statewide Negotiations
(with Ian Dixon and Peter Hall)

The South Australian ILUA Statewide Negotiations are now entering a new phase through the implementation of a Strategic Plan, 2005/2009 which provides a framework and structure for negotiating ILUAs in a coordinated way across the State. 

This unique statewide approach has the potential to yield far superior outcomes for industry, communities and the government through well developed partnerships at the peak body state-wide level which has resulted in a strategic approach to ILUA negotiations. The advantages to negotiating parties include: its cost effectiveness, it provides a capacity to record heritage information and it can be achieved in a relatively short timeline. This approach has been effective in addressing key state-wide issues such as employment and training opportunities, whilst at the same time developing partnerships on country where large scale regional ILUAs are being negotiated.

First conceived in 1999, this negotiation process has evolved to now include five peak bodies representing the interests of miners, pastoralists, fishers, local government, Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement representing 23 claimant groups through their “United Voice” and the South Australian State Government. 

A key aspect of this unique partnership process between industry, government and community is the vast range of partnerships developed within and between the various key stakeholders and it has the potential to resolve native title by negotiation across the state within a reasonable timeframe and at a much reduced cost to all concerned. 

The negotiation process is independently chaired and project managed with each party coming to the table as equal partners in the process. All parties at the table have their own value propositions for being involved in such complex negotiations.

This paper will be presented by three people who have had a significant role in the SA Statewide process. It will provide valuable insights into each party’s perspective on the partnership, the negotiation process and the current stage of implementation across the state.

Aboriginal Law and Native Title Mediation: the Spear Creek, Port Augusta Example

ALRM’s Central West Mediation Strategy (CWMS) is a specific policy initiative within ALRM’s South Australian Statewide Negotiation Framework Strategy (2000). The CWMS creates innovative opportunities for native title claimants to seek resolution of their native title rights and interest to their satisfaction and to the satisfaction of the third parties affected by native title claims.

This paper discusses innovations and issues in the CWMS and the ‘mediations’ which took place on an unprecedented scale at Spear Creek, Port Augusta in 2003 in addressing multiple overlapping native title claims and the conflicts surrounding them. The Spear Creek Project, managed by the ALRM as the Native Title Representative Body, involved 400 Aboriginal participants from Western Australia and South Australia in a 6-day comprehensive program. It addressed the roles of significant Aboriginal elders, senior Aboriginal law men and women, immediate and extended families’, and men and women more generally and located Aboriginal Law or Tjukulpa at its centre. Other relevant organisations such as the National Native Title Tribunal, State Government, and the non-government peak body’s organisation of the Statewide ILUA negotiations were partially involved subject to their interests and roles in the Statewide ILUA negotiations or in the Native Title legal system.

The seminar highlights the planning and visionary thinking behind the CWMS which created the opportunity for Aboriginal people to be proactive in determining their destinies and issues and for consideration of their needs and resources within an agreed framework and timetable. It achieved a balanced approach between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal processes, in which the NNTT and mainstream mediation process had to be flexible and subservient to Aboriginal cultural needs. CWMS has opened the door for the negotiation of Indigenous Land Use Agreements which are no longer affected by the conflicts arising out of multiple overlapping claims.

Parry Agius has had a lifetime’s experience dealing with Aboriginal issues, coming from a family involved in caring for and protecting Aboriginal rights. He is a Narungga man; his people are the traditional owners of the land and waters in and around the Yorke Peninsula district.

Parry is the Executive Officer of the Native Title Unit (NTU) of Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement Inc, which is the only Native Title Representative Body for Greater South Australia. The NTU deals with: legal, educational and negotiation issues involved with native title claims; the resource industry, farmers, fishing interests and; Local and State Government policy. Parry played a key role in settling the complex and divisive issue of overlapping native title claims in SA and is recognised by the South Australian Government as the main architect of native title resolution in South Australia. Parry actively promotes the use of Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUA) under the Native Title Act. The NTU, through Parry, has a national profile; making valuable contributions to the Australian native title scene.

Parry has received a Centenary Medal from the Prime Minister for his contributions to the community. He is a member of the South Australian Governments Economic Development Board’s Community Attitudes Round Table. He was the Chairperson of the National Indigenous Working Group on Native Title (1998 – 2000) and is Editor of “Aboriginal Way”, South Australia’s only Indigenous newspaper. Parry has been awarded an Honorary Associate, Department of Human Geography, Macquarie University.

Kevin Allen
Indigenous Talking Circle: Negotiating and Implementing Agreements and Settlements

This session will canvass experiences negotiating with government over native title settlements, and mining and resource companies over large scale projects.  This session may canvass the role of native title and communal land rights and the opportunities created for economic and community development.

Kerry Arabena
Not Fit for Modern Australian Society': Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders and the New Arrangements in the Administration of Indigenous Affairs

The Coalition Government have developed a whole-of-government approach to managing Indigenous affairs with a focus on practical reconciliation; improved service delivery and establishing partnerships with individuals, families and communities. I have reviewed documents, transcripts, websites, speeches and articles, and interviewed Indigenous representatives and community members about their perceptions of the new arrangements in the administration of Indigenous affairs. I have found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders will need to demonstrate their 'fitness' for modern Australian society through 'behavioural self-censoring' and 'restructuring our world' to fit within the market economy of 'white Australia'. This Government is ill-equipped to deal with the contemporary political consequences of Indigenous identity, and is using discretionary money to pay for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders 'to be improved' in line with the expectations of an urban 'commercial' society. In this presentation I give an overview of the new arrangements in the administration of Indigenous affairs, how Indigenous people are responding to these arrangements and what strategies we may give to a new national leadership to consider.

Kerry Arabena is a descendent from her father's mother to the Merriam people in the Torres Strait. She has managed health services in rural and remote communities across Australia, and has become an internationally recognised expert in sexual and reproductive health. Kerry has a background in social work and is currently a Visiting Research Fellow with AIATSIS on the new arrangements in Indigenous affairs. Prior to this position, she was the Director of the Regional Governance Unit in the Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination, Canberra. 

Graham Atkinson
Native Title in Victoria
(with Damein Bell, Mick Harding and Ricky Mullett)

Justice Tony North, the Federal Court judge managing the 20 native title claims in Victoria, recently stated that Victoria lagged behind the other states in the progress of native title claims.Twelve years after the introduction of the Native Title Act, there has been only one native title determination in Victoria - and that was the Yorta Yorta decision which dashed the hopes of the Yorta Yorta people and raised the bar for native title claimants all around Australia. Twenty claims remain unresolved in Victoria. The Attorney-General, Rob Hulls, has stated that his government wishes to resolve those claims by negotiation rather than by litigation. But Justice North has recently made it clear that the lack of progress in the mediation of claims - and in particular the State's rigidity in assessing the claims - means that unless there is a 'fundamental change' in the State's 'philosophical approach', he will put an end to the meditation process and start setting Victorian claims down for trial. He made good his promise by insisting on hearing three days of on-country connection evidence in South West Victoria in the Gournditch-mara claim, despite the reluctance of the claimants and the State, and has continued to put pressure on the parties by stating that unless an agreement is well advanced by 8 June, he will set the Gournditch-mara matter down for a full trial as early as July 2005.

While NTSV supports his Honour's frustrations with the State's lack of action, NTSV is concerned that the setting down of matters for trial in Victoria places the State and claimants in an adversarial relationship, and results in undue pressure on claimants. NTSV continues to try to work with the State government to settle claims by agreement, and in February it convened a Statewide meeting of traditional owners from across the State. The meeting endorsed a Statement of Principles that would inform a statewide land justice package. NTSV is now convening a reference group which will continue to engage with the State Attorney General in relation to a Statewide settlement of claims. This process is running in parallel with the increasing move towards litigation of claims generated by the Federal Court. In this workshop presentation, NTSV Board members will discuss these parallel processes and some of the tensions they generate.

Graham Atkinson is a Dja Dja Wurrung and Yorta Yorta man. He is currently the elected Chairperson of Native Title Services Victoria. He holds a Master of Business Administration a Bachelor of Arts and Social Work and is Director of consultancy firm, Atkinson Kerr Associates.

Toni Bauman
Workshop: implementing the NTRB Report – Indigenous Facilitation and Mediation Project

In 2004, IFaMP ran a series of workshops with NTRBs regarding decision making and conflict management.  The information from the workshops is detailed in the Report on Native Title Representative Body Workshops: Directions, Priorities and Challenges, which has now been published and distributed, and is available on the IFaMP website (www.aiatsis.gov.au/rsrch/ntru/ifamp/index.html). Among other things, participants will be required to read the Report prior to the workshop.  The workshop will explore recommendations and issues raised in the Report, including training requirements with a view to further achieving practical outcomes from the workshops.  Time permitting, participants will also discuss a draft, generic decision making and conflict management policy for NTRBs, which has been prepared by IFaMP.  Feedback will allow for the revision and distribution of the Policy to NTRBs for adaptation to their particular circumstances

Toni Bauman is a Visiting Research Fellow in the Indigenous Facilitation and Mediation Project (IFaMP), located in the Native Title Research Unit at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. She is an anthropologist with over twenty years experience in a wide range of Indigenous matters including land claims and native title, facilitating meetings, and social impact and feasibility studies. She has worked for a range of Indigenous organisations such as Land Councils, ATSIC and the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority in Darwin. Toni is an accredited mediator, trained facilitator, and an Aboriginal Adult Educator.

Damein Bell
Native Title in Victoria
(with Graham Atkinson, Mick Harding and Ricky Mullett)

Damein Bell is part of the Gunditjmara nation. Damein’s community and work experience includes positions such as Program Manager for the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Incorporated, Chief Executive Officer and subsequently Chairperson of Mirimbiak Nations Aboriginal Corporation (Victoria’s NTRB). Currently, Damein serves as an ATSIC Councilor for Tumbukka Regional Council and is completing a Graduate Diploma in Natural Resources Management at the Deakin University’s Institute of Koorie Education. Damein’s goal is to establish an independent and effective Gunditjmara Native Title Office in Portland, Victoria within the next few months.

Michael Bennet
Subjectivity and Collaboration: A Response to Reilly and Genovese

In a recent article in the Indigenous Law Journal, Reilly and Genovese called on historians involved in native title claims to make clear to the Federal Court the flawed assumption that “the past is knowable without question, gloss or interpretation.”  But, as the authors acknowledge, the Federal Court is a foreign arena where different rules operate.  A direct approach may not achieve desired results.  In NSW, where I have a limited role in demonstrating indigenous law and custom due to reasons of training and strategy, the problematic nature of the documentary record can be examined through collaboration with the claim anthropologist.  By this method, the documentary record can be gauged against the oral history of the claimants and analysed in a manner that acknowledges its subjective nature.

Michael has worked as a historian for NSW Native Title Services for the past 2½ years, undertaking background research for potential claims and preparing reports for mediation.  Outside of native title, his research interests include the role of Aboriginal labour in the 19^th century pastoral industry.

Steve Blunden
New Representative Arrangements in the Many Rivers Region

This presentation will discuss the changes announced by the government in Indigenous Affairs, the abolition of ATSIC and the Regional Councils and what the Many Rivers Regional Council has done in preparation for the post 30^th June 2005. In particular, this presentation will focus on outcomes from the Community Consultation meetings held in Tweed Heads, Casino, Grafton, Coffs Harbour, Nambucca Heads, Kempsey, Taree, Wyong, Maitland and Newcastle during March and April 2005 relating to:

Issues that Aboriginal Communities need to consider for new representative bodies to replace the ATSIC Regional Council:

• Do you see a need for a Representative Body?

• If so, what type of Body & its Boundaries?

• What functions should it have?

• What Skills should Representatives have?

• Any representative body must be culturally acceptable to the community; and

• It must be functional – workable & acceptable to government.

Some Ideas for Regional Representational Models presented at Many Rivers Regional Community Consultation meetings:

• Directly Elected Model: representative directly elected from existing ATSIC Many Rivers electoral boundaries wards; four from Many Rivers & eight from Gattang;

• Traditional Model: three Land Council representatives elected from their Regions together with a representative from each of the Seven Tribal Nations from the Many Rivers; and

• Many Rivers Coalition of Aboriginal Organisations: Members directly nominated from existing local/regional peak bodies: e.g. from Land Council areas, medical, legal, educational, cultural services, housing, CDEP, Elders, women, men and youth.

Favoured Representative model being considered by communities in the Many Rivers Region -

• Members directly nominated from existing local peak bodies: e.g. Land Council, medical, legal, educational, cultural services, housing, CDEP, cultural, Elders, women, men and youth.

• Council then nominates two reps (1 + deputy) to Many Rivers Regional Body.
• Looking at between 8 and 10 community based coalitions in the Many Rivers Region.  This means that the Regional body will have between 8 – 10 members.

Adoption of the Many Rives Regional Council Regional Plan 2003 – 2005 by the NSW Regional Consultative Management Committees in the Many Rivers Region as a framework for the delivery of services by State Agencies to indigenous communities.

Steve Blunden is a Dunghutti/Ngumba man born in Kempsey in 1954. He was raised by his grandparents, Leslie and Alice Donovan and up until he was four years old, he lived at Greenhills near the race course in Kempsey. When Steve’s grandfather passed away his mother Margaret Donovan came to Kempsey to collect Steve and his older brother Jack. You may have heard about the Stolen Generation where Indigenous people were taken away and placed into homes or something like that. Well Steve’s older brother and he were taken away and hidden from the old Welfare Protection Board, his mother moved from town to town, narrowly escaping the clutches of the Protection Board. So you can say he came from the hidden generation. He has survived that time.

Steve is currently the ATSIC Many Rivers Regional Council (MRRC) Chairperson and he has been an ATSIC MRRC Councillor since ATSIC was established. He has worked in Aboriginal Affairs now for well over 31 years and will continue to do so while he is required.

Before becoming Chairperson of the MRRC, Steve was the fulltime CEO of Durri ACMS in Kempsey. He had held this position for the past 16 years and he is currently on three years leave without pay from Durri. He has also spent time away from Durri working with the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the Aboriginal Development Commission.

Steve is currently actively involved as a Board member with the Mid-North Coast Area Health Service for over six years; NSW Aboriginal Housing Office since May 2003; and the North Coast Institute of TAFE for the last 2 years. All of the above are Ministerial appointments. Steve has also, for many years, been a Board Member with the NSW Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council; and a Board Member of the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) for well over four years.

Greg Borchers
Working with Experts in Preparing Native Title Proceedings
(with Ron Levy)

Ron Levy is the Principal Legal Officer of the Northern Land Council, where he has worked as a solicitor since 1994. Ron was previously employed as a solicitor with the Victorian Aboriginal Legal service between 1987 and 1990.

Rose Boston
Our Land: Gumbaynggirr Elders
(with Betty Cameron, Vickie Cameron, Daphanie Flanders, Larry Kelly, Gloria Phillips and Emily Walker)

Stuart Bradfield
Communal ownership of land and individual wealth creation: The debate so far, identifying key questions

In recent times, a national debate about wealth creation on Indigenous owned land has gathered a good deal of momentum. To date, there has perhaps been more heat than light shed on the subject economic development on Indigenous land held under the Commonwealth Native Title Act and State Land Rights Acts.

This brief paper does not attempt to thoroughly investigate the complex issue of promoting sustainable economic development on Indigenous lands. Rather it seeks to identify a number of the questions bound up in this topic - questions which touch on issues of social organisation and identity, not just economics and politics. After contextualising the current debate by examining just where it has come from, the paper will look at the arguments put forward by a number of prominent, largely Indigenous, commentators. It attempts to disentangle a number of key questions that can get conflated in sometimes self-interested discussion of wealth creation on Indigenous land. These (and other) questions will then be discussed by a panel of experts.  

Dr Bradfield has a background in political science and completed his PhD on the principles of agreement making and treaties, with a comparative analysis of Canada and Australia. Dr Bradfield is currently interests include: agreement-making within and without the native title process; treaties and comprehensive agreements/settlements; political theory of Indigenous rights; comparison of Indigenous politics in Australia and Canada. Dr Bradfield also has interests in the area of Genocide studies and Indigenous people and sport

David Brooks
The Quest for ‘Land Rights’ in the Ngaanyatjarra Area
(with Ingrid Hebron, Bill Lawrie, Robin Smythe and Ian Ward)

On 29 June 2005 the Federal Court will travel to  the Ngaanyatjarra lands for the settlement of the largest natitve title determination in Australia. For the NTRB staff involved, this has been the culmination of some years work, but for the Native title claimants, the struggle for recognition and land title has been going on for a lifetime. In this presentation, Traditional Owners, Ian Ward and Robin Smythe will discuss the history of the struggle for land rights and native title in the Ngaanyatjarra area of the Western Desert. They will place the native title determination within that broader context. Bill Lawrie (Manager of Native Title), Ingrid Hebron (PLO), and David Brooks (Acting Manager Research) will discuss the technical anthropological, legal and political challenges in progressing the native title claim to conclusion.

David Brooks is currently the Acting Manager, Research for Ngaanyatjarra Council.

Tom Calma
Challenges and Opportunities in Times of Change

During 2004, the Federal Government announced substantial changes to the way that it delivers services and how it intends to engage with Indigenous people and communities. The new changes include the abolition of ATSIC; mainstreaming of Indigenous specific services and the widespread implementation of COAG commitments. These changes present challenges and opportunities for the native title system that will be explored in this paper.

The abolition of ATSIC has lead to an increased focus on direct engagement with Indigenous people and communities. To facilitate this process, government has committed to engage with Indigenous people at a local and regional level through Shared Responsibility Agreements and Regional Participation Agreements.  These agreements focus on mutual obligation and the provision of services but also provide an opportunity for the recognition of regional governance structures. If a regional structure is to have any legitimacy and sustainability, native title holders and traditional owners must be included in the decision making for their communities and regions.

The COAG commitments focus on whole of government strategies, innovation, community capacity building and governance, partnerships and improved economic and social wellbeing in Indigenous communities. This paper will explore the potential for these commitments to apply in a native title context and discuss opportunities for economic and social development on traditional land through existing legislative structures.

To support innovation, capacity building, partnerships and improved economic and social outcomes through native title and traditional ownership of land, NTRBs must be better equipped. They need more resources and flexible funding regimes that will support a holistic approach to cultural heritage, land management and economic development. The structures of NTRBs must also support a responsive, flexible and innovative approach to native title through representation and effective participation of traditional owners in the activities of the NTRBs both at a regional and national level.

Panel Discussion: Communal Ownership of Land and Individual Wealth Creation

Mr Calma is an Aboriginal elder from the Kungarakan tribal group and member of the Iwadja tribal group whose traditional lands are south west of Darwin and on the Coburg Peninsula in Northern Territory, respectively. He has been involved in Indigenous affairs at a local, community, state, national and international level and worked in the public sector for over 30 years.

Until his appointment on 12 July 2004 as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and acting Race Discrimination Commissioner, Mr Calma managed the Community Development and Education Branch at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services (ATSIS) where he worked with remote Indigenous communities to implement community-based and driven empowerment and participation programs.

Betty Cameron
Our Land: Gumbaynggirr Elders
(with Rose Boston, Vickie Cameron, Daphanie Flanders, Larry Kelly, Gloria Phillips and Emily Walker)

Vickie Cameron
Our Land: Gumbaynggirr Elders
(with Rose Boston, Betty Cameron, Daphanie Flanders, Larry Kelly, Gloria Phillips and Emily Walker)

Scott Cane
The Relationship between an Expert Anthropological Report and a Connection Report

This paper will explore the author’s recent experience in an Indigenous fishing case in NSW where his expert report was deemed to be inadmissible. The experience has impacted on the methodology applied to a connection report currently being prepared for a native title claim and this paper proposes to explore the relationship between expert evidence in a court environment and the preparation of a connection report for mediation purposes.

Scott Cane grew up in southern Tasmania before moving to Canberra to study at the Australian National University where he completed a PhD examining the relationship between human behaviour and material culture among Ngarti and Kukatja people living in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia. He now works as a consultant and has written over ninety reports and twenty-five published papers about Aboriginal cultural heritage, community life and relationship to land. This long-standing interest in Aboriginal people, their culture and heritage led to Scott’s involvement with the Spinifex People of the Great Victoria Desert in 1992, and in turn, to the documentation and definition of their customary land tenure and the recognition of their native title in Pila Nguru The Spinifex People in 2002.

John Catlin
Developing National Indigenous Fishing Strategy – the NIFTWG Experience

In October 2003, the National Native Title Tribunal convened a conference titled Indigenous Fishing Rights: Moving Forward 2003. The conference endorsed the establishment of a technical, expertise-based working group – NIFTWG – which would consider practical ways to progress the recognition of customary fishing rights and to increase Indigenous involvement in commercial aspects of the fishing industry and related activities.

NIFTWG consisted of technical experts from ATSIC, ATSIS, Australian Seafood Industry Council, Native Title Representative Bodies, Commonwealth and State legislators and was facilitated by the National Native Title Tribunal.

Over the course of 12 months the NIFTWG developed a set of principles which could guide the development of policies and strategies in relation to Indigenous fishing.

The presentation will consider:

Summary of the NIFTWG experience:

• Overview of background of group.
• Development of the Principles Communiqué on Indigenous Fishing (and their purpose).
• Current state-of-play at State and Federal level.

Policy implications of NIFTWG:

• the next steps;
• lessons learned from the NIFTWG experience

Options for the way forward & emerging trends in Indigenous Fishing

Mr Catlin has been involved with Aboriginal land issues since 1992. Prior to his appointment to the Tribunal in October 2003, he was principal advisor on Indigenous affairs for Xstrata (formerly Mount Isa Mining). During 1997—2000 he was lead native title negotiator for the WA Government and in 2001—2002 managed the Native Title Unit in Victorian Department of Justice.

Earlier in his career, Mr Catlin was a teacher and arts administrator. His academic qualifications include a Bachelor of Arts from Curtin University and a Professional Certificate in Arbitration from Adelaide University.

Valerie Cooms
Governance, Community Control and Native Title

This paper examines the structures put in place for the delivery of native title services to Traditional Owners throughout the country and how these governance structures are currently and constantly being challenged as to whether they are best placed to deliver services or provide representativeness.  It seems government policy is leaning towards services delivery and away from community representativeness

As government seems keen to erode Indigenous representativeness, this paper discusses   how regional representation could well emerge from Applicant groups within the Native Title process. 

Valerie Cooms was born in Brisbane a long time ago.  She belongs to the Nunukul people of North Stradbroke Island.  Her grandmother, however, came from the desert and was brought to Brisbane in the late 1890s. She then married Valerie’s grandfather and moved to North Stradbroke Island.

Valerie grew up around Moreton Bay. She undertook nursing training in Brisbane, and then had children whilst working as an Aboriginal Health Worker in Cunnamulla and Brisbane.  She gained the opportunity to work with Professor Hollow’s Trachoma and Eye Health Programme in the late 70s.

Valerie acquired a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Australian National University majoring in Political Science and History.  She also completed a Bachelor of Arts with Honours with the University of New England and is currently enrolled and attempting to complete a PhD in History.

Valerie joined the Australian Public Service in the early 1980s and moved to Canberra to work for the then Department of Aboriginal Affairs.  She worked in the public service for a number of years, in various Departments and Agencies, including Health policy, education employment and training as well as the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.  She also managed the Native Title Unit in the Western Australian Office of the then Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).

Valerie is currently working as the Chief Executive Officer of the Native Title Representative Body, Queensland South.

Beryl Cruse
Mutton Fish: Traditional Fishing Practices on the South Coast
(with Ossie Cruse)

Beryl Cruse was born in Port Macquarie in 1934.  Her mother came from the Campbell family of the south coast. Together with Liddy Stewart, Sue Norman and others she helped produced the children’s book, Bittangabee Tribe. Beryl is currently working to establish an archive at the Monaroo Bobberrer Gudu (Keeping Place) outside of Eden and loves to eat mutton fish.

Ossie Cruse
Mutton Fish: Traditional Fishing Practices on the South Coast
(with Beryl Cruse)

The people of the south coast of NSW have a long and complex relationship with the coastal environment; one that has nutured them for thousands of years. Ossie Cruse will discuss the current issues of Koori people who continue to participate in cultural and traditional as well as modern fishing practices, versus white law.

Pastor Oswald (Ossie) Cruse MBE AM is an Aboriginal pastor with the Aboriginal Evangelical Fellowship (AEF). He was also one of the founders of the AEF. He has served as the chairperson of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council. He has been an advisor to state and federal governments for over 20 years. He has represented Aboriginal people at local, state, national and international forums. Ossie has lived on the south-coast of New South Wales for most of his life and together with his wife Beryl he has 3 children, 12 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren.

Anthony Dann
Working Group Service Delivery Model
(with Simon Hawkins)

The working group structure has untapped potential to be a key element in the overall process of improving governance and outcomes for Indigenous people, in conjunction with government and stakeholders. Working groups have the potential to take a leadership role in strategic planning for their communities and group members take responsibility for their decisions. Shared responsibility agreements and regional partnership agreements would be founded upon the community's vision/plan and will incorporate an understanding that both parties to the agreement are committed to performing their duties and obligations in order to bring the vision to life. The capacity of groups will need to be able to negotiate and manage successfully the vision.

Anthony Dann is the Co-chair of the Yamatji Marpla Barna Baba Maaja Aboriginal Corporation (YMBBMAC) Governing Committee and the Chairperson of the Yamatji Land and Sea Council. The YMBBMAC is the native title representative body which represents the traditional owners of the Yamatji [Murchison and Gascoyne] and Pilbara regions of Western Australia. In the Yamatji region it operates as the Yamatji Land and Sea Council and in the Pilbara as the Pilbara Native Title Service. He is also a member of the Wajarri Yamatji native title working group.

Ian Dixon
Implementing the South Australian Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUA) Statewide Negotiations
(with Parry Agius and Peter Hall)

Ian is Managing Director of DIXON Partnership Solutions; a company that specialises in cross sector partnerships, which involve one or more of the business, government, education and community sectors.

He is currently the Independent Chair of the Statewide Native Title Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) Negotiations in South Australia, involving peak bodies representing mining, pastoral, and fishing interests; the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement (representing 23 native title claim groups); state and local government.

Ian is an experienced chief executive with over 30 years in the public and private sectors and has contributed to a number of boards, task forces and advisory bodies, where his unique knowledge and skills have been a key asset. He has also been a keen advocate and participant in a number of collaborative organisations.

Joseph Elu
Bridging Native Title with an Economic Strategy

Mr. Elu is Chairman of Indigenous Business Australia (formerly CDC) and has held this position since December 1996.  Mr. Elu continues to be Chairman of Seisia Council on the tip of Cape York, a member of the Torres Strait Regional Authority and the elected chairman of the Board of IBIS in the Torres Straits.  Mr. Elu is also co-chair of the Voluntary Services to Indigenous Communities Foundation and a member of the board of Reconciliation Australia.  During 2001, Mr. Elu was appointed to the board of Special Broadcastings Services (SBS). 

He is also a member of the Indigenous Tourism Leadership Group. The ITLG advises the Minister for Tourism on issues impacting on the development of Indigenous Tourism throughout Australia. He continues to be a strong advocate of including private enterprise in the economic development of Indigenous people.

Mr Elu was recently awarded a Centenary Medal. He also holds an honorary Doctorate in economics from the Queensland University of Technology.He has been a strong advocate of including private enterprise in the economic development of Indigenous people.

Daphanie Flanders
Our Land: Gumbaynggirr Elders
(with Rose Boston, Betty Cameron, Vickie Cameron, Larry Kelly, Gloria Phillips and Emily Walker)

Debbie Fletcher
Content of Connection Reports and Methods of Presentation

This paper will concentrate on the requirements of the WA Government’s Guidelines for Connection Reports, Government policy and the practical application of these Guidelines when writing reports. Also explored will be concepts such as the varying methods of presentation of connection material, assessment issues, the role of respondent parties in connection and satisfaction of the Federal Court should a consent determination be reached.

Debbie Fletcher is the Principal Research Officer of the Western Australian Office of Native Title. Debbie has worked in native title since 1994, originally as an in-house historian for the, then, WA Crown Solicitor’s Office. From 1996 to 2000 she was employed as an in-house historian for the NSW Crown Solicitor’s Office, subsequently returning to the position of Senior Historian at the WA State Solicitor’s Office where she submitted a number of expert native title reports to the Federal Court. Since July 2004, she has held her current position at the Office of Native Title and has primary responsibility for the assessment of Connection Reports

Krysti Guest
Privatisation of NTRB Legal Services: Communal Native Title v Corporate Native Title

The Howard Government is considering the outsourcing of legal services from NTRBs, purportedly to address complaints from mining companies concerning under funding of NTRBs and the quality of NTRB legal services.

For the past 8 years NTRBs have continually drawn attention to their under funding vis-à-vis their statutory responsibilities, which include legal obligations to litigate native title applications in the Federal Court and negotiate significant future act agreements with mining companies. UN human rights bodies have noted that under-funding of NTRBs is a potential mechanism for back door extinguishment and the Federal Court has noted with concern this under-funding, including its links to the funding of PBCs which will take over the future act work of the NTRB post a NT determination.

Various strategies have been adopted by NTRBs to deal with under-funding. Each of these strategies is underpinned by the assumption that it is the regional, indigenous controlled NTRB which is best placed to deliver NTRB services due to their unique status as local, indigenous organisations and their unique skills in facilitating group based, indigenous decision making processes for matters affecting the community of native title /applicants holders.

This focus on retaining and developing the skill base of regional indigenous organisations and ensuring traditional decision making processes for the group of native title applicants/holders is the opposite of the Federal Government’s proposal to privatize NTRB legal services. With minor exceptions, standard legal practice focuses on taking instructions from individual clients within narrow and defined legal boundaries. Native title clients are communities of people, who need to be dealt with as a community. In order for this to occur in an enduring and effective manner, this entails establishing time consuming instruction processes. Due to the unique social political nature of native title, it also inevitably involves levels of community development, cross cultural translation and intra indigenous dispute resolution. These tasks are time and resource consuming but essential of native title is going to be meaningful to the people who hold it, rather than just meaningful within a narrow legal frame which benefits only those who legally trained.

The adverse consequences for native title holders, governments and developers of the Federal Government’s proposal to privatize NTRB legal services will be considered in this paper.

Krysti Guest has been working as a legal officer with the Kimberley Land Council over the past 6 years, primarily in relation to litigation and most recently in relation to the Ord Global Negotiations between the Miriuwung and Gajerrong and the WA State Government. Prior to working at the KLC Krysti worked as a human rights legal and policy adviser to the Commonwealth Parliament and to the Cth Attorney-General's Department. In 2003 Krysti was part of a non-government delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

Peter Hall
Implementing the South Australian Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUA) Statewide Negotiations
(with Parry Agius and Ian Dixon)

Peter Hall was admitted as a practitioner of the Supreme Court of South Australia in 1970.  After 25 years in general private practice, he joined the Crown Solicitors Office in 1995 and the Native Title Section of that Office in 1998. 

In 2000 he was appointed as one of the initial members of the State’s ILUA Negotiation Team and subsequently negotiated 36 petroleum access agreements in the Cooper Basin on behalf of the Government.  In August 2004, Peter was appointed as the Principal Negotiator of the State’s ILUA Negotiation Team attached to the Attorney-General’s Department, having previously served in that position in an acting capacity.

Gary Hamley
Negotiating Native Title: The Western Australian Government's Approach

The Western Australian Government’s approach to native title is based on the principles of; accepting that native title exists, a positive approach to negotiating rather than litigating matters, and a genuine effort to make the Native Title Act work. Resolving native title matters by consent requires agreement by all parties. Although the State Government is only one of the parties involved it recognises its lead role in progressing matters in a positive and timely manner, while at the same time balancing the broader public interest. This paper outlines how these principles are being applied to achieve the Government’s native title objectives.

Gary Hamley is the WA Office of Native Title’s Executive Director. He has over thirty years service in the Western Australian Public Sector, and extensive experience at the highest levels of Government, as a Ministerial Chief of Staff and in a range of portfolio areas including health, labour relations, police and emergency services. Gary’s career has illustrated his strong commitment to partnership approaches to service delivery and government responsiveness to community needs. In his time as Executive Director, Gary has overseen the internal restructure of the Office, and has been pivotal in progressing negotiations for the resolution of nine outstanding native title determination applications.

Mick Harding
Native Title in Victoria
(with Graham Atkinson, Damein Bell, and Ricky Mullett)

Mick is a Taungurung man from the Yeerun Illam Baluk clan. He is the Chairperson of Central Gippsland Health and Housing Aboriginal Co-Operative and Vice-Chairperson Taunurung Clans Aboriginal Corporation. He is an Indigenous Schools Liaison Officer for the Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies at Monash University. Mick previously worked for Aboriginal Affairs Victoria as an Aboriginal Site Officer for almost 10 years.

Bob Harvey
Indigenous Economic Independence - Employment, Business and Wealth Management

The presentation will outline the Australian Government's Indigenous Economic Development Strategy which will set forward a platform for advancing levels of Indigenous participation in the labour force through employment, self-employment and business development and look at the way Indigenous assets, including land and home ownership, can best be utilised. 

Bob Harvey is the Indigenous Employment and Business Group Manager within the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. This year Bob has been instrumental in the development and implementation of the future directions for the Community Development and Employment Projects (CDEP) Programme.  As State Manager of DEWR Victoria, Bob took the lead role in progressing the Council of Australian Government Indigenous trials in Shepparton. Bob has many years experience in delivery of Government labour market programmes and services.

Simon Hawkins
Working Group Service Delivery Model
(with Anthony Dann)

Simon Hawkins is Executive Director of the Yamatji Marlpa Barna Baba Maaja Aboriginal Corporation, the native title representative body for the Yamatji (Murchison/Gascoyne) and Pilbara regions of Western Australia.

Before joining YMBBMAC, Simon worked for the Department of Indigenous Affairs as a Director, where he managed a regional network of offices across the state. This position followed his time as CEO of the Shire of Cue, where Simon's achievements included the instigation of a cultural tourism initiative involving the Thoo Thoo Wanhina Aboriginal Corporation and the inaugural QFest, a festival showcasing contemporary art and music.

Simon has worked as a town planner for a variety of urban and rural municipalities in Western Australia. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Urban and Regional Studies (Curtin University) as well as a Graduate Diploma in Environmental Science (Murdoch University).

Ingrid Hebron
The Quest for ‘Land Rights’ in the Ngaanyatjarra Area
(with David Brooks, Bill Lawrie, Robin Smythe and Ian Ward)

Ingrid Hebron is currently the Principal Legal Officer of the Ngaanyatjarra Council.

Phillipa Hetherton
Saltwater - the Blue Mud Bay Sea Rights Claim
(with Waka Mununggurr)

The lives of the Yolngu of Blue Mud Bay are inextricably connected to the sea, both as a source of physical sustenance and through stories, songs, painting, designs, beliefs about ancestral beings and cultural practices which are suffused with references to the sea. In Gumana v Northern Territory [2005] FCA 50, the Yolngu of Blue Mud Bay sought to extend legal recognition of their traditional rights and interests in the sea pursuant to the Native Title Act and the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act.

In this presentation, Waka Mununggurr will talk about his people’s struggle for recognition of their rights in the sea. In particular he will discuss their attempts, through painting their sea-country, negotiations with commercial fishers and through litigation, to protect their sacred sites in the sea and to assert a degree of control over the terms on which others may enter and use the resources of their domain.

Phillipa Hetherton will focus on the decision in the recent Blue Mud Bay sea rights case and the legal background to the case. This includes other sea rights cases run by the Northern Land Council which have sought to extend legal recognition of traditional Aboriginal rights and interests in the sea, in particular in relation to rights held under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act in the inter-tidal zone of the foreshore and tidal rivers and in the seabed. These and other issues were canvassed in the Blue Mud Bay case, which if successful, would establish for Aboriginal owners a stake in the ownership and control of resources of the sea, and a strong position from which to negotiate with other stakeholders about the exploitation of the resources of the sea.

Phillipa Hetherton is a solicitor. She has worked at the Northern Land Council for the last three and a half years and previously worked in the Native Title Unit of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

Colin Jarrett
The Life and Times of Fanny Purrapine: Finding Ancestors in the Historical Record
(with Jitendra Kumarage and Harry Mumbulla)

This paper considers a small but interesting part of the research into two Gumbaynggirr native title claims just south of Coffs Harbour. According to oral tradition, sometime in the late 19th century, two young sisters walked out of the bush near Bellingen following a massacre and were grown up by another family. The documentary evidence does not support the massacre tradition but has revealed a pre-existing family connection between the two families, through an ancestor previously unknown to the claimants: Fanny Purrapine. Through the life and times of Fanny Purrapine we examine the intersection of the oral and documentary evidence and what impact the research has had on her descendants.

Colin Jarret is a Gumbaynggirr man from Nambucca Heads, south of Coffs Harbour. He is a writer and poet who is interested in the Gumbaynggirr language. He has been involved in the research for the Gumbaynggirr native title claims at Gumma / South Beach and Second Headland near Urunga.

Tony Johnson
Negotiation and Implementation of Agreements

Tony Johnson is a descendant of the Gooreng Gooreng nation. He has more than 15 years public sector management experience, the majority in senior management positions, which included more than 5 years as a Regional Manager with the Aboriginal Development Commission and ATSIC. Tony also served 2 years as Executive Manager with the Crown Law Division, Department of Justice and Attorney-General, Queensland.

Tony has in excess of 8 years experience working in management positions with Indigenous community controlled organisations. This includes more than 5 years direct experience working at NTRBs in Southern Queensland, namely FAIRA, the former Goolburri Land Council and nearly 2 years as the original Coordinator of the Gurang Land Council in 1994-95. More recently he has spent about 17 months working with the ATSIC Native Title and Land Rights Centre, as NTRB Capacity Building Program Coordinator.

Tony has been the Chief Executive Officer at Gurang Land Council for the past year and is committed to improving the native title service delivery capability of the Land Council, to ensure the native title rights and interests of all native title claimants.

Craig Jones
Successful Futures: the Politics of Negotiation in Native Title

Native title is a cross-cultural process. However, some elements of native title negotiation exist entirely within the respective cultures of the various parties. An example is that in some cases Aboriginal Law has a profound impact on the negotiation stance of the Aboriginal parties in native title negotiations. This is despite the negotiation being conducted in the shadow of the court and as a creature of the Native Title Act 1993. The Court and the Act are profoundly non-indigenous artefacts of western culture. The resultant negotiation field is therefore inevitably dominated by national political issues. A case study of negotiation between pastoralists and an Aboriginal party can give us clues to how by shifting the design focus of the mediation toward the local and away from national political issues, productive and meaningful outcomes can be achieved. My proposition is that the simple facilitation of cross-cultural negotiation, however effective, will only reinforce the political status quo. Mediation design in this circumstance is about putting power directly in the hands of the parties to achieve native title outcomes. Native title can be a tool for Aboriginal parties to achieve successful futures for their communities if and only if mediation or negotiation design drives power out of institutional hands and in to local ones.

Craig Jones is the Director of the Native Title Studies Centre at James Cook University in Cairns. He has held this position since September 2003 and has been working on developing the scope and profile of the Centre up until the present time. The Centre’s primary research focus is on the practicalities of native title and agreement-making with Indigenous peoples. The Centre has attracted a small number of research scholars in this area, including a number of Aboriginal students whose work is focused on developing better outcomes for Indigenous peoples from agreement-making with government and industry. Craig is also a PhD student at the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre at the University of Queensland. His research is focused on cross-cultural mediation and negotiation and uses a number of examples of negotiation between Aboriginal peoples.

Jilpia Nappaljari Jones
We may have the Spirit, but do Men have all the Land?  Women and Native Title

Since the invasion of Australia, Europeans have been observing Indigenous people. For a long time these observers were men and naturally enough talked to our men. They came to believe that ownership of our real estate was the monopoly of men and this belief is largely perpetuated in Native Title Legislation. This paper tries to show how women can no longer be excluded from such ownership.  heir interest in country can be summarised.

Through women’s hunting and gathering practices – women had an intimate knowledge of all the plants and animals that shared their country. Through women’s ceremonial practices – women’s ceremonies were also healing ceremonies for people, land and spirit (C.H.Brendt 1951). Through women’s bush medicine practices – women traditionally prepared and administered herbal medicine and other treatments (Reid 1978; 107). Through women’s birth practices – which use special ochres and the smoke of medicine trees which grow in the country to assist the mother and baby. Through women’s Dreaming Tracks – such as the women’s Munga-Munga Dreaming Tracks in the Western Desert. (D. Bell). Through gendered landscapes, for example waterholes and hills which represent women’s procreative capacities. Through kinships that rely on female descent (N. Williams 1986). Through Dairri – “Listening to Land” according to Rose Ungunmerr-Bauman is a special quality, a unique gift of the Aboriginal people.

Jilpia is an Aboriginal Woman from the Walmadjari Nation. She has experience in general, midwifery and ophthalmic nursing and did her nursing training at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. She has many years experience as a nurse in Aboriginal Communities with her work and involvement with in the National Trachoma and Eye Health Program with the Late Professor Fred Hollows.

Jilpia has spent many year advocating for the rights and interests of Aboriginal people and sees her self as a strong social activist for Aboriginal issues. She has a degree in Political Science and History from the Australian National University.

Larry Kelly
Our Land: Gumbaynggirr Elders
(with Rose Boston, Betty Cameron, Vickie Cameron, Daphanie Flanders, Gloria Phillips and Emily Walker)

Jitendra Kumarage
The Life and Times of Fanny Purrapine: Finding Ancestors in the Historical Record
(with Colin Jarrett and Harry Mumbulla)

Jitendra Kumarage is an anthropologist who has worked for the Northern and Central Land Councils and as a consultant anthropologist. He is currently working on the Gumbaynggirr Peoples' native title claims, just south of Coffs Harbour. 

Marcia Langton
Are we compatible? Prospects for an Interdisciplinary Approach

Professor Marcia Langton, AM is the Inaugural Chair of Australian Indigenous Studies at The University of Melbourne. She is also a Chief Investigator with the research project on Agreements, Treaties and Negotiated Settlements and a co-editor with Maureen Tehan, Kathryn Shain and Lisa Palmer of Honour Among Nations? Treaties and Agreements with Indigenous People. Marcia Langton is a descendant of the Yiman nation of central Queensland.

Marcia was previously Director of the Centre for Indigenous, Natural and Cultural Resource Management and Ranger Professor of Aboriginal Studies at the Northern Territory University.

Marcia has some three decades of experience in Indigenous affairs including significant managerial and research experience.  She is a member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) and was previously an elected part-time Councillor and Chairperson of AIATSIS. She is a specialist in Aboriginal land tenure and resource issues, and an author of many articles and books in Aboriginal Studies, on subjects including film and art, land-rights and resource issues, customary law, alcohol misuse and women's issues.   Her best known publications are: Well, I heard it On the Radio and I Saw It on the Television, (1993), on the politics and aesthetics of filmmaking by and about Aborigines, Burning Questions, (1998) on emerging environmental issues for Indigenous people in northern Australia, and the Report by Langton and others to the National Commissioner of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody from the NT Aboriginal Issues Unit, entitled Too Much Sorry Business (Appendix in Volume 5 on the National Report).

Bill Lawrie
The Quest for ‘Land Rights’ in the Ngaanyatjarra Area
(with David Brooks, Ingrid Hebron, Robin Smythe and Ian Ward)

Bill Lawrie is currently the Manager of the Native Title Unit for Ngaaanyatjarra Council and has been in this role for over 4 years. Prior to that he was a case manager and senior case manager in the NNTT for almost five years working in the Kimberley. In the more distant past he has been a social worker, working in child protection and therapy roles in Melbourne and for the UNHCR with Vietnamese asylum seekers in Hong Kong. Bill hasn’t been near a university since 1988, and that was when he studied social work. Bill also has a BA in philosophy dating back to the dark ages. 

Ron Levy
Working with Experts in Preparing Native Title Proceedings
(with Greg Borchers)

Bonita Mabo

Bonita Mabo and her husband, the late Eddie (Koiki) Mabo, battled on behalf of Torres Strait Islanders for the recognition of their native title. Since the 1960s Bonita has worked in Indigenous organisations and at Townsville's Black Community School while raising ten children. As a descendant of the Stolen Generation, many of Bonita's battles have been highly personal and she continues to campaign for the recognition the rights of her own people - the South Sea Islanders.

Jonathon Malone
Indigenous Talking Circle: Negotiating and Implementing Agreements and Settlements

This session will canvass experiences negotiating with government over native title settlements, and mining and resource companies over large scale projects.  This session may canvass the role of native title and communal land rights and the opportunities created for economic and community development.

Nyalgodi ‘Scotty’ Martin
Indigenous Talking Circle: The Litigation Experience

This session will allow claimants who have experienced the trial process to share their experience with others.

The Difficulties and Benefits Presented by Native Title for Re-Negotiating Relationships Both within an Indigenous Community and with the Pastoralists with whom they Co-exist
(with Anthony Redmond)

In this joint presentation between Nyalgodi Martin and Tony Redmond, some of the major social impacts, both positive and negative, of the Native Title process upon Indigenous claimants will be addressed. Beginning with a dialogue about the claim preparation stage and the demands which subsequently come to bear upon Indigenous people with a strong knowledge base, the discussion will shift to the social dynamics engendered by litigation between Indigenous people and the owners of the cattle stations upon which many of them live and will continue to live. The discussion will then move on to the potentially divisive effects which, post-determination, enter into long-established relationships, between Indigenous groups and individuals and between Indigenous residents and pastoralists. The dialogue will conclude with an overview of the social effects which native title, painfully but necessarily, has had on restructuring a particular field of relationships which have long been characterised by subordination and inequality. Being able to hear directly from Indigenous participants in these matters is the primary objective of this presentation in which Tony Redmond will play a facilitating role with his long term co-worker Nyalgodi.

Nyalgodi is a senior Ngarinyin/Wunambal man who is a composer of traditional songs (junba) as well as having been for many years head-stockman on a northern Kimberley pastoral lease. He was taken to this station when, at the age of seven, his family was captured by police on the Drysdale River in 1942 and he has lived his entire life since then in a shifting set of relationships with the pastoralist family who hold the lease. Nyalgodi was a crucial witness in the recently determined Wanjina/Wunggurr/Wilinggin Native Title claim. During these hearings he was in the often difficult position of giving evidence against the pastoralists’ interests while they were themselves in the court.

Les McCrimmon
Native Title Practice and the Rules of Evidence

As part of its current inquiry into the operation of the Evidence Act 1995 (Cth), the Australian Law Reform Commission is reviewing:

• the qualification of expert witnesses and the admissibility of expert evidence under s.79 of the Evidence Act 1995 (Cwth); and

• the admissibility of evidence of traditional laws and customs under the Evidence Act 1995 (Cwth).

The Commission's findings to date, together with options for reform of the Evidence Act 1995 (Cwth) in these areas, are discussed in this paper.

Les McCrimmon, an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Sydney, was appointed a full time member of the Australian Law Reform Commission for a three-year period, commencing on 4 January 2005. Assoc Prof McCrimmon is the Commissioner in charge of the ALRC's Inquiry into the uniform Evidence Acts, being conducted in association with the Law Reform Commissions of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, and the Tasmania Law Reform Institute, .

Prof McCrimmon has expertise in the law of evidence, trial practice and real property. He is a member of the Management Committee of the Australian Advocacy Institute, has been a member of various NSW Bar Association Committees, and the NSW Attorney General's working party established to review the law and practice relating to conflict of interest. He is also a founding member, and is a current member of the International Steering Committee, of the Global Alliance for Justice Education.

Brendon Moore

Workshop: The Native Title Registration Test

The session is intended to be an extremely practical examination of the difficulties associated with the Registration test, with an emphasis on suggesting solutions to common errors, misunderstandings and troublesome sections. It will consider those areas of the test in which claims regularly fail. It is also intended to be as informal as possible, with the delegate discussing feedback, criticism and queries from the floor. An outline of areas to be covered is provided below .

s.61(1): How Doepel changed the scene

• Since Doepel the role of the Registrar has been considerably reduced. When will the delegates look at claim group descriptions now?
• Can people be excluded?

s.190B(3): How can a person be ascertained to be a member?

• S.190B(3) sets a higher standard for identifying a member than the requirement for a determination. What are the implications?
• Why a description using only ‘the descendants of…’ rather than ‘all the descendants of..’ can be a problem,  and why ‘family’ based claim groups run into trouble here.
• The implications of  an inadequate description of the claim group on authorisation and the lesson from Bolton

s.190C(4): Authorisation – what will ‘satisfy’ the delegate, and why.

• The many s.66B cases tell a story about why the Courts have put so much emphasis on authorisation.
• The three distinct processes: certification, a set of traditional laws and customs, or an agreed and adopted process. Which to use, what the delegates will be looking for and why.
• Can there be processes that are part traditional and part contemporary?
• The desirability of documenting the process and involving anthropologists.
• The undercurrent of ‘democracy’ running through the cases.
• The problem of deceased or incapable applicants and a suggestion or two.

s.190B(5): The heart of the matter – a normative society.

• A quick look again at Yorta Yorta’s  emphasis on what ‘traditional’ means.

• Evidence, assertions and long form affidavits: what needs to be in them and what should be left out.

• The perils of rediscovered culture and language.

• How much use is ‘desktop’ material?

s.190B(6):

• The bundle of rights, Ward, and what it says about how to draft schedule E

• The Registrar cannot ‘amend’ your claim but must test the clause as you draft it

• How to ensure that the rights being claimed have the best chance of being able to be established

• Evidence. Remember that?

Howard Morphy
The Practice of an Expert: An Anthropologist’s View

The paper provides a perspective on the practice of anthropology as a discipline in the context of providing expert evidence in court cases. I consider the nature of anthropological expertise in relation to method, knowledge and theory. I evaluate the contribution that anthropological expertise can make, taking into account such factors as time pressures and the extent of the anthropologist's prior knowledge of a particular society - factors that often act as a constraint on what it is possible to know or find out in a given situation.

Professor Howard Morphy is Director of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the ANU. As an anthropologist his work has centred on the social organisation religion and art of the Yolngu people. He has had extensive involvement in native title and land rights cases in Australia since 1980. He has been an expert witness, both acting for claimants and appointed by the Court, in a number of cases, beginning with Roper Bar (Yudpundji-Djindiwirritj) in 1982. He addressed major and very public issues of Indigenous conflict as a Court-appointed expert witness in the Hindmarsh Island Bridge affair and has given evidence in cases concerning cultural property and copyright. He has made scholarly and significant contributions to the evaluation of the review of the Northern Territory Land Rights Act (Reeves Report 1999). Most recently, he was an expert witness in the Blue Mud Bay native title claim, for which he also produced extensive reports. He has made critical contributions to the debate arising from the Review of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (the Reeves Review 1998).

Ricky Mullet
Native Title in Victoria
(with Graham Atkinson, Damein Bell and Mick Harding)

Ricky is a Gunai/Kurnai, Gunditjmara and Monoro/Ngarigo descendant. He has an Honours Degree in Archaeology/Anthropology from the Australian National University. Ricky is currently employed as Team Leader for Indigenous Cultural Heritage with Parks Victoria East Region. Ricky was previously employed as Cultural Heritage Office for Gippsland & East Gippsland Aboriginal Co-Operative.

Harry Mumbulla
The Life and Times of Fanny Purrapine: Finding Ancestors in the Historical Record
(with Colin Jarrett and Jitendra Kumarage)

Harry Mumbulla is a Gumbaynggirr man from Nambucca Heads. His family has a long involvement with the struggle for land rights on the north coast of New South Wales. In the 1980s, his late mother was instrumental in the campaign to claim back Stuart Island at Nambucca Heads. Harry Mumbulla is now one of the Gumbaynggirr men involved in the negotiations and research for the Gumma / South Beach native title claim at Nambucca Heads.

Warren Mundine
Opening Plenary
Panel Discussion: Communal Ownership of Land and Individual Wealth Creation

Warren Mundine is the Chief Executive Officer of NSW Native Title Services Ltd., National Senior Vice-President of the Australian Labor Party, a member of the National Indigenous Council, former Chair of NSW Country Labor, the Chair of NSW Labor’s Indigenous Policy Committee and the former Deputy Mayor of Dubbo. Warren also was a Board member of the NSW PCYC State Board, Immediate Past President of the NSW Local Government Aboriginal Network, a former Executive member of the Local Government Association of NSW, Board member of Macquarie Area Health Service and a commissioner with the NSW Local Government Grants Commission. Warren formerly was a member of the Attorney General’s Juvenile Crime Prevention Committee and is still heavily involved in youth projects such the PCYC movement, Indigenous youth off the street, Indigenous youth cultural and education programs as well as sport through soccer.

Warren was born in Grafton, NSW, the ninth child of eleven children to Olive Bridgette (Dolly) Mundine (nee Donovan) and Roy Mundine. Dolly is a Gumbayngirr woman and Roy a Bundjalung man. Warren was brought up in a strong Aboriginal family with strong Catholic beliefs and is very much involved in the NSW Branch of the Australian Labor Party being a candidate at the 1999 State Elections, 2001 Senate Federal Elections and the 2003 State elections.

Warren is married to Lynette Riley-Mundine (Manager of the NSW Dept. of Education & Training Aboriginal Programs Unit) and they have seven children and four grandchildren.

Harvey Murray
Indigenous Talking Circle: The Litigation Experience

This session will allow claimants who have experienced the trial process to share their experience with others.

Waka Mununggur
Saltwater - the Blue Mud Bay Sea Rights Claim
(with Phillipa Hetherton)

Waka Mununggurr is a Yolgnu man of the Gupa Djapu clan. He is the school teacher at the Yilpara community in Blue Mud Bay, where he lives. He was a witness in the Blue Mud Bay sea rights claim. 

National Oceans Office
The Development of Sea Country Plans as Part of Regional Marine Planning in Australia

Sea Country Planning is an approach to engaging Indigenous people and communities in marine resource management that has been developed by Indigenous communities in southeastern and northern Australia and supported by the Australian Government through its National Oceans Office. This paper gives an overview of the history of the sea country planning approach, its conceptual and practical underpinnings and considers its relevance to the Australian Government’s new arrangements for program and service delivery to Indigenous communities. I take a brief look at the Sea Country Plans that have been, or are being developed as part of the South-east and Northern Regional Marine Plans under Australia’s Oceans Policy. These are the Kooyang Sea Country Plan by the Maar people in South-west Victoria, the Sea Country Plan of the Ngarrindjeri people of the Coorong region in South Australia and three Sea Country Plans being developed in the Northern Planning Area.

Graeme Neate
Achieving Results from Mediation

Mediation of native title applications: the role of the Tribunal and the role of the Court

(a)  Mediation toward native title determination outcomes

·         The purpose of mediation

·         The process of mediation by the Tribunal

·         Mediation of claimant applications by the Federal Court

·         Possible reasons for Court-annexed mediation

·         Possible risks for the Court

·         The current positions of the Tribunal and the Court

(b)  Issues of utilising mediation capacities of both institutions

(c)   Assistance in negotiating non native title determination outcomes

Mr Graeme Neate has been President of the National Native Title Tribunal since 1999 and is based in Brisbane. He was a part-time member of the Tribunal from 1995 up until he became President.

Before joining the Tribunal, Mr Neate was the Chairperson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Lands Tribunal in Queensland and a member of the Land Court of Queensland. From 1988 to 1991, he was a senior solicitor in commercial property and environmental law at Freehill Hollingdale & Page, Sydney, and from 1986 to 1988 was the Principal Legal Officer with the Constitutional Commission.

Mr Neate worked with the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in Canberra from 1982 to 1986 on a range of Aboriginal heritage and land matters. He became Director of the Legal Advising Section and assisted Justice Toohey with a comprehensive review of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cwlth). Mr Neate also chaired a panel of lawyers assisting the Federal Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and the Aboriginal Steering Committee with proposals for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 (Cwlth).

Mr Neate has a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws (with Honours) from the Australian National University in Canberra. He is admitted to practise as a legal practitioner in the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory, and as a solicitor in New South Wales and Queensland. He is also on the roll of barristers and solicitors in the High Court.

Justice Tony North
Native Title Law - New Jurisdiction - a results focus

The primary means for resolving native title applications under the Native Title Act is by mediation.  In practice the process of mediation under the Act has become a highly complex undertaking.  States parties have published extensive guidelines which, in effect, require the applicants to expose evidence in support of their case as if in a trial setting.  The process adopted is rights based.

It is argued in this session that this development does not properly reflect the concept of mediation as used in the Act.  The mediation contemplated by the Act is to be interest based. 

Parties must rethink the process adopted for mediation under the Act, and reshape it so that it becomes interest based.  Otherwise, the purpose of statutory mediation will be lost. 

Justice Tony North was educated at Melbourne University (BA, LLB Hons) and the University of London (LLM). In 1973 he was appointed as associate to Sir Ninian Stephen, then a Justice of the High Court of Australia.

In 1976 he joined the Victorian Bar and practised initially in commercial law generally and later also in public law and industrial law. His Honour took silk in 1989. From 1992-1995 Justice North was the Defence Force Advocate, a part time statutory office requiring him to advise the Chief of the Defence Force concerning pay conditions of members of the Australian Defence Force, to appear before the Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal to argue pay and conditions cases on behalf of members of the Australian Defence Force. As a silk, Justice North argued a number of high profile industrial law cases such as the 1989 airline pilots' dispute. He also appeared in the High Court in the watershed disability discrimination case of Waters v The Public Transport Commission.

In 1995 his Honour was appointed a Justice of the Federal Court of Australia. In 1998 his Honour was the Judge at first instance in Patricks, a case concerning the most publicized industrial dispute in recent Australian history. His Honour was also the judge at first instance on 11 September 2001 in the Tampa case involving a claim for habeas corpus on behalf of about 400 asylum seekers held on board the Tampa near Christmas Island.  His Honour also has a special concern for refugee law, and is President of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges.

His Honour has a particular interest in Native Title cases. He conducted the trial in the Karajarri Peoples case, and was the dissenting judge in the Full Court appeal in the Miriuwung Gajerrong Peoples case. He is the provisional docket judge for Victorian native title cases and, in that capacity, has management of all native title applications in Victoria. He is presently managing the mediation process in the Thalanji Peoples case in Western Australia, and the Gunditjmara Peoples case in Victoria, and has conducted on country hearings in both these cases recently. He is a member of the Federal Court Native Title Coordinating Committee. His Honour has spoken widely on native title issues including 2002 Sir Anthony Mason Oration at the University of Melbourne, and has been a regular contributor to the Native Title Law and Practice postgraduate course at Melbourne University. 

Dan O’Dea
Spear Creek: A Positive Alternative

In May 2004, more than 400 people, including 100 senior Aboriginal people, made agreements during six days of meetings that have since led to the amendment of their claims and the resolution of claim boundary overlaps.

The 100 senior Aboriginal people came from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara lands, and the communities of Oak Valley, Yalata and Tjuntjuntjara.  They provided counsel and advice on traditional law to nine native title applicant groups from central west and south-west South Australia.

The mediation meetings at Spear Creek, South Australia, were part of a strategy initiated by the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement (ALRM) and supported by the National Native Title Tribunal to resolve the overlap of nine native title claims. Tribunal members presided over about 30 mediation meetings during the six days, which resulted in ten separate in-principle agreements.  Senior Aboriginal people played a vital role, either directly or indirectly, in the discussions that led to these agreements. 

To date, the finalisation of these in-principle agreements has led to the withdrawal of two native title claims.  As a result, the Gawler Ranges native title claim is no longer affected by overlaps and late last year the Gawler Ranges claim group began actively negotiating indigenous land use agreements (ILUAs) with the South Australian Government and other parties.  Other outcomes that have followed on from the in-principle agreements include: an application to register an extension to the area of a mineral exploration ILUA involving the Antakirinja claim group; and the recent commencement of ILUA negotiations involving the Far West Coast claim group, the State Government and other parties.

Dan O'Dea is a full-time member of the National Native Title Tribunal and is based in Perth in the WA Registry.

Prior to his appointment to the Tribunal in December 2002, Mr O'Dea was the Principal Legal Officer of the native title unit in the Ngaanyatjarra Council since 1996, where he represented Indigenous people of the Central Desert in native title applications and negotiations.

From 1991 until 1996, Mr O'Dea was a Senior Associate in Perth, first with Bennett and Co and then with Corser and Corser. During this time he practised as a commercial litigator in areas including trade practices, real property, mining and native title.

Michael O’Donnell
Tjurabalan – What to do after the recognition of Native Title? Comprehensive agreements and the COAG trials

This presentation by Michael O’Donnell will focus on the Munjurla Report produced by the Lingiari Foundation – a Scoping Study recommending a negotiation process for a Comprehensive Agreement.

The Report amongst other things seeks to build upon the recognition of native title for exclusive possession achieved over some 21,000.00 sq kilometres in the south east of the Kimberley Region of Western Australia.

It will also focus on the current Council of Australian Governments (COAG) “whole of Government” Trials being conducted in Indigenous Communities in Australia. The Tjurabalan area is part of the COAG trial site for Western Australia.

Michael O’Donnell is a Barrister, Legal and Policy Consultant and Mediator at John Toohey Chambers in Darwin, Australia. He has a Bachelor of Laws from the University of NSW in 1979 and Bachelor of Arts. (UNSW) – majoring in History and Political Science.                      

He is a former Principal Legal Officer with the Kimberley Land Council and was the Land Council’s chief adviser in the negotiation of the Native Title Act in 1993 and amendments to the Act in 1998 on behalf of the National Indigenous Working Group.

He is also a practising mediator, facilitator and experienced negotiator having completed the LEADR mediation training course in 1999 and has undertaken Advanced Mediation Training. He specialises in all aspects of native title and Indigenous rights and has been Counsel in various native title claims including two major settlements recognising native title in Western Australia - the Spinifex and Tjurabalan native title claims.

Recently he has been an adviser on Governance, Framework Agreements and Land Title for the Western Australian COAG Trial in Indigenous Communities for the Lingiari Foundation and facilitated workshops and meetings for the Commonwealth and State Governments in the same Trial. He has also for many years provided legal and policy advice to Aboriginal Land Councils concerning legislation on biodiversity conservation, National Parks, Heritage Protection and Mining Law.

He is also a part time Lecturer in Resource Management Legal Issues at the Faculty of Indigenous Research and Education, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT Australia and a Member of the Community Living Areas Tribunal in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Gloria Phillips
Our Land: Gumbaynggirr Elders
(with Rose Boston, Betty Cameron, Vickie Cameron, Daphanie Flanders, Larry Kelly and Emily Walker)

Anthony Redmond
The Difficulties and Benefits Presented by Native Title for Re-Negotiating Relationships Both within an Indigenous Community and with the Pastoralists with whom they Co-exist
(with Nyalgodi ‘Scotty’ Martin)

Anthony Redmond has worked in the northern Kimberley both in academic and applied contexts since 1994. This work included his extensive role in researching and preparing the Wanjina/Wunggur/Wilinggin Native Title claim, Australia’s largest and amongst the most complex cases to date. This claim was successfully pursued through the courts, with a determination judgment delivered in December 2003 which far exceeded any negotiation offers from the State. Dr. Redmond’s work has also included studies of relationships between pastoralists and Indigenous people living on cattle stations along the Gibb River Rd., the creative dynamics of traditional song composition, relationships with the state induced through the  welfare economy, exchange relationships, and body imagery in Ngarinyin cosmology and social life.

Senator Aden Ridgeway
Addressing the Economic Exclusion of Indigenous Australians through Native Title

We currently stand at a critical political juncture in Indigenous Affairs. There is much discussion of the economic advancement of Indigenous people within the broader debates of indigenous disadvantage; the new post-ATSIC administrative arrangements; the current state of the native title system; and the debate about communal land title. This paper discusses the importance of Indigenous people taking the lead to keep these debates informed and relevant and to broaden the level of engagement between governments, financial institutions, private investors and Indigenous communities.

Senator Aden Ridgeway, from the Gumbaynggirr people of Northern NSW, is the only Indigenous member of the Federal Parliament and the Australian Democrats Senator for NSW.

Aden has extensive experience in policy and administration, a long time involvement in national Indigenous politics, a passionate commitment to human rights and an ongoing interest in philanthropic and arts organisations.

While advocating for Indigenous Australians is a priority for Aden Ridgeway, he has represented a broad group of Australians during his time in the Senate. His current portfolio areas are: Arts & Sport; Consumer Affairs; Forestry; Indigenous Affairs; Industry, Small Business & Tourism and Trade & Overseas Development.

He was honoured in last year's national NAIDOC awards as Indigenous Person of the Year in recognition of his work for Indigenous people at a Federal level.

Aden Ridgeway has achieved significant respect from both black and white Australians in a relatively short period of time and he continues to work towards a prosperous and inclusive future for all of us.

David Ritter
Native Title Agreement Making in the Age of the Howard Government

The strategic environment continues to evolve presenting new challenges to native title claimants and their advisers.  This paper considers the consequences of recent trends in Commonwealth government policy for native title agreement making.

Panel Discussion: Communal Ownership of Land and Individual Wealth Creation

David Ritter is the Principal Legal Officer of the Yamatji Marlpa Land and Sea Council native title representative body, a position he has held since July 1999. David's duties include responsibility for

approximately 40 staff, including all of the lawyers and anthropologists employed by the organization. He is also a part-time lecturer at the Law School and a doctoral candidate in a combined history/law PhD at the University of WA.

Kevin Smith
Indigenous Talking Circle: The Roles and Responsibilities of Applicants

This talking circle will include a presentation on the roles and responsibilities of applicants followed by a discussion of how applicants among the group manage their role.

Kevin Smith has been manager of the National Native Title Tribunal's Queensland Registry for the past three years. He has more than 10 years experience in legal and managerial positions as a criminal lawyer and former chief executive officer of Queensland's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service.

Mr Smith is a descendant of the Meriam People from Ugar (Stephen) Island in the Torres Strait.

Nicholas Smith
Authoring from the Inside: The provision of Connection Reports from an NTRB Perspective

Much of the discussion surrounding the relationship between native title anthropologist and native title lawyers has focused on the ‘high-end’ (ie. in relation to the production of expert reports for submission to the Federal Court). Generally speaking this relationship has been represented as problematic. But what of the relationship in an NTRB where staff lawyers and staff anthropologists work side by side toward the production of ‘connection reports’ prepared for mediation?

This paper in part explores the link between the Federal Court requirements for the provision of expert evidence with the WA Guidelines for the Provision of Information in Support of Applications for a Determination of Native Title from the perspective of an anthropologist producing connection reports from ‘inside’ an NTRB.

Nicholas Smith is a Senior Anthropologist with the Pilbara Native Title Service: a position he has endured since 2002. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from La Trobe University and lectured (briefly) in that discipline at La Trode in 2000. Nick is responsible for the supervision of PNTS anthropologists and is a member of a team that coordinated the research strategy for some 19 native title claims in the Pilbara region; in this capacity he has authored a number of Connection Reports for Pilbara native title claims. Nick lives and works in Port Hedland, WA.

Robin Smythe
The Quest for ‘Land Rights’ in the Ngaanyatjarra Area
(with David Brooks, Ingrid Hebron, Bill Lawrie and Ian Ward)

Warwick Soden
ADR and the Federal Court

Mr Soden has been involved extensively in court administration throughout his professional career. From 1988 to March 1995 Mr Soden was the CEO and Principal Registrar of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, from which he took up the appointment as Registrar of the Federal Court of Australia.

As the Federal Court’s Registrar and Chief Executive, Mr Soden has responsibility for the effective and efficient operation of all aspects of the management and administration of the Court. The Federal Court is a self-administering authority reporting directly to the Parliament. Mr Soden is appointed by the Governor General on the nomination of the Chief Justice and exercises all the functions of a permanent departmental head in relation to the Court’s administration.

Mr Soden also takes a very active role in developing new and innovative practice and procedure by the Court and is a member of many of the Court’s Committees, including Practice and Procedure Committee, and the Rules Revision Committee. The Court has a Registry in each State and Territory capital city. Mr Soden works very closely with the Chief Justice of the Court concerning the management of and performance of the Court.

Mr Soden has a strong professional interest in the administration of justice and is closely involved with the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration (AIJA).  Mr Soden was an AIJA Council Member from 1991 to 2002. He has been instrumental in developing programs designed to improve the operation of Courts, particularly their delay reduction, case management, practice and procedure, and alternative dispute resolution procedures. Mr Soden was appointed by the Commonwealth Attorney-General to NADRAC (National Alternative Dispute Resolution Advisory Council) in 1998.

Mr Soden holds a Bachelor of Legal Studies (1983) from Macquarie University, Sydney and obtained the Legal Practice Certificate (1986) from the Australian National University, Canberra. Mr Soden was admitted to the New South Wales Bar in 1987.

Patrick Sullivan
New Arrangements, Old Problems: Social and Economic Development on Aboriginal Land

This paper questions how Aboriginal people may be able to benefit from their ownership of land in the Kimberley region and the role that whole of government policy may play in this. To date there have been five determinations of native title covering a significant part of the region. Much land is also in Aboriginal hands under leasehold (either pastoral lease or Aboriginal reserve). It should be possible to establish Native title rights in this land. The problem now for Kimberley Aboriginal people is how to use, manage, and benefit from their lands. Prescribed bodies corporate are not funded and existing organisations struggle to implement commercial or management activities on lands they control. The new arrangements in Indigenous administration aim to establish Regional Partnership Agreements as a way of monitoring the implementation of local Shared Responsibility Agreements. SRAs are for the provision of Commonwealth discretionary funding, not for basic services. The question this paper asks is: what does ‘discretionary’ mean in the context of funding Aboriginal development on Aboriginal land, and, following from this, whose responsibility is it – the State or the Commonwealth? The Aboriginal Community Development Programme of the mid-80s is used in this paper as an example of State/Commonwealth cooperation which may have contemporary relevance for whole of government policy. Yet, while this agreement established many settlements on traditional lands, little provision was made for ongoing meaningful activity, particularly of a commercial nature. The paper concludes by engaging with the Commonwealth’s policy of encouraging commercial activity for Aboriginal people, but questions whether there is sufficient opportunity in private enterprise and suggests more benefit could accrue by providing services to government.

Patrick Sullivan is a Visiting Research Fellow in Indigenous Regional Organisation and Governance at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. He is an anthropologist with long experience in policy development, particularly in relation to land issues, and has worked with many Aboriginal groups in the Kimberley region developing appropriate governance for control of Indigenous lands.

Peter Vaughan
The Australian Government's Revised Indigenous Affairs Arrangements and Native Title

Peter Vaughan is currently the Executive Coordinator, Land and Resources Group, OIPC. In addition to native title program and policy issues Mr Vaughan's responsibilities within OIPC include Resources, Land Rights, Reconciliation and Repatriation.

Mr Vaughan was previously the Executive Coordinator of the Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs (OATSIA) in DIMIA and Head of the Office of Indigenous Policy in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Emily Walker
Our Land: Gumbaynggirr Elders
(with Rose Boston, Betty Cameron, Vickie Cameron, Daphanie Flanders, Larry Kelly and Gloria Phillips)

Ian Ward
The Quest for ‘Land Rights’ in the Ngaanyatjarra Area
(with David Brooks, Ingrid Hebron, Bill Lawrie and Robin Smythe)

Neil Westbury
Northern Territory Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act 2003

In August 2002, a decision of the High Court resulted in legal uncertainty about the legal validity of the declarations of many National Parks in the Northern Territory.

Rather than seeing this as a threat to the Parks in question the Northern Territory Government acted quickly treating it as an opportunity to plan a world class system of National Parks that would generate employment opportunities for all the Territory’s citizens.

Importantly the Government and the Land Councils committed to negotiating an acceptable outcome for all Territorians instead of trying to resolve these legal uncertainties through the courts.

The NT Government introduced legislation to formalise an offer to Aboriginal Traditional Owners. The legislation, titled Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act set out a plan for land tenure changes and joint management of the affected Parks.

Traditional owners of 27 Parks formally accepted the government’s offer and the agreement is currently being implemented.

This paper will explore the offer contained in the legislation, the process adopted in progressing negotiations with the Traditional Owners through the relevant Aboriginal Land Councils, describe the agreed outcomes as reflected through the terms and conditions set out under the Indigenous Land Use Agreements, lease documentation and joint management arrangements.

Neil Westbury is currently the Executive Director of the Office of Indigenous Policy, in the Northern Territory Government Chief Minister’s Department, a position he has held since July 2002.

His previous experience in Indigenous affairs has included the positions of General Manager of Reconciliation Australia, Secretary to the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, Assistant Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Department, where he advised the Prime Minister and the Attorney General on native title issues, and State Director of the Australian Government’s Department of Aboriginal Affairs and State Manager of ATSIC, both in Western Australia.

In June 2002 he was awarded a Commonwealth Public Service Medal for outstanding public service in the provision of public policy advice in Indigenous Affairs.

Justice Murray Wilcox
Federal Court of Australia: Experts and Evidence in Native Title Proceedings

Justice Wilcox has served as a judge of the Federal Court of Australia, since 1984. His Honour also serves as a Judge of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory and the Supreme Court of Norfolk Island. His Honour is also Chief Justice of the Industrial Relations Court of Australia.

Justice Wilcox was the Acting Chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission 1984-85, and served as Commissioner between 1984-89 and 1976-79. His Honour was the Foundation President of the Environmental Law Association NSW (1981) and President of the Australian Conservation Foundation from 1979-84. From 1974-76 his Honour was a Member of the Australian Advisory Committee on the Environment.

Stephen Wright
The Legal Framework for Connection Reports

This paper will explore the relationship between a Connection report and the legal criteria set out in the Native Title Act and case law. Central to my argument is that native title is ultimately a legal concept; and lawyers have an important role not just in the conduct of native title claims before the Federal Court, but also in the negotiation of connection issues. This paper will explore the role of lawyers in this process and the relationship between the litigation and mediation processes.

Stephen Wright is a Senior Assistant State Solicitor with the State Solicitor’s Office in Western Australia. He has been with the Office since March 1996, predominantly working on native title matters. He has been involved as solicitor and counsel in the Miriuwung Gajerrong and Tjurabalan consent native title determinations; and in the Ngarluma Yindjibarndi native title claim proceedings and the native title claims over the South West of Western Australia, including as counsel for the State in the trial over the Perth Metro area.

Brian Wyatt
Agreements – The Key to Sharing Australia’s Wealth

It is now clear that native title alone will never deliver the social and economic progress that indigenous Australians urgently need. Defective legislation has caused the judiciary to raise the native title bar beyond the realms of common decency and natural justice; the high jumper has been further crippled by NTRBs being starved of enough funding for even their most basic obligations under the Native Title Act.

Pursuing land justice through the courts is a dead end street. Too much energy and money is required and for what? It’s time to take stock … to contemplate new directions.

We must move away from the rights-based argument of establishing connection to country, to a land justice debate where the goal is for Aboriginal people to share in the wealth that the nation derives from their traditional lands. For example, Australia’s resource sector is on the brink of its greatest boom, ever, but Aboriginal people are not in a position to participate, nor benefit from the wealth to be dug from their land.

Even in the Goldfields, where the GLSC has been very successful in striking hundreds of agreements between claimants and explorers and miners – pacts that promise everything from jobs and education to heritage surveys for protection of culture and sites – indigenous people might miss out. Why? … because the GLSC does not have the resources for policing the agreements and is distracted by the fruitless pursuit of native title.

We have been very cooperative in attending to the mining industry’s future act needs, which has left them well positioned to cash in on the boom. But native title aspirants have so far got little more than years of frustration in return.

If we were able to divert the millions of dollars spent on native title litigation to policing existing agreements and negotiating new ones, we’d start to see real social and economic development. This is the challenge that now confronts Aboriginal Australia: convincing governments to shift the resources from ‘win or lose’ court battles to ‘win-win’ agreements.

Brian Wyatt has wide experience in the administration of Aboriginal affairs, including work as a senior adviser to government ministers and executive positions with State Government and indigenous community organisations. His commitment to justice for Aboriginal people and leadership with native title was recognised in 2003 when he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to research land rights and economic development in South Africa, Canada and USA. A major speech on race relations in 2003 precipitated a Human Rights Commission inquiry into racism in the Goldfields, which contributed significantly to reconciliation in the region.

The mineral riches of the Goldfields translate to considerable political clout for developers, which has at times forced land justice into the background. Against this background and under Brian’s stewardship, the GLSC has pursued an innovative regional-agreements approach to protecting the rights and heritage of the region’s 4000 Aboriginal people. Successes include a State Heritage Agreement and associated pacts with miners and mineral explorers; an MOU with the Aboriginal Lands Trust for the hand-back of Aboriginal reserve lands; Pastoral Station Access Principles; and an MOU with the Department of Conservation and Land Management for joint management of national parks and reserves.