The Struggle for Land Rights

Thematically, #alwayswasalwayswillbe is tied to the land rights struggle on this continent but with all that has happened this year, it is tremendously important that we take the time to truly contemplate what this means. This land always was and always will be Aboriginal land despite the invaders colonising and controlling it. The necessity of the struggle for land rights is reaching (or arguably gone far beyond) boiling point as we look around and see so many decisions being made by the powers that be to the detriment of our country.

From the first arrival of Europeans on our shores, the fight for our land has been ongoing. Those of our ancestors that were violently pushed from traditional lands would have seen the immediate consequences of this with the destruction of vegetation to make way for settlements, the decimation of land animal and fish life from hunting without regard to conservation and the devastation of the loss of our people to violence, disease and desolation.

The struggle for land rights has always been tied to the struggle for survival, but the modern land rights movement dates back to 1963 when, on 13 March, the Australian government took more than 300 square kilometres of land from the Yolngu people in Arnhem Land so mining company Gominco could extract bauxite. As so often was the case, work started without talking to the Yolgnu people about their land.

The Yolgnu people from the settlement Yirrkala in north-east Arnhem Land presented the Australian Parliament with a bark petition, commonly known as the Yirrkala bark petitions, protesting to have their land and their rights returned.

In this same period, what is referred to as the Wave Hill Walk Off to protest working conditions and payment – soon became about much more. In August 1966 Vincent Lingiari, of the Gurindji people, led his people to strike but then argued that the land they were working on in perilous conditions was in fact the land of his people and, rightly so, he demanded the return of the land.

On 8 February 1973 Gough Whitlam announced the Woodward Commission Inquiry into the appropriate way to recognise Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory and appointed Justice Edward Woodward as Land Rights Commissioner.

In the Aboriginal Land Rights Commission Report 1974, Justice Woodward recommended legislation to restore traditional land to the Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory. Justice Woodward’s report recommended a number of measures including that there should be a land trust established to hold title to Aboriginal land to the benefit of Aboriginal people, a grant of inalienable freehold title to all Northern Territory (this was a NT review only but the principles can be extrapolated across the continent) reserves to Aboriginal people, traditional owners to control mining activities (except where there is national interest) and where mining did occur – royalties were required to be distributed to the community, the lands councils and throughout the Northern Territory.

The government response, instead of the recommendations made by Woodward, was Native Title as the Woodward report – while still containing plenty of caveats that allowed for governmental control, was a little too close to allowing Aboriginal people land rights.

The intent of the recommendations of Justice Woodward and the subsequent land rights bills was to have a national model for national land rights to provide uniformity and equity, however, opposition from State Governments and the mining industry defeated that objective.

The native title system is what the government points to in answer to our continued demands for land rights. However, Wirdi man and our first Indigenous Silk, Tony McAvoy, who has advocated for communities for years says that the native title system ‘embeds racism’ and flies in the face of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which demands land not be dispossessed with “free, prior and informed consent.”

The native title system allows objections to mining activities and those objections are always overruled. This means that if Aboriginal people object to mining operations on their country, they are precluded from negotiating things like royalties or compensation when the mine ultimately goes ahead. The entrenched racism is rife in the native title system and it is a mechanism for further disenfranchisement.

Although the government seeks for us to engage in the native title system, we know that it will not serve our people, so we continue to resist the destruction of our country and the ecosystems within in outside of this native system. There are current resistance efforts against Adani, Rio Tinto, Origin and a swathe of other corporations that seek to destroy our country for profit. We must join in the resistance efforts for these communities – we need to bolster their efforts and call upon our allies to join in this struggle as it is true – our struggle is your struggle too because this country is being destroyed by power for profit. If we cannot physically join them, then we need to reinforce their messaging by sharing their content, by contributing financially to the campaign or joining in their calls for action by writing to the corporations and government and applying pressure to their financiers and other suppliers to make clear that we cannot and will not allow continued destruction of our country.

Regardless of those who sit illegitimately in Canberra thinking that they have the right to make decisions about us without us, we know that if they were confident in their authority – they would not need to make racist and underhanded decisions to undermine our rights. They know that this country was taken illegally, they know that they are in breach of international declarations and regulations and they know that the laws they implement as weapons against us are racist. Every time the Racial Discrimination Act has been suspended in this country – it has been so in order to make a law that targets us.

This country is stolen, the land occupied illegally because there has been no conquest as we are still here, there has been no purchase because we have not been compensated for the theft of land and the government is aware of this illegitimacy which is why it enacts laws and policies that attempt to undermine our culture and connection as peoples and erode our rights.

This land always was and always will be. Join us in the fight to protect it.