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Underpinning the Government’s partnerships approach to Indigenous policy is the belief that economic development is the key to sustainable improvement in the quality of life of residents of Indigenous communities.1

Land granted is freehold title (estate in fee simple) which is held by an Aboriginal Lands Trust. As a result of recent amendments,1 this land is now capable of being alienated.

Appendix 2 summarises information from a 2006 HREOC survey of the seven Australian Government departments and two statutory authorities with responsibility to administer the 33 national Indigenous economic development programs. Information from the 33 programs is for the 2005 – 2006 period.

At the international level there are three broad categories of obligation to which a state may be subject: treaty law, customary international law and emerging international standards. Treaty obligations become binding on states once they have ratified a treaty. This means that the state allows itself to be bound by the conditions and obligations contained within the treaty. Customary…

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner acknowledges the work of Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission staff (Fabienne Balsamo, Katie Kiss, Hamish McLeod, Jemma Hollands, Dianne Biaggini, Anna Dawson, Christina Kenny, Julia Mansour, Kirsty Champion and Darren Dick).

Download the Native Title Report 2006.

This report is my second as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and marks a transition from a calendar year reporting period to a financial year to comply with s.46(1)(a) of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act (1986) (Cth). As the Native Title Report 2004 reported on the period January to December 2004, this report covers the period January to…

The Australian Government has signalled that economic development is a central focus for the Indigenous Affairs portfolio this term. The Ministerial Taskforce on Indigenous Affairs, created in May 2004 to drive and coordinate the federal Government’s Indigenous policies,1 identified as one of three key areas2 for priority action:

The ownership, particularly communal ownership of land by Indigenous people began in 1976 with the introduction of land rights legislation in the Northern Territory (the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth) (ALRA (NT)).

As my predecessor pointed out in the Native Title Report 2003, native title is a political process as well as a legal process. Indigenous people enter a relationship with the State on the basis of their identity as the traditional owner group of an area of land. In some cases native title has provided the first opportunity since colonisation for a relationship of this type to be formed.

This report has focused on proposals for the leasing or alienation of Indigenous land, with a specific focus on the Indigenous Land Tenure Principles released by the National Indigenous Council (NIC). The purpose of this Chapter is to discuss these Principles from a human rights perspective, with a particular focus on the right to development.

Alienate: 1. To dispose of, often used in relation to an interest in land. Alienation may be formal (such as by grant or conveyance), informal and involuntary (such as compulsory acquisition by the state). 2. To sell, lease or otherwise dispose of under the Crown lands Acts or any other Act relating to alienation of Crown land: (NSW) Crown Lands Act 199 s.172(1). See also Acquisition; Conveyance;…

Members of the National Indigenous Council (NIC) will meet with Land Councils/Native Title Representative Bodies (3 June 3005) to advance their discussions on the issues surrounding Indigenous land tenure.

Obligations to ensure effective participation exist in nearly all the main human rights treaties. These obligations have been synthesised into the principle of free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples.

This table includes summaries of every native title determination that occurred during this period, and notable or interesting agreements; it does not include every Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) registered or other native title agreements made over this period, due to the large volume. A snapshot of applications, determinations and ILUAs from this period is provided at the end of this…

During 2005, the Prime Minister, the Attorney-General, and the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, made statements to the effect that the Australian Government was interested in supporting Indigenous Australians to explore opportunities to lease or buy communal lands for private or personal use. The government's premise was that if Indigenous people were encouraged…

Lateral violence is a multilayered, complex problem and because of this our strategies also need to be pitched at different levels. In Chapter 3 I have looked at the big picture, with the human rights framework as our overarching response to lateral violence. In this Chapter I will be taking our strategies to an even more practical level, looking at how we can create environments of cultural…

It is a story of colonisation; the threat of losing our cultural authority to manage our societies; and the despair that has come from that disempowerment. It is a story of grief and trauma and the continued pain of living with grog, drug and violence.

[1] Extract from United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Report of the International Workshop on Methodologies regarding Free, Prior and Informed Consent and Indigenous Peoples (New York, 17–19 January 2005), UN Doc E/C.19/2005/3 (2005), paras 46–49. At http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/workshopFPIC.html (viewed 19 November 2010).

The policies and practices of separation and removal as described in the report were never universally approved as sometimes believed. They were in fact implemented in the face of clear and unequivocal warnings about the potentially disastrous and tragic consequences that may flow.