IND/Native Title Settlements

Indigenous communities may now be involved in Native Title claims to reach settlements regarding their country. However, only a small proportion of Indigenous Australians are in a position to make a native title claim. The claims process can take years to reach a conclusion. As noted above the evidential requirements are very high, while the rights gained may be very limited even if the case is successful.

In February 1994, the Yorta Yorta people were one of the first Indigenous groups in mainland Australia to make a native title claim. This was to be a key case in terms of revealing the extent of the requirements to gain native title. Many Yorta Yorta people had been forcibly relocated from their ancestral lands during the 19th and 20th centuries. Against great odds, some had maintained physical connections with their country. Even so, the judge in this case argued in his decision that they had not maintained their ‘traditional’ laws and practices and were thus precluded from making a native title claim. The determination by Justice Olney in 1998 ruled that the ‘tide of history’ had ‘washed away’ any real acknowledgement of traditional laws and any real observance of traditional customs by the applicants.

In making his determination, Justice Olney relied on some very dubious sources of historical information and a narrow definition of what constitutes ‘traditional’ laws and customs. The final 2002 High Court decision in this case confirmed the strict requirements of continuity of traditional laws and customs for native title claims to succeed.

This was not quite the end of the story. In 2004 the Victorian government reached a cooperative agreement with the Yorta Yorta people that included recognition of public land, rivers and lakes throughout north-central Victoria.