The Native Title Act Research Paper 2022

RUNNING HEAD: Native Title Act 0
THE
NATIV
E
TITLE
ACT

Native Title Act 1
Table of Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................................2
Tracing Lineage.......................................................................................................................2
Native Title Act.........................................................................................................................3
Native Rights........................................................................................................................3
Claiming Native Title...........................................................................................................4
Subsequent Development......................................................................................................5
Conclusion................................................................................................................................6
Bibliography..............................................................................................................................7
Article/Book/Journal............................................................................................................7
Legislatures..........................................................................................................................7
Cases....................................................................................................................................7
Others....................................................................................................................................8
Appendix...................................................................................................................................9

Native Title Act 2
Introduction
The Native Title Act 1993 came to be introduced after Eddie Mabo submitted a claim
before the high court to recognize his right as an occupant of the land and to grant
his and his tribe a right to live and occupy the land, water as they have been the
original occupants of the land even before the British Colonisation. The Court
granted Mabo the sought relief and also recognized his right. Soon after the
Queensland government came up with the Native Title Act (also referred to as NTA)
and gave a specific term to the rights of aboriginals as native title rights.
This paper examines the rights before NTA came into being and what led to the
passing of NTA. It also studies the act and the rights given by the act to the
aboriginals and the topics covered by NTA to protect their native title rights. The
paper traces the development of the act through judicial litigation and whether the
judiciary has helped in strengthening their rights. The paper also discusses the
contribution of NTA in helping in recognizing the rights of the aboriginals in Australia
and whether the act is still beneficial to the people.
Tracing Lineage
The land rights of aboriginal people living in Northern territory came to be protected
by law passed by Federal Parliament of Australia in 1976 but it excluded indigenous
people, and there were other state and territories that were not covered. 1 Eddie
Mabo in a complaint to High Court of Queensland in 1982 challenged the Torres
Strait Islands Coastal Island Act as it was contradictory to the Commonwealth Racial
Discrimination Act as it did not recognize the law and system of ownership that
prevailed with the indigenous people even before British Settlement and that terra
nullius which implies ‘a land that belongs to no one’ cannot be applied to the land.
The case was eventually decided in June 1992 where the Court ruled out that the
law of terra nullius was inapplicable to the land and recognized that Meriam people
had traditional rights in Murray Islands.2 The High Court also invalidated the
Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act 1985 by holding that it was discriminatory
1 Central Law Council ‘The history of Native Title Act’ (accessed 16 April 2020)
<https://www.clc.org.au/articles/info/the-history-of-the-native-title/>.
2 Mabo v. Queensland (1992) HCA 23.