Thread: Aborigines: "A national tragedy"

Reviewing Mabo: native title groups 'still struggle'
Michael Gordon and Dan Harrison
June 2, 2012


Mick Dodson
Photo: Glen McCurtayne

CONCERNS that many indigenous groups lack the tools to benefit when their claims for native title of their lands are recognised will be examined by a review to be announced next week.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin is expected to announce the review at a conference in Townsville marking the 20th anniversary of the High Court's Mabo decision which overturned the doctrine that the land belonged to no one before white settlement.

Indigenous leader Mick Dodson says the anniversary is the time ''to survey the inequities'' that are emerging out of agreement processes that flowed from the Mabo decision.

In the introduction to a book to be launched at the conference, Professor Dodson says many bodies responsible for managing native title were ''set up to fail because of the lack of dedicated resources''.

''We also need to confront the reality that many of the most fundamental questions about the nature of compensation remain unanswered,'' Professor Dodson writes in The Limits of Change: Mabo and Native Title 20 Years On.

Toni Bauman, an anthropologist and co-editor of the book, says that while some bodies have done very well out of agreements, there are ''a lot of corporations out there that are really, really struggling''.

''There are many smaller corporations that don't even have a fax machine, let alone a phone or a vehicle, '' she told The Saturday Age.

The public interest law partner with Arnold Bloch Leibler, Peter Seidel, has suggested tax changes so that indigenous organisations can claim tax concessions for being what they truly are, ''rather than having to be a round peg trying to fit into a square hole''.

The 12-month review of native title bodies will assess how these groups are realising the potential of the Mabo decision to be a platform for indigenous cultural, social and economic development.

The three-day conference will debate a host of other reform ideas, including one backed by former prime minister Paul Keating to reverse the onus of proof so that Aboriginal claimants are no longer required to establish a continuous association with their land. Instead, native title objectors would be required to prove that a continuous attachment no longer exists.

National Native Title Tribunal president Graeme Neate said he had witnessed a fundamental shift in attitudes from the misapprehension and fear based on ignorance in the immediate aftermath of the judgment, to the situation today where claims are usually resolved through agreement, without litigation.

''Sometimes the relationships that are formed between the parties are as important, if not more important, than the agreements that are reached,'' he said.

There have been 141 determinations since 1994 that native title exists, covering more than 16 per cent of the nation. More than 600 indigenous land use agreements and almost 300 future acts agreements - for proposed activities such as mining and exploration - have been made between traditional owners and other parties

smh.com.au

Originally Posted by blue

I liked them when I was there in WA - no Aborigine ever called me pom
And I liked how they move at a majestically slow pace
perhaps my opinions might change if i lived there ?

That was about 8 years ago , before the £ got found out ...
those were the days

A majestically slow pace ? That would be an understatement , i liked how they didnt call me a pom either which is nice coz im not a pom , one thing you will notice about the australian aborigine though is they are not noted for there business acumen nor are there women considered ravishing beauties ,
havent been down under for ages now Do they still like a drink on the odd occasion?