From: d10652@tanus.oz.au (Paul Parker)
Subject: Land Rights
Organization: Pro-Net Australia
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 92 21:20:18 GMT



  Extract from:   "  An Aboriginal nation?  The Mabo Case."
                    - B.A. Sanatamaria

   Quoted from:  News Weekly - 1 August 1992.  pages 24, 23.
                 582 Queensbury St,
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Quoted from here down >>>>

In Layman's terms (which is emphasised)  and in broadest outline,
the decision laid down the following principals concerning land
tenure:

1. The right of the Crown to sovereignty (the word is defined by the
Oxford English Dictionary as "supreme, dominant, authority or role")
over Australian territory was established by the fact of settlement
and is incapable of being set aside by Australian courts.


2. Once the Crown had established its sovereignty by virtue of
settlement it had the right to make laws with regard to land tenure.
It could validly resume land and make a grant of freehold, leasehold
or other title which might terminate or interfere with existing
rights, where these existed. Hence grants of land under various
titles which have been made to settlers have been validly made, even
if the act involved obliterating pre-existing claims.

3. Aboriginals might retain title to particular tracts of land, where
the Crown had not termintated such title, if "ascertained according
to the laws and customs of indigenous people who, by these laws and
customs, have a connection with the land ".

4. So long as the Crown had not acted to terminate existing titles,
this Aboriginal title still remained valid.

   (It is emphasised that this is non-legal language used to make the
main point of the Mabo decision more comprehensible to general
readers).


The High Court decided that the  Murray Islanders had a long historic
association with the land on which they resided and that as the Crown
had not acted to terminate their tenure, they were entitled to title.

The decision taken by a 6-1 majority, thus set aside the 1970
Blacburn judgement in the Gove Land Rights Case which, ating on the
legal doctrine of 'terra nullius', had denied the possibility of any
form of native land rights.

The decision will serve as a precedent for similar cases in the near
future, although the High Court is not necessarily bound by its own
precedents.

The distinction between political sovereignty,  and claims to land
held under the Crown, is thus rigidly maintained.

   >>>>>>>>> end Quote here.





That suggests where the Crown had not resumed - with the paperwork
to prove it, land through one means or another, then it still
belonged to the people who could prove traditional ownership, or
as we shall surely see tested: inheritance from that traditional
ownership.

It will be interesting to see how many people will want to join the
land claim over the huge are of vacant crown land around Sydney
Harbour.




   Regards,
            Paul


          Multiculturalism is cultural pschizophrenia,

                Celebrate it with all your selfs.

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  INET: d10652@tanus.cec.edu.au
From: dbooth@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (david booth)
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 17:18:56 GMT
Subject: Re: Re: Kids songs (was: Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree)
Organization: the HP Corporate notes server