Land rights now. Exhibition : [poster]

Venue: Constitutional Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide

Issuing body: Constitutional Museum of South Australia

Land was and is central to Indigenous societies, cultures and religions. As more settlers arrived in Australia the Aboriginal people were pushed further away from their traditional land onto unwanted land, or reserves. Sometimes they resisted this, other times the move was peaceful. When land rights legislation finally began to be enacted in the 20th century, reserves were some of the areas handed back to Aboriginal people.

By the 1900s many Aboriginal people were employed as stockman and workers on local stations. Over time Aboriginal workers began to fight for pay and conditions. Often these demands included the right to access or manage the traditional lands on which the stations were built. In 1966 the Gurindji people at Wave Hill Station held a strike against poor conditions and pay. What was originally a wage issue became a claim for the return of some of their traditional lands. This strike lasted for many years and was one of the first to gain widespread support for Indigenous land rights. It was a significant turning point. In 1975 the land was handed back to the people by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, and native title legislation was enacted.

In 1967 there was a national referendum in which 91% of Australian electors voted for a change in the Constitution which would allow changes to be made: this was a momentous victory in the land rights campaign.

The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 is the best known example of such legislation. It transferred almost 50 per cent of land in the Northern Territory (around 600 000 square kilometres) to collective Indigenous ownership. Independent Indigenous land rights groups such as the Northern Territory's Northern and Central Land Councils and Western Australia's Kimberley Land Council were established. The act is not perfect, but it has provided land for some Aboriginal people, giving them security and allowing them to move back to their ancestral land.

Land rights legislation was also established in other states over the 1980s and 90s.

A successful land claim requires the Aboriginal landowners to prove their traditional relationship to the land under claim. This involves extensive research by anthropologists, and the claimants to provide evidence for the Aboriginal Land Commissioner who is must be a judge of the Federal Court or the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory. The Commissioner must be satisfied that the claimants are the rightful traditional owners according to Aboriginal law.

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