The Government's present Native Title Bill proposes to extinguish
native title rights by including pastoral leases as Category A
past acts. This is an abandonment on the Commonwealth's special
responsibility to Aboriginal peoples in Commonwealth Territory.
The recognition of the coexistence of native title rights with
pastoral leases is longstanding. Instructions from the Secretary
of State for the Colonies, Earl Grey, to New South Wales Governor
Fitzroy, 11 February 1848:
I think it essential that it should be generally understood
that leases granted for this purpose give the grantees only
exclusive rights of pasturage for their cattle and of
cultivating such land as they may require within the large
limits thus assigned to them but that these leases are not
intended to deprive the natives of their former right to hunt
over these districts, or to wander over them in search of
subsistence in the manner to which they have been
accustomed, from the spontaneous produce of the soil, except
over land actually cultivated or fenced in for that purpose.
At this time, New South Wales extended over half of the continent
and included what is now the Northern Territory.
IT IS CLEAR THAT PASTORAL LEASES WERE NOT INTENDED TO EXCLUDE
FIRST PEOPLES FROM THEIR LIVING COUNTRIES.
As well as hunting and gathering rights, First Peoples had
traditional rights to a wide range of minerals for practical and
ceremonial purposes.
And of special importance, First Peoples need to have direct
access to their sacred sites which are under pastoral lease.
The present Native Title Bill places the rights of the pastoral
leaseholder on a much higher level than ever before - and does so
at the expense of the surviving First People. The principles of
statutory interprtation bind courts to the view that pastoral
leases do extinguish native title.
At a minimum, the Parliament should ensure that the Native Title
Bill does not legislate away peoples present right to convince a
judge that their traditional rights are not completely
extinguished by leasehold title.
A FAIR GO DEMANDS THAT PASTORAL LEASEHOLD, IN COMMONWEALTH
TERRITORY, SHOULD BE IN CATEGORY B.
Don't put introduced cattle above indigneous peoples.