By Chris Martin
On October 9, the Dunghutti people of northern NSW became the first Aboriginal nation to win land under native title legislation on mainland Australia. The announcement came just one day after the federal government declared its intention to effectively dismember the legislation.
Dunghutti elder Mary-Lou Buck and the NSW minister for lands, Kim Yeadon, signed the historic agreement at the Sydney office of the National Native Title Tribunal, where negotiations had been under way for the past two years. "How pleased and proud our ancestors would be on this day", Buck said.
The determination grants the Dunghutti 12.4 hectares of Crown land outside the coastal village of Crescent Head, with a second portion of land likely to be granted later. However, the land has already been sold for development as residential property. The estimated 5-8000 Dunghutti people will never have sole access.
Instead, the state government has approved a compensation package of $738,000, with further payment to be made in the later settlement. The Dunghutti said they intend to use the funds to revive their language and cultural heritage, while pursuing hunting and other traditional activities in neighbouring bushlands.
The only other official recognition of native title was the High Court's Mabo ruling which accepted indigenous ownership of the Torres Strait Island of Mer.
The law as it stands is already severely limited, demanding that Aborigines present a mountain of evidence proving continuity of ownership. This process, if not impossible, can take years.
The government's amendments would empower the minister for aboriginal affairs to halt any negotiation after only three months wherever it decides a claim may be hindering development.
Social justice commissioner, Mick Dodson, has called the amendments further evidence that the government is "deaf to indigenous concerns", while Kimberley Land Council director Peter Yu has labelled them insidious. Yu and other leaders have announced that they will challenge the amendments under the Racial Discrimination Act and disrupt the Olympic games with protests if the government doesn't back down.
As Bill Ferguson, one leader of the 1938 "Day of Mourning" protest, told that early gathering of Aboriginal activists, land rights are the only solution for indigenous people and the only path to a just reconciliation of black and white Australia. "We ask for the right to own land that our fathers and mothers owned from time immemorial", he said. Sixty years on, Aborigines are still fighting for that birthright.