Hands off native title!
@box text intro = Politics and law have come a long way since the High Court rejected terra nullius in the 1992 Mabo case. Given the distance travelled, it seems remarkable that the prime minister should threaten that native title will be extinguished on pastoral leases for the sake of "certainty and simplicity".
While it's still not certain that the Coalition will move to extinguish native title — miners and the Tourism Council have rejected that path for its lack of certainty and simplicity, and the potential damage to their commercial interests — Howard's threat aims to achieve two effects.
He hopes to scare Aboriginal negotiators into agreeing to changes in the Native Title Act to ensure that winning native title is as easy as pushing a camel through the eye of a needle. This, Howard hopes to convince the most rabid Nationals and the National Farmers Federation (NFF), would be "just as good" as extinguishing native title.
Howard increased the pressure last week by falsely claiming that, post-Wik, some 78% of Australia is vulnerable to native title claims. Previously he had claimed that 42% of Australia — all pastoral leaseholds — would be affected by the Wik decision. His latest remarks are reminiscent of the NFF ad aimed at inflaming racist bogeys about Aborigines taking over the nation.
Mabo was the second legal landmark for Aborigines in Australia's post-1788 history; the first was the 1967 referendum which gave citizenship rights to Aborigines. But governments have worked hard to limit the effect of the High Court's recognition of native title. As for citizenship rights, these will not be realised until governments address the enormous disadvantages facing Aborigines as a result of two centuries of murder, slavery and dispossession.
Beginning with the Keating Labor government's 1993 Native Title Act, which did not, as the Liberals are trying to make out, give land back to Aborigines, state and federal governments have found it relatively easy to restrict native title rights in favour of mining companies, pastoralists and tourism operators.
The non-Aboriginal stakeholders have managed — through their sheer persistence and the assistance of the NFF-controlled Australian Farmers Fighting Fund — to give the impression that they are the aggrieved parties in this dispute. Last week, National Party president Don McDonald went as far as to claim on ABC Radio National that "uncertainty" over native title was the cause of rural Australia's economic problems and, in particular, the exodus of farmers from the land!
The fears around native title have been put to an even more cynical and sinister use. The NFF and Nationals' leadership insist that "certainty" amounts to a guarantee of exclusive possession for pastoral leases both now and in any future tourism, mining or agricultural development. In so doing, they aim to extend pastoral leaseholders' rights far beyond those currently conferred. This "certainty" has nothing to do with native title, which the High Court in Wik ruled was subordinate to pastoral leases.
Aboriginal people are the aggrieved party in this dispute. They were forced off the land by European settlers. The direct consequence of this is their Third World status. Land rights, even in the truncated form of native title, should not be further restricted nor extinguished.