TREATIES AND LAND GOVERNANCE – WHOSE LAND IS IT ANYWAY?
RAELENE WEBB QC
Widespread conflict over access to land followed the failure to recognize the existence of Indigenous land owners when Australia was first settled. The fiction of “terra nullius” and the legal assumption that the “waste lands” of the Australian colonies were exclusively possessed by the Crown was not set aside until 1992 by the High Court.
The statutory scheme established in 1994 to recognize and protect native title encourages flexible agreement making about the use of land but the deeply ingrained view of some non-Indigenous Australians that Indigenous land rights are less meaningful than other forms of land tenure leads to poor land governance and is an underlying cause of conflict.
Australian First Nations are now calling for meaningful recognition through a “Makarrata” or treaty like process. This will allow land governance processes to be established which reconcile all land interests and reduce the potential for conflict.
Event: Land Governance in an Interconnected World_Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty_2018
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