Land Rights

Our people are surrendering their homelands forever with Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUAs) without understanding they are whitewashing their own history, under the invaders' law. This surrendering trick takes effect before the deed of grant of land is issued to the shires of the whole area. In this way compensation is also avoided. This article provides a background to some of the illegal and fraudulent acts carried out preceding Native Title and how the Native Title Act 1993 was amended in 1998 to create 'bucket loads of extinguishment' of inherent rights.

Ghillar, Michael Anderson has recently been sent a letter from one of our people caught up in a Native Title claim and who is trying to understand if there are any benefits that result from the Native Title process. She asked me to interpret the letter (attached in article) from the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Native Title Unit and for me to give my opinion as to the truth of the Attorney-General's position ... From my understanding of history and the colonial law I can categorically say that the Attorney-General's position is wrong and is deliberately misleading the Native Title claimant.

Proposed changes to South Australia's Aboriginal Heritage Act will reduce powers of traditional owners, according to Indigenous groups.

South Australian Native Title Services chief executive officer Keith Thomas believed amended language in the act would give traditional owners less say over their heritage. "This is going to help people who want to access lands and destroy heritage, rather than improving the protection of Aboriginal heritage," he said.

With a new and exciting future ahead, Michael Anderson reminds us of where we have been in the past 40 years in respect of our struggle for land rights, sovereignty, restitution and compensation, and what has been said and acted upon by the governments.

He presents an overview of our struggle for sovereignty and outlines the importance of standing our ground. This article includes examples of the concerns the state and territories have in respect of our potential claims that will come their way.