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Keon-Cohen, Bryan --- "Book Review - Aboriginal Land Rights: A Handbook" [1981] AboriginalLawB 37; (1981) 1(2) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 11


Book Review -

Aboriginal Land Rights: A Handbook

edited by Nicolas Peterson

Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra, 1981 ($12.65)

Reviewed by Bryan Keon-Cohen

Aboriginal land rights move on apace. Amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights (N.T.) Act 1976 (C'th.) are in train. The Aboriginal Development Commission has taken over the land purchasing functions of the former Land Fund Commission. The Pitjantjatjara in South Australia have received their certificate of title to 10 per cent of South Australia under that State's recently proclaimed Pitantjatjara Land Rights Act. Agitation continues in New South Wales for the implementation of the Report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Assembly upon Aborigines (the 'Keane Report') which recommended a radical new land rights regime. Senator Ryan has introduced a private member's Bill into the Senate designed to apply 'land rights' principles to Queensland reserves[1]. The Northern Territory Cobourg Peninsular Aboriginal Land and Sanctuary Act 1981 has been proclaimed. Negotiations continue concerning lands claimed in the A.C.T. (Wreck Bay) and Tasmania. The Senate Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee has a reference concerning the constitutional feasibility of the Makarrata proposal. Aborigines at Portland, Victoria, with a unanimous High Court behind them, are considering their next move in litigation against Alcoa.

With such activity (and more) on many fronts, there is a crying, need for a complrehensive, basic, up-to-date account of land rights legal issues in Australia. The need remains unmet. In the meantime, the book under review helps to fill the gap. The book comprises edited 'background-papers', presented to an Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies land rights conference held in Canberra in May 1980. Given the above developments, none of which (excepting the S.A. Act and the Makarrata) are mentioned at all, or in any depth, the book is not surprisingly, already dated.

In the preface, the book is described as 'a handbook in the sense of an informational guide rather than an instructional text.' This basic function the book performs well. In separate chapters, various papers describe the land rights state-of-play in every State and Territory. The various authors document the major legislation then in existence or mooted, with some useful historical analysis as well. Papers by Chris Anderson (Queensland) and Philip Felton (Victoria) are especially valuable in this regard. An introduction and (in my view not terribly helpful) bibliography by Peterson, and an account by Professor Rowley of the Land Fund Commission's activities and frustrations complete the book.

These papers contain a wealth of information in compact and accessible format, and draw together much practical and academic experience from throughout Australia. One hopes the remaining conference papers will also be published without further delay. These dealt with 'Traditional Rights in Land' (14 papers); 'Alternatives and Perspectives' (11 papers, including 6 from Canadian visitors); 'N.T. Legislation and the Future' (18 papers, the most interesting of which, in my view, was Sue Kesteven's paper: 'The Effects (sometimes disasterous) on Aboriginal Communities of Monies Paid Out under Ranger and Narbarlek Agreements'); and an oral 'Summing-Up'' by no lesser person than Woodward J., who according to my notes, passed some most interesting comments, inter aria upon the then High Court's attitude to land rights litigation. There me also numerous other papers on 'The States, Background and Current Issues' from which Peterson has selected items for this book, but which are not included.

On the negative side, some editorial decisions can be questioned. For example, Peterson apparently prefers his own essays on S.A. and N.S.W. to several available conference papers, although the printed essays appear to be merely edited and updated accounts of the conference papers themselves. In the preface, these two essays are described as 'originally prepared' for the conference. This leads to some confusion. For example, Peterson's S.A. essay, written we are told for a May 1980 conference, records the passage of the Pitjantjatjara Act in March 1981 (p. 121). Personally, I prefer the originals, being papers prepared for the conference by the S.A. Aboriginal Lands Trust, David Hope, Rev. Bill Edwards, and Phil Toyne (all dealing with S.A.); and Ossie Cruse (N.S.W.). Meanwhile, Dr Jeremy Beckett's interesting paper on the 'Torres Straits Islands' is reproduced verbatim - but with no attribution whatever!


[1] See Queensland Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders (Self-Management and Land Rights) Bill 1981 (C'th.), Hansard, Senate, 16 September 1981, 767-775.


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