Anderson, Alan --- "Update: Biloela (Cockatoo Island)" [1989] AboriginalLawB 23; (1989) 1(38) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 2

• Biloela (Cockatoo Island)

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Biloela (Cockatoo Island)

Biloela in Sydney harbour was once the home of the Eora people who inhabited the inner Sydney region for over 50 000 years. After the British invasion, the island was used as a penal island similar to Devil's Island and Alcatraz up until the 1850's.

In 1903 the Commonwealth Government took over the lease of the Island for a naval repair facility. Naval ships and submarines are repaired and refitted costing millions of dollars on the island. Currently 1600 workers are employed by Australian National Industries on the island. The area of the island is approx 12 ha. The workers at present feel that their futures are at stake at the Commonwealth Government's proposal for tenders to sell the island to public enterprise. This has provoked widespread criticism from the wider Australian community.

The MLALC's claim for Biloela can be justified on a number of grounds. The most fundamental ground is original sovereign title based on over 50 000 years of continual ownership and control of the lands of NSW and in particular Sydney Harbour and Biloela. The present generation of Kooris are the inheritors of the original title. The Koori nation of NSW have never surrendered our sovereignty and crimes of invasion can never be accepted on moral grounds as justification for invasion of sovereignty.

As the island is federal land, it is crown land and represents an opportunity for the federal government to grant a piece of land to the Koori people of NSW. Although the NSW Act allows Koori Land Councils to claim state crown land, it doesn't prohibit the Federal Government granting a claim for Biloela.

Alan Anderson