Clarke, Jennie --- "Change of Hands, and Heart, over NT 'Soweto'" [1989] AboriginalLawB 37; (1989) 1(39) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 9

• Change Of Hands, And Heart, Over Nt "Soweto"

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Change of Hands, and Heart, over NT "Soweto"

by Jennie Clarke

An era of "savage"[1] treatment of Aborigines by pastoralists in the Northern Territory's Victoria River district may have ended with the opening last month of negotiations for excision of a sizeable Aboriginal living area from Australia's largest cattle station.

The Northern Land Council, on behalf of Bilinara traditional owners of country on the rich Victoria River Downs (VRD) lease south-west of Katherine, reopened excision talks with a new VRD lessee after a five-year stalemate on the issue.

Robert Holmes a Court's Heytesbury Holdings acquired the 12,500 sq km VRD in May this year from Sherwin Pastoral Company. SPC controlling shareholder Peter Sherwin, well known to Land Councils for his successful efforts at frustrating the preparation and hearing of land claims, had cut off negotiations for an excision to benefit Aborigines at Pigeon Hole outstation when SPC took over the lease in 1984.

In April 1989, Northern Land Council staff attempting to visit Bilinara clients at Pigeon Hole were served with an interim injunction preventing their access. The movement of both Bilinara residents (whose rights to reside and forage over the lease are preserved under the Territory's Crown Lands Act) and NLC staff was restricted when station staff locked gates on access roads to Pigeon Hole over the following month.

Last month's excision negotiations followed the hearing of a strong Bilinara claim under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976 to an area of stock route on their traditional land. VRD faces the loss of its Pigeon Hole outstation, which squats on the stock route (vacant Crown land not incorporated in the lease), as well as the handover of river frontage to traditional owners, if the land claim is successful.

However, the NLC has instructions to negotiate possible withdrawal of part of the land claim (to portions of stock route distant from Pigeon Hole), in exchange for an excision deal incorporating VRD land adjacent to Pigeon Hole. The one-mile-wide stock route, part of a network of disused droving routes which snake their way across the territory (often following watercourses), is considered inadequate for residential and economic use.

Aboriginal people rely on the whim of pastoralists when seeking to obtain secure title to traditional lands which the Crown has alienated under leases. Predictably, the pace of excision negotiations is intolerably slow, and the parcels of land handed over small. In communities like Pigeon Hole, where Aboriginal stockmen reportedly paid $60 a week for tin shacks in a squalid community camp, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the Aboriginal Development Commission have refused to spend money until Aborigines' title is secure.

However, Bilinara people were encouraged by interest in their claim and outstation conditions shown by Janet Holmes a Court and her son Peter, who attended the hearing by Aboriginal Land Commissioner Mr Justice Olney at a camp site near Pigeon Hole. Mrs Holmes a Court commented that the new owners would not allow the continued existence of a "Soweto" on the property.

The Holmes a Court attitude contrasts with that of Sherwin, whose refusal to allow the NLC access to another station in his cattle empire for preparation of the Wombaya land claim was upheld by the Full Federal Court in 1987[2], and who denied access to VRD to the Land Council and the Commissioner during the Kidman Springs-Jasper Gorge claim last year. In his report on the Kidman Springs claim, Mr Justice Olney said "I have no doubt that the attitude adopted by the owner of VRD has materially prejudiced the presentation of the claimants' case"[3].

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[1] Mr Justice Nader of the NT Supreme Court described the treatment of Pigeon Hole Aborigines by VRD under Sherwin thus:

"I find it extraodinary that people could behave so savagely in 1989 against fellow human beings" VRD v NLC, May 1989, unreported.

[2] Anthony Lagoon Station Pt v Ltd and Anor v Maurice and Ors [1986] FCA 460; (1987) 74 ALR 77

[3] Report of the Aboriginal Land Commissioner, Kidman Springs-Jasper Gorge Land Claim (unpublished), presented to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, March 31 1989, Para 5.14.