AustLII Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback

Aboriginal Law Bulletin

Aboriginal Law Bulletin (ALB)
You are here:  AustLII >> Databases >> Aboriginal Law Bulletin >> 1995 >> [1995] AboriginalLawB 38

Database Search | Name Search | Recent Articles | Noteup | LawCite | Help

Adlide, Geoff --- "Lawyers Out Back" [1995] AboriginalLawB 38; (1995) 3(74) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 38


Lawyers Out Back

by Geoff Adlide

Ask any lawyer at-the Central Land Council in Alice Springs and. they'll tell you they've got one of the best jobs in the world. Yet when the CLC recently advertised nationally, for a senior lawyer there were few applications. The lack of response confirmed the CLC's difficulty recruiting lawyers. Geoff Adlide spent some time with the 'seven lawyers who make up the CLC Legal Section to find out how it ticks and what makes the jobs so good.

“Don't worry if your head spins at first;” was the professional advice offered to James when he arrived at Alice Springs airport and was told he was driving straight to a Land Council meeting. “It's a different world but when you get a handle on it you'll be able to use your skills.”

That night, after driving 300 kilometres and spending the afternoon observing the 100-or so Aboriginal people gathered for the meeting. James climbed a nearby hill and sitting under the wide central Australian night sky rellected on the past 24 hours: "Here I was, fresh from Collins Street and looking down on a spread of small campfires around which people were speaking half a dozen different languages. I really was on another planet".

Five years later, James says that the highlight of his work at the CLC is being involved in the transfer of vast pastoral stations to their traditional Aboriginal owners. He has overseen property purchases worth over $2.5million, including some premier Northern Territory properties. But the job is more than negotiating the purchase and doing the deal. There are the corporate structures to be set up for both communities and pastoral companies, commercial legal work as well as land claims to be run over the acquired properties.

"I've come to appreciate the diversity of work as a lawyer," he says. "After organising the purchase of Mistake Creek station in 1991, establishing a new cattle company and watching the landowners set about learning to be company directors, it was tremendous to see them get the best price at the recent regional cattle sales. And having the opportunity to be closely involved with traditional owners in the land claim was a real privilege."

"Privilege" and "opportunity" are words that came up repeatedly in interviews with the seven lawyers who make tip the Central Land Council Legal Section. And the superlatives abound. "Magnificent country"; "unique experience"; "challenging and rewarding work across a wide range of law". But most attractive is the privilege of getting to know particular groups of Aboriginal people and learning of their relationships to each other and to their land.

"Land claim work, in particular, provides an incredible opportunity to learn about people's intimate relationship with country," says Julian. "It's a unique situation where you're learning about their culture in a non-exploitative way. It's a reciprocal relationship: you have the privilege of being taught and shown things and places that very few people would ever even hear about and, hopefully, through your work you deliver something back."

The sense of job satisfaction is profound.

"Your work is more concerned with structural change. For me that's much more satisfying than when I was working as a criminal lawyer with Aboriginal people inside an unjust system. Here you're working towards getting people country back or setting tip corporations that assist people to develop communities," says Julian.

"It was very satisfying to see the granting of title to 17,000 square kilometres of land to its traditional owners," says Jack of the recent grant of a large part of the Simpson Desert.

"Six years earlier I helped people to purchase a pastoral lease adjoining the land. From there the land claim was launched," Jack explains. "Now I'm helping set up corporations for vibrant new communities that are springing up on the land. Without the land claim there was no opportunity for that; people were stuck in big communities a long way from their country."

Most of the legal work at the CLC is focused on the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth) which establishes the Land Councils and confers specific functions on them. It sets up the mechanism for pursuing land claims and provides the controls over access to Aboriginal land including the right to negotiate the terms under which any development can proceed and the power to refuse exploration and mining applications.

The area of Aboriginal land within the CLC region is larger than the total combined areas of Victoria and Tasmania. Today it is dotted with tourism enterprises, gas and oil pipelines, exploration leases, gold mines, cattle businesses, national parks, and hundreds of small communities, many with a range of licensed operations.

"The work covers a wide range of law from commercial law, statute law and statutory interpretation, writing advice and opinions, representing people not just in land claim hearings - which at a jurisdictional level are proceedings in the Federal Court - but in other forums from the liquor commission and Magistrates Court through the Supreme Court to the High Court," says Jack.

"In negotiating exploration and mining agreements, the Land Council is at the coal-face, at the forefront, of developing precedent. It's in complete contrast to my previous work in commercial property law where the precedents for deals were floating all around you.

As well as the Land Rights Act, the lawyers deal daily with a range of Commonwealth and Northern Territory laws which directly impact on the lives of Aboriginal people in the centre. It was the work of CLC lawyers which resulted in the first substantial use of the Commonwealth Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984. In 1992, the Federal Minister issued a twenty year declaration under that Act prohibiting work on a runt near Alice Springs which the NT Government proposed to build irrespective of the objections of the custodians of threatened sacred sites.

"Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory have a range of rights in legislation but these rights are meaningless unless they're aware of them and able to exercise them. So there's an educational role too," adds Jack.

"The work is fundamentally interesting," says David who has headed up the legal section for nine years.

"The CLC's legal work is in non-Aboriginal Australian law but the client's world is dominated by Aboriginal law. The instructions we receive have to end up in a document of non-Aboriginal law but those instructions are governed by Aboriginal customary considerations.

"So in getting those instructions, your clients tell you about their relationship to each other and to particular places. In some cases such instructions can't be simply explained verbally. People may use a ceremony or a song to demonstrate a point that can't be explained verbally."

The Land Rights Act recognises the communal nature of Aboriginal land interests and law and provides for instructions to be taken from traditional Aboriginal owners and other Aborigines with an interest in the land, as a group. That means lots of bush work with lawyers heading off in four-wheel-drives or small planes for meetings in communities.

"You go and see them." explains Jack "It's rarely an individual coming to an appointment in your office. Driving or flying around country that few have seen or will ever have the opportunity to see is in itself a big attraction of the work."

"In my last job I was sitting in an office or shuttling over public transport routes to various courts in suburban Sydney," says Julian. "Here, I'm driving to Nyirrpi with a car load of people and as we crest each hill a new song breaks out as they sing their country. I almost have to pinch myself to check it's real. Throwing swags out at night in a dry creek crossing or amid a stand of mulga, sometimes it doesn't feel like a job. It's more an incredible opportunity to meet people, learn about their lives and their country. At those times it's the bestjob in the world." '::The basic procedures for getting instructions from clients is also very different to mainstream legal work.

"People do not say: 'Out of the alternatives that you've given us, we think x'." says David. "Often people will ask you to leave the meeting while they resolve matters amongst themselves. They may call you back to clarify matters and ask questions which seem right off the track and then send you away before presenting their considered views.

"It's also very important to observe body language and non-verbal communication which is much more important in Aboriginal society than European."

The high level of gender segregation and traditional avoidance relationships which restrict contact and proximity between certain peoples mean that instructions often have to be taken in a series of separate meetings, and sometimes both male and female lawyers are needed.

"As a male lawyer, women may tell me that they do or don't want something but they won't necessarily explain why," says David. "It's the nature of Aboriginal society here that some things are exclusively women's business. To be able to effectively communicate and represent their interests requires a women lawyer and certain procedures which limit access to files and information to those who are allowed the access under Aboriginal law."

Currently, only one of the six lawyers at the CLC is a, woman but it is hoped that this imbalance will soon change.

"It's becoming more apparent that the CLC needs to aim for equal numbers of male and female lawyers," says David.

With almost twenty years of experience, the CLC is recognised as one of the leading Aboriginal organisations in the country. It is a key player in the national scene of Aboriginal politics and lawyers and other professional staff are often called upon to advise other organisations.

"There's a real sense of being in the thick of it," says Jack. "The day-to-day work is with Aboriginal people on the ground, but there's also the opportunity to be involved in the national political scene. For some the political side of things - accompanying the Chairman or Director to Canberra, and so on - is an attraction."

A day in the life of a CLC lawyer is never dull. All of the lawyers say that they were pleasantly surprised at the breadth of work and the wide range of law and legal skills demanded.

"I'd expected that the work would be completely land-focused but the variety of work is extraordinary." says Anne. "Apart from the land claim work there are exploration and mining applications to be dealt with which involve complex commercial negotiations, joint ventures and equity arrangements. The corporations work not only includes advising on financial matters but in new areas of community development, there are questions of local councils and local government which often open up political and constitutional questions."

As David explains a typical day: "It night start with a consultation with some old men about some ceremonial objects which a museum is wanting to quietly return to their custodians; then a meeting aboutjoint management arrangements at a national park; then I'm meeting with mining company representatives about a proposed exploration agreement or an existing tenement; and in the afternoon, Wim Wenders is coming in because he wants to use Aboriginal land for a film location and he's chasing permission to use some archival footage.

"That's what's scheduled. But I'll also be taking calls from clients in the bush and, some days, 20 people front up in your office, kids and all. They've driven hundreds of kilometres to come and see the lawyer. You can hardly tell them to make an appointment with the secretary!"

Just as the CLC legal work stretches across a broad range of law, so there is great diversity in the people and land within the CLC area. It extends over 775,000 square kilometres of land - more than half of the mainland Northern Territory - and today includes over 365,000 square kilometres of inalienable freehold Aboriginal land.

"You have to appreciate that we deal with a range of Aboriginal people, not a homogenous group,' says David. "There are at least six major language groups in the CLC area. And there are radical differences between people who've been brought up east of the highway in the pastoral regions and those at, for example, Docker River (a community on former reserve land near the WA border). On the cattle stations people hold their law strongly but have much more interaction with non-Aboriginal people and so better understand non-Aboriginal ways."

The CLC legal section works on a regional basis. For the lawyers this means a diversity of work as they deal with most of the legal issues which arise within their region and, importantly, the opportunity to establish close relationships with particular groups of people.

So with such interesting jobs on offer, why has the CLC had trouble recruiting new lawyers?

"I think people fear the isolation of living in Alice Springs, they think of it as simply a remote tourist destination," says Julian. "The benefits of the lifestyle here are well concealed. It's a beautiful and easy place to live. The stunning countryside is very accessible: five minutes walk from my front door and I'm in the classic timeless landscape of the centre.

"Partly because it's on the tourist route, and partly because it's the main service centre for a huge part of the country, Alice has more services and facilities than any similar sized town in the country. And it's only a two-and-a-half hour flight to the bright lights and big smoke of Sydney or Melbourne."

"I think there's a fear that by taking a job here you're stepping out of the mainstream," says James. "But it's not true. I still deal regularly with other legal firms and with governments and policy makers. And I've had opportunities here that I wouldn't have had in a city practice."

Certainly a period spent at the CLC has never harmed anyone's career. Former CLC lawyers have gone on to become Ministerial advisers. Supreme Court judges and to hold top legal jobs in large public corporations. Others are practising senior barristers who jump at the chance to return to the centre. All have experienced the other world that is Aboriginal central Australia and none will ever forget it.

The CLC anticipates vacancies in its legal section in coming months. Inquiries are welcome. Call David Avery on (089) 516230.


AustLII: Copyright Policy | Disclaimers | Privacy Policy | Feedback
URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AboriginalLawB/1995/38.html