Central Land Council

Last updated

The Central Land Council (CLC) is a land council that represents the Aboriginal peoples of the southern half of the Northern Territory of Australia (NT), predominantly with regard to land issues. it is one of four land councils in the Northern Territory, and covers the Central Australia region. The head office is located in Alice Springs.

Contents

History

The council has its origins in the struggle of Australian Aboriginal people for rights to fair wages and land. This included the strike and walk off by the Gurindji people at Wave Hill cattle station in 1966.[ citation needed ]

The Commonwealth Government of Gough Whitlam set up the Aboriginal Land Rights Commission, a Royal Commission, in February 1973 to inquire into how land rights might be achieved in the Northern Territory. Justice Woodward's first report in July 1973 recommended that a Central Land Council and a Northern Land Council be established in order to present to him the views of Aboriginal people. In response to the report of the Royal Commission a Land Rights Bill was drafted, but the Whitlam government was dismissed before it was passed.[ citation needed ]

The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (ALRA) was eventually passed by the Fraser government on 16 December 1976, and began operation on Australia Day (26 January) 1977. This Act established the basis upon which Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory could, for the first time, claim rights to land based on traditional occupation. In effect it allowed title to be transferred of most of the Aboriginal reserve lands and the opportunity to claim other land not owned, leased or being used by someone else.[ citation needed ] The passing of the ALRA also gave statutory powers and responsibilities to land councils. [1]

Background and description

The Central Land Council is one of four Land Councils in the Northern Territory. The Northern Land Council, covering the Top End, is the largest, followed by CLC, with the Tiwi Land Council, covering Bathurst and Melville Islands north of Darwin, and Anindilyakwa Land Council, covering Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria, much smaller entities. Until 1998, the land councils operated as statutory authorities, and they continue to operate in accordance with the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976 (ALRA). They are also representative bodies with responsibilities under the Native Title Act 1993 . [1]

The Central Land Council region covers 771,747 square kilometres (297,973 sq mi) of remote, rugged and often inaccessible areas. There are 18,000 Aboriginal people from 15 different Aboriginal language groups in Central Australia. The region is divided into nine regions based on these language groups.[ citation needed ]

Aims and functions

Its aims include: [1]

Land Rights News

In April 1976, the CLC published the first edition of Central Australian Land Rights News, which ran until August 1984. In July 1976, the Northern Land Council (NLC) launched Land Rights News: A Newsletter for Aboriginals and Their Friends. A major goal of these newspapers was not only to provide information to Aboriginal people on land rights issues, but also to correct misinformation, provide in-depth coverage of native title issues, and to challenge the stereotypes represented in mainstream newspapers in Australia, and to encourage its readers to take action. [2]

In September 1985 the two land councils pooled their resources to start producing Land Rights News: One Mob, One Voice, One Land (LRN). [2]

In 1988, the newspaper won special citation in the UNAA Media Peace Awards. The judges' report said "Land Rights News serves the national Aboriginal community by keeping it informed of events and achievements and sustaining the community's spirit. It also represents a brave attempt to close the communications gap between Aboriginal and white communities. For that, it deserves special praise". At that time, the paper was under the editorship of NLC director John Ah Kit and CLC director Pat Dodson. [3] In the same year, it won a Print Newspaper Award from the Australian Human Rights Commission. [2]

In 2002, Aboriginal journalist Todd Condie left the Koori Mail after ten years, to work on Land Rights News. [2]

From 2011 [4] [5] and as of October 2022, Land Rights News is published three times a year in two editions: "Central Australia" [6] and "Northern Edition", [7] and remains the longest-running Aboriginal newspaper. It is also the only printed newspaper published in Central Australia. [6]

Office locations

As of 2022 the office locations of the CLC are in the following locations (approx. north to south): [8]

Communities and councils

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Territory</span> Territory of Australia

The Northern Territory is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Australia to the west, South Australia to the south, and Queensland to the east. To the north, the territory looks out to the Timor Sea, the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria, including Western New Guinea and other islands of the Indonesian archipelago.

Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians have rights and interests to their land that derive from their traditional laws and customs. The concept recognises that in certain cases there was and is a continued beneficial legal interest in land held by Indigenous peoples which survived the acquisition of radical title to the land by the Crown at the time of sovereignty. Native title can co-exist with non-Aboriginal proprietary rights and in some cases different Aboriginal groups can exercise their native title over the same land.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galarrwuy Yunupingu</span> Aboriginal Australian activist (1948–2023)

Galarrwuy Yunupingu, also known as James Galarrwuy Yunupingu and Dr Yunupingu, was an Indigenous Australian activist who was a leader in the Aboriginal Australian community. He was involved in Indigenous land rights throughout his career. He was a Yolngu man of the Gumatj clan, from Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. He was the 1978 Australian of the Year.

<i>Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976</i> Act of the Parliament of Australia

The Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976 (ALRA) is Australian federal government legislation that provides the basis upon which Aboriginal Australian people in the Northern Territory can claim rights to land based on traditional occupation. It was the first law by any Australian government that legally recognised the Aboriginal system of land ownership, and legislated the concept of inalienable freehold title, as such was a fundamental piece of social reform. Its long title is An Act providing for the granting of Traditional Aboriginal Land in the Northern Territory for the benefit of Aboriginals, and for other purposes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1967 Australian referendum (Aboriginals)</span> 1967 constitutional referendum on the legal status of Indigenous Australians

The second question of the 1967 Australian referendum of 27 May 1967, called by the Holt government, related to Indigenous Australians. Voters were asked whether to give the Federal Government the power to make special laws for Indigenous Australians in states, and whether in population counts for constitutional purposes to include all Indigenous Australians. The term "the Aboriginal Race" was used in the question.

The Wave Hill walk-off, also known as the Gurindji strike, was a walk-off and strike by 200 Gurindji stockmen, house servants and their families, starting on 23 August 1966 and lasting for seven years. It took place at Wave Hill, a cattle station in Kalkarindji, Northern Territory, Australia, and was led by Gurindji man Vincent Lingiari.

The Northern Land Council (NLC) is a land council representing the Aboriginal peoples of the Top End of the Northern Territory of Australia, with its head office in Darwin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vincent Lingiari</span> Aboriginal Australian rights activist who led the Wave Hill walk-off from 1967 to 1975

Vincent Lingiari was an Australian Aboriginal rights activist and member of the Gurindji people. In his early life he started as a stockman at Wave Hill Station, where the Aboriginal workers were given no more than rations, tobacco and clothing as their payment. After the owners of the station refused to improve pay and working conditions at the cattle station and hand back some of Gurindji land, Lingiari was elected and became the leader of the workers in August 1966. He led his people in the Wave Hill walk-off, also known as the Gurindji strike.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kalkarindji</span> Aboriginal settlement in the Victoria Daly Region, Northern Territory, Australia

Kalkarindji is a town and locality in the Northern Territory of Australia, located on the Buntine Highway about 554 kilometres (344 mi) south of the territory capital of Darwin and located about 460 kilometres (290 mi) south of the municipal seat in Katherine.

<i>Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd</i> First Australian Aboriginal land rights case, heard in the NT Supreme Court in 1971

Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd, also known as the Gove land rights case because its subject was land known as the Gove Peninsula in the Northern Territory, was the first litigation on native title in Australia, and the first significant legal case for Aboriginal land rights in Australia, decided on 27 April 1971.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcia Langton</span> Australian Aboriginal scholar and activist

Marcia Lynne Langton is an Australian academic. As of 2022 she is the Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Langton is known for her activism in the Indigenous rights arena.

The Gurindji are an Aboriginal Australian people of northern Australia, 460 kilometres (290 mi) southwest of Katherine in the Northern Territory's Victoria River region.

Indigenous Australian self-determination, also known as Aboriginal Australian self-determination, is the power relating to self-governance by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia. It is the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to determine their own political status and pursue their own economic, social and cultural interests. Self-determination asserts that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should direct and implement Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policy formulation and provision of services. Self-determination encompasses both Aboriginal land rights and self-governance, and may also be supported by a treaty between a government and an Indigenous group in Australia.

Land councils, also known as Aboriginal land councils, or land and sea councils, are Australian community organisations, generally organised by region, that are commonly formed to represent the Indigenous Australians who occupied their particular region before the arrival of European settlers. They have historically advocated for recognition of traditional land rights, and also for the rights of Indigenous people in other areas such as equal wages and adequate housing. Land councils are self-supporting, and not funded by state or federal taxes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fraser government</span> Australian Government led by Malcolm Fraser, 1975–1983

The Fraser government was the federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. It was made up of members of a Liberal-Country party coalition in the Australian Parliament from November 1975 to March 1983. Initially appointed as a caretaker government following the dismissal of the Whitlam government, Fraser won in a landslide at the resulting 1975 Australian federal election, and won substantial majorities at the subsequent 1977 and 1980 elections, before losing to the Bob Hawke-led Australian Labor Party in the 1983 election.

The Aboriginal Land Rights Commission, also known as the Woodward Royal Commission, was a Royal Commission that existed from 1973 to 1974 with the purpose to inquire into appropriate ways to recognise Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory of Australia. The Commission was chaired by Justice Edward Woodward, who was appointed to the role by Gough Whitlam. It was not long after the 1971 defeat of the Yolngu claimants in the Northern Territory Supreme Court, in Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd, in the first Aboriginal land rights case in Australia.

Aboriginal land councils in the Northern Territory are representative bodies known as land councils, covering four areas of Aboriginal self-governance in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Commonwealth, State, and Territory Parliaments of Australia have passed Aboriginal land rights legislation.

Indigenous land rights in Australia, also known as Aboriginal land rights in Australia, relate to the rights and interests in land of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia, and the term may also include the struggle for those rights. Connection to the land and waters is vital in Australian Aboriginal culture and to that of Torres Strait Islander people, and there has been a long battle to gain legal and moral recognition of ownership of the lands and waters occupied by the many peoples prior to colonisation of Australia starting in 1788, and the annexation of the Torres Strait Islands by the colony of Queensland in the 1870s.

Daguragu, previously also known as Wattie Creek by the Gurindji people as it is situated on a tributary of the Victoria River, is a locality in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located about 551 kilometres (342 mi) south of the territory capital of Darwin and located about 460 kilometres (290 mi) south-west of the municipal seat in Katherine. It is around 8 km (5.0 mi) north-west of Kalkarindji. Daguragu community is situated on Aboriginal land held under perpetual title; it was also formerly a local government area until its amalgamation into the Victoria Daly Shire on 1 July 2008.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Audit Report - Northern Territory Land Councils and the Aboriginals Benefit Account. Australian National Audit Office . Audit Report No.28. Australian Government. 7 February 2003. ISBN   0-642-80684-5. ISSN   1036-7632. Archived from the original on 17 July 2005. Retrieved 3 October 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Burrows, Elizabeth Anne (2010). Writing to be heard: the Indigenous print media's role in establishing and developing an Indigenous public sphere (PhD). Griffith University. pp. 161, 164, 184, 229, 239, 254, 285, 321. doi:10.25904/1912/3292 . Retrieved 1 October 2022. PDF
  3. ↑ "UN Media Peace Awards". Tribune . No. 2531. New South Wales. 7 September 1988. p. 12. Retrieved 3 October 2022– via National Library of Australia.
  4. ↑ "Land Rights News Central Australia" (catalogue entry), Trove , Central Land Council for the three Northern Territory Land Councils, ISSN   1325-0140
  5. ↑ Central Land Council (Australia); Northern Territory Land Councils (Australia), "Land Rights News" (catalogue entry), Trove , Central Land Council for the three Northern Territory Land Councils, ISSN   1325-0140
  6. 1 2 "Land Rights News". Central Land Council. 19 May 2021. Archived from the original on 3 October 2022. Retrieved 3 October 2022.
  7. ↑ "All documents". Northern Land Council. 1 August 2022. Archived from the original on 3 October 2022. Retrieved 3 October 2022.
  8. ↑ "Map". Central Land Council. 24 March 2022. Retrieved 3 October 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.