Land & Sea Rights : Community Living Areas : History

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Community Living Areas

The Forgotten People History In Practice

History

Background to Pastoral Leases Advent of Community Living Areas

Aboriginal women in early fringe camp
By the turn of the century, many Aboriginal people in the Top End had been forced off their traditional lands by pastoralists

Background to Pastoral Leases

Pastoral leases are a form of land tenure unique to Australia created by the British Colonial Office after concern by British officials over the massive land grab by squatters in the 1830's and 1840's.

The British authorities explicitly stated the leases did not grant squatters exclusive tenure, but that the land was owned on behalf of the Australian public by government.

In the 1890's about 93% of the Territory, and substantial areas of Australia, were subject to pastoral leases. Currently, 48% of the NT is held as pastoral leases. Aboriginal people were never consulted about the granting of these leases. Many of the leases were issued unchecked to land speculators and were never occupied or developed and came back under government control early this century.

The history of the pastoral industry, and the fate of the Aboriginal people who helped build it, is a sorry tale of dispossession, degradation and denial of rights.

With the advent of the pastoral industry in northern Australia in the latter part of the 19th Century the "battle for the waterholes" began. The resistance of Aboriginal people to the colonisation of their land is well documented.

The Europeans soon occupied the more fertile lands. They were there to stay; but so were the Aborigines. The Europeans needed Aboriginal knowledge of the country and they needed their labour. By working on the cattle stations Aboriginal people were able to stay on their land and continue observing their responsibilities to it.

Up until the early 1970s the Northern Territory cattle industry depended on Aboriginal labour for its success. In 1968 Aboriginal stock workers won the right to award wages and conditions equal to white workers. But it was a hollow victory.

The pastoral industry was already becoming capital-based rather than labour-intensive, making greater use of modern technology and methods including sub-divisional fencing, modern trapping yards, road transport replacing droving and the advent of helicopter mustering. The Aboriginal camps which had been pools of cheap labour were no longer needed and many people were forced off the stations.

Advent of Community Living Areas

	1975: The Land Rights Bill introduced by the Whitlam Labor Government in 1975 adopted a Woodward Commission recommendation whereby land could be granted within pastoral leases on a needs basis.
	Unfortunately, after pressure from pastoral lobby groups, backed by conservative Northern Territory politicians, the new Fraser government removed the provision. Land claims could only be made over vacant Crown land outside towns.
	The Fraser Government was given an assurance by the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly that it would pass legislation to meet the land needs of Aboriginal people unable to claim land under the Land Rights Act. It took a decade and a half before the legislation was passed.
	1989: Community living area legislation introduced.
	1991: The Northern Territory Government introduced an amendment to the Crown Lands Act which removed the right of many Aboriginal residents of communities located within 2km of a station homestead to apply for living areas. Only those people who have been permanent residents at homesteads since 1979 are able to apply for land within the "two kilometre limit".
	1992: By this time, direct negotiations between the Land Councils and individual pastoralists had resulted in a handful of excisions being delivered. However, the Northern Territory Government was forced to acknowledge the failure of its earlier administrative guidelines for handling excision requests and passed the Pastoral Land Act 1992.
	The Pastoral Land Act 1992 is seriously flawed, and allows pastoralists and the Northern Territory Government to frustrate Aboriginal efforts to gain title to living areas.
	The legislation does not properly recognise traditional rights in land and promotes a situation where applicants adopt a dependency role and requires them to demonstrate "need" for housing and current or prior residency on the lease.
	Nevertheless, the land council is assisting Aboriginal people in attempting to use the procedure in the hope of securing modest parcels of land.
	2002: Northern Territory Government re-examines CLA legislation with a view to making grants of land under an Indigenous Land Use Agreement, which would not extinguish native title.

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