In Australian Law, the continued ownership of land by local Australian Aborigines or Torres Strait Islanders is recognised by the grant of Native Title.

The colonisation of Australia was conducted under the false assumption that the land was unoccupied (Terra nullius) and could therefore be claimed for the Crown and distributed to colonists by the government. Only in 1992 was this assumption struck down by the High Court in the Mabo decision, which granted Murray Island in the Torres Strait to its native residents.

As the legal concept of Native Title was not created by legislation, but by Court activism, the Keating government enacted the Native Title Act in 1993 to clarify the legal position of landholders.

The law was subsequently modified by the High Court's Wik Decision in 1996 and by further legislation (the Native Title Amendment Act) in 1998 which intended to grant better security of tenure to the holders of pastoral leases on potentially Aboriginal land.

The concept of land rights is independent of native title. In a land rights claim Indigenous Australians can seek a grant of title to land from the Commonwealth, state or territory governments. That grant may recognise traditional interest in the land, and protect those interests by giving indigenous people legal ownership of that land.

External link

Australian National Native Title Tribunal (http://www.nntt.gov.au/)