Central Land Council

The Land is Always Alive

Mt Allan

When Frankie Japanangka received the title papers from Aboriginal Affairs Minister Gerry Hand on 19 October 1988 the nine-year saga of the Mt Allan land claim should have been over – it wasn't. Within a week the Northern Territory Government was in the Federal Court in Sydney asking for the title to be declared invalid. Aboriginal people bought the station in 1976 and lodged a land claim on behalf of the Anmatyerre and Warlpiri traditional landowners in 1979. The claim was heard by Mr Justice Kearney who found that traditional landowners had maintained strong traditional attachment to the land, performing regular ceremonies and rituals and instructing the young in traditional law.

In his 1985 report he also noted that the station was well run. The traditional landowners should have been given the paper title to their land that year but the handback was blocked by the Northern Territory Government which went to the Federal Court claiming that a disused stock route across the land claim was in fact a 'public road'. The Northern Territory Government's arguments were rejected there, so they took the matter to the High Court, which also knocked them back. By the time of the title handover in 1988 the Northern Territory Government had wasted tens of thousands of dollars and three years of the traditional landowners' time – but they remained as litigious as ever. This time they argued that a series of rough station tracks were public roads. The Federal Court turned down their arguments when it heard the case in 1989.

Then CLC Director Pat Dodson described the case as 'an extravagant waste of public money'.

I estimate that more than $5 million has been spent running to court to stop the return of land to Aboriginal people,' said Mr Dodson, 'And they haven't won yet! The latest Mt Allan case involved five barristers, including two QCs spending four days in a Sydney court. Legal fees alone would be $40,000. Then there's the cost of flying witnesses down from Mt Allan and Darwin and of course all the preparatory work. All that in attempt to have ten dirt tracks declared public roads and cut out of the land grant. This Mt Allan case is only the latest and compared with the litigation costs in the Kenbi and Warumungu land claims, it's chickenfeed. Ever since the Land Rights Act came into force the Northern Territory Government has shamelessly fought tooth and nail trying to deny Aboriginal people land rights. They've raced off to court thirty times and are yet to win a case. Obviously the Government's political motivation is clouding their assessment of the legal issues, but of greater concern is the extravagant waste of public money.

The CLC Director challenged the Northern Territory Government to reveal how much money had been wasted in failed court challenges, but it refused to do so.