Central Land Council

The Land is Always Alive

Uluru Handback

The handback of Uluru in October 1985 was a symbolic highpoint for land rights. The area around Uluru and Kata Tjuta was alienated after the Aboriginal Land Rights Act was passed by the declaration of the Uluru and Kata Tjuta (Ayers Rock-Mt Olga) National Park in 1977. Justice Toohey ruled in April 1979 that this prevented any land claim over the Park because it transferred title for the land to the Director of the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service.

The Park could only become Aboriginal land if the Commonwealth amended the Land Rights Act, and representations from the CLC and traditional landowners to the then Prime Minister Malcom Fraser and Aboriginal Affairs Minister Fred Chaney began almost immediately. The traditional landowners wanted title to the land and majority Aboriginal representation on the Park's board of management. They agreed to lease the park area back to the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service (ANPWS) which would maintain day-to-day responsibility for running the Park. Uluru is a powerful symbol and the traditional landowners had strong support throughout the country from organisations like the National Aboriginal Congress, but they were also facing trenchant opposition from the Northern Territory Government.

The CLC and the Pitjantjatjara Council worked closely together organising numerous meetings to consult the traditional landowners and consider offers and counter offers from the Commonwealth Government and Northern Territory Government. Negotiations crystallised the different positions: the traditional landowners wanted inalienable freehold title under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, with a lease to ANPWS and an Aboriginal majority on the board; the Northern Territory Government wanted title transferred from the Commonwealth to the Northern Territory Government which would give some reduced form of title to the traditional owners with Aboriginal people involved in park management but not in control. The stalemate continued until the Hawke Government came to power in 1983 and in November of that year Bob Hawke announced that his government would amend the Aboriginal Land Rights Act to return the title for Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park to the traditional landowners. Hundreds of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people attended the handback on 26 October 1985 when Governor-General Sir Ninian Stephen handed over the title papers at a ceremony near the base of Uluru.

Five minutes later the traditional landowners signed an agreement leasing the Park back to the ANPWS. The Northern Territory Government was so angered by the handover that it withdrew from the management arrangements and the Park is now run jointly by the traditional landowners and the Australian Nature Conservation Agency (the renamed ANPWS).