Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976

The Aboriginal Land Rights ( Northern Territory ) Act 1976 was one of the then Governor-General of Australia, Robert John Kerr, on 16 December 1976, signed Law of the Australian Federal Government, which were awarded to Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory. It entered into force on Australia Day, 26 January 1977. Today, about half of the land area of ​​the Northern Territory is one of the Aborigines.

The starting point was the existing since the 60s country and the civil rights movement of the Aborigines. This led for the first time in 1961 on the granting of suffrage and 1966 Aboriginal Land Trust Act, which ownership rights to land to Aboriginal Land Trusts could be leased for 99 years. In February 1973, a commission was established under the leadership of Judge Woodward by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam by the Labor Party, the country should reconsider the question of law principle. His successor in the government, Malcolm Fraser of the liberal conservative Liberal Party, then drew the conclusion, to create the new law.

The Aboriginal Land Rights Act gave the still living traditionally, Aboriginal title to their traditional territories, former reserves and unused state land ( " Crown land"). This happened in the Aboriginal Land Trusts have been to the land owners. The trusts transferred land is jointly managed by an elected committee of Aborigines, the country Councils. Their duties include, for example, to negotiate with mining companies on the award of mining rights and to decide on the construction of roads. The Aboriginal Land Commissioners are or were judges of either the Supreme Court or a Federal Court that advise the government on land rights issues. The most important task of Commissioners was that claims of Aboriginal land to receive and to formulate recommendations to the federal government and the administration of the Northern Territory.

In the Northern Territory there are four land councils:

• The Central Land Council in the south.
• The Northern Land Council in the North.
• The Tiwi Land Council for the archipelago of the Tiwi Islands.
• Anindilyakawa the Land Council for the Groote Eylandt archipelago.

The land Rights Act in 1987, 1989 and 2006 modified in part. After the decision of Council to the search for mineral resources in a given area within a given period must be given, and when a consent is thus the following construction, such as a mine approved. In 1989, then controlled that state land that had been leased to farmers 1976 ( pastoral leases ) and thus was then excluded from the return, but can still be returned. The design is subject to the self-government of the Northern Territory. One significant change was in 2006 that land and houses in cities that previously were only allowed a Land Trust are now up to 99 years, individuals may be transmitted, and thus be tradable. The federal government hoped this more private economic activity.

Following a Supreme Court decision of the High Court of Australia in 2008, the Aboriginal Tiwi coastal land was awarded as the property including the land, the dry falls during the tidal range. This right means for the Northern Territory that affects about 85 % of the coastline it.