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The Land Rights Act

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The Woodward Commission

Strategy Aims of Land Rights Aboriginal Consent
Types of Land Claims

The Australian Labor Party pledged to support Aboriginal land rights as part of its successful 1972 election platform.

Launching his party's election campaign, Labor leader Gough Whitlam said:

We will legislate to give Aboriginal Land Rights - because all of us as Australians are diminished while the Aborigines are denied their rightful place in this nation.

Gough Whitlam

Strategy

Rather than pursue a national land rights law which may have been challenged by the States, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam hoped to establish a precedent in the Commonwealth-controlled Northern Territory.

In February 1973 he appointed Justice Woodward to hold a Commission of Inquiry into appropriate ways to recognise Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory.

In April 1974 Woodward presented his second and final report.

Aims of Land Rights

Justice Woodward reported that the aims of land rights were:

	The doing of simple justice to a people who have been deprived of their land without their consent and without compensation.
	The promotion of social harmony and stability within the wider Australian community by removing, as far as possible, the legitimate causes of complaint of an important minority group within that community.
	The provision of land holdings as a first essential for people who are economically depressed and who have at present no real opportunity of achieving a normal Australian standard of living.
	The preservation, where possible, of the spiritual link with his own land which gives each Aboriginal his sense of identity and which lies at the heart of his spiritual beliefs.
	The maintenance and, perhaps, improvement of Australia's standing among the nations of the world by demonstrably fair treatment of an ethnic minority.

Justice Woodward recommended that these aims could be best achieved by:

	Preserving and strengthening all Aboriginal interests in land and rights over land which exist today, particularly all those having spiritual importance.
	Ensuring that none of these interests or rights are further whittled away without consent, except in those cases where the national interest positively demands it - and then only on terms of just compensation.
	The provision of some basic compensation in the form of land for those Aborigines who have been irrevocably deprived of the rights and interests which they would otherwise have inherited from their ancestors, and who have obtained no sufficient compensating benefits from white society.
	The further provision of land, to the limit which the wider community can afford, in those places where it will do most good, particularly in economic terms, to the largest number of Aborigines.

Justice Woodward said that in reaching his conclusions he had taken full account of the arguments put forward by vested interests who opposed the granting of land rights. Prominent in this group were those from the mining and resources industry. He said:

I believe that to deny Aborigines the right to prevent mining on their land is to deny the reality of their land rights.

Justice Woodward

Aboriginal Consent

Woodward insisted that mining and other development on Aboriginal land should proceed only with the consent of the Aboriginal landowners.

The right to withhold consent should only be over-ridden if the government of the day decided that the national interest required it. He said that such an issue:

would not be determined on a mere balance of convenience or desirability but only a matter of necessity.

Types of Land Claims

Woodward proposed procedures for claiming land and conditions of tenure.

Aboriginal land should be granted as inalienable freehold title - meaning it could not be acquired, sold, mortgaged or disposed of in any way - and title should be held communally.

He envisaged the transfer to Aboriginal ownership of the government reserve lands and the hearing by an Aboriginal Land Commissioner of claims to unalienated Crown land (government-owned land no-one else has an interest in) and Aboriginal-owned pastoral leases based on traditional affiliation. Smaller areas on pastoral leases and town areas could also be claimed on the basis of need.