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Community Living Areas

The Forgotten People History In Practice

The Forgotten People

Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory unable to claim their traditional lands under the Land Rights Act because of the grant of pastoral leases can get title to small areas of land on the pastoral leases known as Community Living Areas.

Living areas normally do not exceed four square kilometres, averaging about one tenth of one per cent of a pastoral station's size.

However, there have only been a small number of very small areas handed over and thousands of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory remain refugees on their own land. These are the people land rights forgot - moved off their land, displaced by the pastoral industry and unable to claim traditional country back.

Fringe camps provide the only refuge for many originally displaced by the pastoral industry

Many live in conditions similar to those found in the most poverty-stricken parts of the planet. Government agencies are reluctant to provide basic infrastructure like houses and a water supply to those people who have remained on their land because they have no legal title to that land.

Over the years about 30 Community Living Areas have been processed. There are 14 CLA applications outstanding, but no CLAs have been granted by the Northern Territory Government in the Northern Land Council region since 1996. However, the Northern Land Council has reached an in-principle agreement with the Northern Territory Government to start issuing title on the applications withheld by the previous government.