Author: Christine Choo, Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 11:58:48 +1200

Date Sent: Fri 4 April 1997

For your information. A letter I sent to The Australian today:

K.D. Thomas and Lindsay Cleland (Letters, 4 April) are absolutely right. I too do not want the tragedies of the past to be repeated. The recent National Farmers Federation advertising campaign (newspaper and TV) and the lobby against Native Title has horrified and deeply saddened me.

I have recently completed research on early contact history in the pastoral districts in the East Kimberley, the killing fields of pastoralists and police. No doubt the killing fields extended throughout the continent. Under the Land Acts, Aborigines retained the right to enter pastoral leases in order to engage in activities such as hunting, gathering and ceremonial activities. Pastoral leases remained leases and not freehold titles.

The proposals being considered by the Federal Government and put forward by the lobby for pastoralists, farmers and miners, as well as Tim Fisher and his party, are far more destructive than the shootinig and poisoning of Aborigines. The Federal Government proposes to use legislative structures to appropriate Aboriginal land for the very same groups who shot and poisoned Aborigines in the 'early days'. The Government intends to legislate in favour of pastoralists, farmers and miners and thus to make it virtually impossible for Aboriginal people to claim native title over land which is theirs by right.

The current position of the Federal Government (supported by various State Governments) appears to be extinguishment of native title at any cost, in spite of the rhetoric stating that the principle of non-extinguishment will apply. The injustice of this act will not be ignored by the international community. If we Australians remain complacent we tacitly support this grave injustice.

Reply: Post Wik Native Title Legislation

Author: Frank Sharman,Legal Studies, Flinders University
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 1997 15:58:55 +1200

Date Sent: Sat 5 April 1997

As an Englishman living in Australia for the duration of a three year contract I am interested in the "native title" issue and am somewhat struck by Christine Choo's comment:

"The proposals being considered by the Federal Government and put forward by the lobby for pastoralists, farmers and miners, as well as Tim Fisher and his party, are far more destructive than the shootinig and poisoning of Aborigines."

Could this thought be expanded upon a little? Does it intend to refer to shooting and poisoning which are fatal? If so, does that mean that being killed is not as bad as being kept off one's land? If not, what does it mean?

Reply: Post Wik Native Title Legislation

Author: Jim Duffield <staffy@omen.net.au>
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 10:08:14 +1200

Date Sent: Mon 7 April 1997

In reply to Frank Sharman's request for further information:

As an ex-Jerseyman resident in Oz since 1962 and a graduate in Aboriginal studies, does:

http://www.omen.net.au/~staffy/land-sac.html

by Dr Dermot Smythe, in part, answer the question? This is of course, notwithstanding the personal knowledge of people who have lived in the NW who have boasted about the "slitting open of the guts of a steer" within which to place a "dead nigger, so as to 'ide 'im from the cops...ya see they both decompose together an' no one can find em then..." in the 1950s!

Perhaps not, but a spiritual death is death as complete as any...

Reply: Post Wik Native Title Legislation

Author: Peter Ryle <Peter.Ryle@jcu.edu.au>
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 10:08:23 +1200

Date Sent: Mon 7 April 1997

I agree with Christine Choo's letter. The stand of the National Farmers' Federation is patently hypocritical. Their claim that they cannot share title is a negation of the reality of their present leases. They have only grass leases and have shared with mining leases since the beginning. The government can also grant timber leases over grazing leases at any time without reference to the graziers. If they can't share leases with Native Title will they also ask the government to legislate to nullify mining leases on grazing land? I think not. If I remember correctly these same NFF and UGA members were claiming recently that they should be able to share the National Parks by grazing their stock. Remember the stink when the graziers were refused renewal of their runs in the Snowy Mountains National Park? They didn't say then they couldn't share tenure.

Author: Christine Choo <cachoo@cygnus.uwa.edu.au>
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 10:08:17 +1200

Date Sent: Mon 7 April 1997

In reply to Frank Sharman's request for further information:

During the period when Europeans entered Aboriginal territory to appropriate the land for pastoral purposes (I shall focus on pastoral activities here), large numbers of Aboriginal people who owned and occupied these territories were killed because they hindered and interfered with the pastorlaists' activities, for example by killing cattle, refusing to work for the pastoralists. Others were killed simply for being in the way. Others were taken or enticed to the properties to provide cheap labour for the Europeans' enterprises. There are many examples of Aborigines who co-operated with the Europeans. Documentation also exists indicating that those who did not co-operate often paid with their lives.

Pastoral leases gave indigenous people the right of access to their land. While they worked on pastoral properties they continued to have direct access to their land. Although a number of Aboriginal people were killed in the process, others maintained their link and access to the land because co-existence on pastoral leases was acknowledged.

If Aboriginal people are denied access to their land, and if co-existence on pastoral leases is denied or removed, it is as good as being killed, and therefore being physically removed forever.

Aboriginal people's spiritual connection with their land or 'country' remains.

Author: Frank A.Sharman Flinders University, Adelaide
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 10:24:54 +1200

Date Sent: Monday 14 April 1997

I am sorry that I have not been able to acknowledge sooner the helpful replies from Christine Choo and others. I think I now get the impression that what is being said is that if Aborigines have their rights in land subject to pastoral leases removed, then that will be as effective in removing them from the land as was their murder.

I am still not quite sure if the Aborigine attachment to land is relevantly different from that of Europeans: both groups have, in the past, had members who have died for it. I also have difficulty in interpreting the sale of land once it is handed back to Aborigines.

In any event, am I right in thinking that the propriety of returning land to Aborigines does not depend on any particularity of their attachment to land but on the argument that it was taken from them improperly?

And perhaps I could be assisted with this other problem. I gather that Kangaroo Island, SA, had nobody living on it when the British arrived and that no one had lived there for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years. Does that mean that Kangaroo Island actually was terra nullius and the British claim to it was proper and is unaffected by the Mabo decision? Are there other areas of Australia which the indigenous people did not occupy? But Kangaroo Island, though unoccupied was, I believe, the end of a dreaming track and those who lived on the neighbouring mainland must have attributed some significance to it. Would that defeat a claim of terra nullius?

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