Aboriginals now own over 13 per cent of the Australian
land mass - 90 per cent of the remainder under
claim
Anna Marshall - 22 September 2003
Currently, 43 per cent of the Northern Territory land mass
and most of its coastline is in Aboriginal hands. The courts
have even determined that native title was found to extend
all across the Alice Springs town area. Most of
the rest of Australia is under claim from taxpayer funded
groups of Aboriginals and Caucasianals (Caucasian Aboriginals).
Ten per cent of Western Australian has been handed over in
the form of inalienable freehold title to the claimants.
The map (top right) shows Aboriginal territory in WA in black.
Hundreds of overlapping claims stake out all of the rest of
WA except an area of desert near the N.T. border.
Now WA's bleeding-heart premier, Geoff gallop is
proposing to hand over another 10 per cent of WA. He wants to give away 25 million hectares of
state forests, national parks and conservation areas to
Aboriginal claimant groups and then lease the land back for
the community.
Before Gallop's largesse, the Court Government spent $78
million defending WA from native title claims. In the
same period Australian taxpayers funded, via the Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Commission, the $62 million that
Aboriginal groups spent to lodge and contest title
claims.
Go to the National Native Tribunal site for detailed
maps of pending native title claims for each
state and territory.
Indigenous Land Corporation uses
taxpayers funds to buy land not given by the courts
In addition to the land given to Aboriginals by governments
and the courts, the Keating government set up
the Indigenous Land Corporation in 1995 to purchase
land for Aboriginals who didn't meet the criteria under the
Native Title Act.
The ILC has bought, with $128 million of taxpayers money,
1 per cent of the Australian land mass since 1996. But a
stocktake of land bought by the corporation reveals the
spending spree has a direct benefit for only 1014 people.
The report, commissioned by the ILC, came to the
disturbing conclusion that 80 per cent of the 146 properties
purchased were not used to full potential, 71 per cent had
no employees and more than a third had no indigenous
occupants (see panel at right for typical stories).
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