'A mere impertinence…' : an early history of aboriginal land rights from a lawyer's perspective / Ross Howie.

North Melbourne, Vic. : Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2025.

1st edition

203071

Native title (Australia) -- Northern Territory.

Land tenure -- Australia -- History.

Aboriginal Australians -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Cases.

Aboriginal Australians -- Reservations.

Aboriginal Australians -- Land tenure -- Law and legislation.

1. Aboriginal legal aid

2. Pitjantjatjara land rights

3. The central land council

4. Early land claims: Borroloola, Warlpiri / Kartangarurru / Kurinji, Alyawarra / Kaititja

5. Uluru land claim

6. Dealing with the miners: the Mereenie oil field agreement

7. Land claims to cattle stations: Utopia Station

8. Land claim to Willowra Station

9. Warlmanpa land claim

10. The Gurindji get their land: Daguragu land claim

11. Kaytej, Warlpiri and Warlmanpa land claim

12. Ongoing challenges to the Land Rights Act and to the central land council to the end of 1981

13. Warumungu claim to land around Tennant Creek

14. Two more land claims in the Tennant Creek region: McLaren Creek pastoral lease and Muckaty pastoral lease

15. Land claims in Victoria river country: Timber Creek, Kidman Springs / Jasper Gorge, Pigeon Hole

16. Stokes Range land claim and Ngaliiwurru/Nungali (Fitzroy pastoral lease) land claim

17. Kenbi (Cox Peninsula) land claim: 38 years and 5 commissioners

18. Back to Central Australia and the Simpson Desert

19. Warnarrwarnarr-Barranyi (Borroloola no. 2) land claim

20. Mistake Creek land claim

21. Tempe Downs and Middleton Ponds / Luritja Land claim

22. Mataranka and Elsey Station, other cattle stations: Hodgson Downs, Innesvale, Alcoota, and Daly River inquiry

23. The Land Rights Act: twenty-three years, sixty-one reports

24. Native title

25. Native title cases

26. That’s it.

In November 1972 Gough Whitlam promised land rights to Aborigines in the Northern Territory. The legislation he introduced was substantially enacted by the Fraser Government in 1976. For 24 years between 1979 and 2002 Ross Howie SC acted for Aboriginal claimants in twenty two traditional land claims and seven early native title cases. In requiring proof of spiritual affiliation, responsibility and traditional attachment to land the cases revealed significant accounts of cultural understanding and practice and extraordinary personal histories. It was a mind-enlarging experience for a lawyer and an astonishing period of change in Australian legal history - Publisher's website.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

A mere impertinence : an early history of aboriginal land rights from a lawyer's perspective /

9781923267244

vii, 328 pages : maps, colour photographs ; 25 cm