Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday settled the nation’s longest-running land rights claim, handing Aborigines land title deeds wrapped in eucalyptus paperbark to a peninsula on Darwin harbor in the tropical north.
The Kenbi land claim, covering 676km2 of the Cox Peninsula west of Darwin, was first lodged by a group of Larrakia Aboriginal people 37 years ago in 1979.
“We formally recognize what Larrakia people have always known: That this is Aboriginal land,” Turnbull said in a televised speech at Mandorah on the Cox Peninsula.
“I acknowledge that the Larrakia cared for this country for tens of thousands of years and that your songs have been sung since time out of mind,” he said.
“This is a big day for us,” Kenbi traditional owner Jason Singh told the crowd of several hundred people. “At last we have waited and we get our land back. “Thank you all for coming and welcome to our country.”
Australia’s Aborigines were dispossessed when the continent was colonized by Britain in the 18th century, but native title laws now allow land claims if Aborigines can prove an unbroken association with the land.
“I am very happy after 37 years, we have got our land back,” Aboriginal landowner Jason Singh told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “I am very sad that our mums are not here today.”
Aboriginal native title now covers more than 2.4 million square kilometers of Australia, or 31 percent of the national landmass.
Australia’s roughly 700,000 indigenous citizens, who track near the bottom of its 23 million citizens in almost every economic and social indicator, see native title as recognition of their place as Australia’s first people.
The Northern Territory government fought against them and their rights to their country for four decades, but in April an agreement was finally reached, covering 55,000 hectares of the Kenbi land claim.
The Kenbi claim has been particularly fraught, with three challenges in the federal court and two in the high court. It was awarded to just six individuals, known as the Tommy Lyons group, and a separate group of Larrakia people have maintained their claims of ownership and unhappiness at the decision.
Long negotiations with government over the cost of cleaning up toxic waste and arms materials on the land also caused delays and tension. Many senior Larrakia died before its resolution.
Former Aboriginal land commissioner Justice Peter Gray formally identified the traditional owners of much of the claim in 2000. However, he said he did not expect it to take 16 more years to reach handover.
“I’m just very glad that it’s happened,” he told the Guardian Australia in Mandorah. “I’m very sad there are lot of people who have died along the way.
Yesterday’s event was the fourth land handback ceremony this month, totally more than 200,000 hectares. More than 40 percent of the Northern Territory, including 85 percent of its coastline, now officially belongs to its traditional owners.
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