The finalisation of Australia’s longest running land claim – the Kenbi land claim – is a great step forward for the economic development of the Larrakia people of the Northern Territory, according the Centre for Independent Studies.
“The decision to allow 13,000 hectares of the 52,000 hectares to be granted as freehold for economic development purposes will ensure the traditional owners are able to capitalise on the ownership of their land,” CIS Indigenous Research Program manager Sara Hudson says.
“In the 1970s when the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (NT) 1976 (‘the Act’) was established, utopian ideals of Aboriginal communities – where everyone coexists happily and shares their resources — meant that identifying individual landowners was not deemed necessary.
“Individual property rights were even seen as detrimental to the maintenance of traditional Aboriginal culture.
“There was the belief that Aboriginal people did not have a system of individual ‘ownership’ of land before European colonisation.”
As a result, when land was returned to Aboriginal people it was primarily under communal inalienable freehold title — which means it cannot be bought, acquired or forfeited., Ms Hudson says.
“This approach has meant that although almost 20% of Australia and almost 50% of the Northern Territory are Indigenous lands — Indigenous people have struggled to leverage their land for economic development purposes.
“Instead of thriving personal and communal finances, ‘dead capital’ litters the landscape.
“The decision by traditional owners in the Kenbi land claim to extinguish some of the rights of native title in favour of economic development signals growing recognition by Indigenous people that communal land ownership has made them ‘land rich but dirt poor’.
“Under the Kenbi land claim 20 percent of the land in the north-east will be granted to the Larrakia Development Corporation to manage. This includes a 3.03 hectare East Arm industrial lot, with a capital value of $6.06 million (ex GST) for development, which will granted as Territory freehold.
“Hopefully this innovative land tenure arrangement will become a model for other traditional owners currently battling with protracted land claims to follow,” Ms Hudson says.
Sara Hudson is a Research Fellow and Indigenous Research Program manager at the Centre for Independent Studies.