native title
Archaeologists and prehistorians have dated the presence of Aboriginal people in Australia back about 50,000 years. It has been estimated that between 300,000 and 750,000 Aboriginal people were living in Australian in 1788. Each group had spiritual and economic links with particular areas of land. These groups had well defined rules which regulated the relationships of people within each group and the ways in which neighbouring groups or strangers interacted. In 1971, Blackburn J decided that certain Aboriginal clans in the Gove Peninsula area of the Northern Territory had a legally recognisably system of law, a 'subtle and elaborate system highly adapted to the country in which the people led their lives, which provided a stable order of society and was remarkably free from the vagaries of personal whim or influence...a government of laws, and not of men'.British colonisation and sovereignty British claims of sovereignty were made over different parts of Australia between 1788 (or possibly 1770) and 1879. Formal possession, on behalf of the British Crown, of the whole of the eastern part of the continent and Tasmania was taken on 7 February 1788 when Captain Phillip's commission was read.
Before 1992 the courts generally accepted that the classification of the colony as 'settled' was a matter of law which was not to be questioned upon a reconsideration of the historical facts, although these facts have been found to be at variance with the legal doctrine that Australia was 'terra nullius'. Two High Court justices, however, had suggested that, in the absence of any decision which was binding on the Court, it could be argued that the lands were acquired by conquest. It was established fairly early in the colonial history of New South Wales that the laws introduced by the British colonists applied to Aboriginals as fully as to the non-Aboriginal colonists, although Aboriginals were not accorded full legal rights as citizens (such as the right to vote) until more recently. If native title to any parcel of the waste lands of the Crown is extinguished, whether by the Crown or by the relevant clan or group, the Crown becomes the absolute beneficial owner of the land.
Some common words found in the essay are:
Native Title, Northern Territory, Federal Parliament, Terra Incognito, British Crown, Recognition Aboriginal, Court Court, Law Non-recognition, Mabo QLD, South Wales, native title, common law, laws customs, aboriginal people, indigenous people, federal parliament, title land, native title land, 51 xxvi, aboriginal race, indigenous inhabitants, communal native title, section 51 xxvi, crown acquired sovereignty, enjoyment native title,
Approximate Word count = 2257
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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