Background
In December 1968, the Yolngu people living in Yirrkala, who were the traditional owners of the Gove Peninsula in Arnhem Land, obtained writs in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory against the Nabalco Corporation, which had secured a twelve-year bauxite mining lease from the Federal Government. Their goal was to establish in law their rightful claim to their homelands.
The Yolngu people claimed they enjoyed legal and sovereign rights over their land and sought declarations to occupy the land free from interference pursuant to their native title rights.
The Yolngu people had petitioned the Australian House of Representatives in August 1963 with a bark petition after the government sold part of the Arnhem Land reserve on 13 March of that year to a bauxite mining company. The government had not consulted the traditional owners at the time.
Yolngu applicants asserted before the Court that since time immemorial, they held a “communal native title” that had not been validly extinguished, or acquired under the Lands Acquisition Act 1955 (Cwth), and should be recognized as an enforceable proprietary right. The lengthy legal battle culminated in 1971.
Read more about this topic: Milirrpum V Nabalco Pty Ltd
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