Noongar People - Native Title

Native Title

On 19 September 2006 the Federal Court of Australia brought down a judgment which recognised native title in an area over the city of Perth and its surrounds, known as Bennell v State of Western Australia FCA 1243. An appeal was subsequently lodged and was heard in April 2007. The remainder of the larger “Single Noongar Claim” area, covering 193,956 km² of the south-west of Western Australia, remains outstanding, and will hinge on the outcome of this appeal process. In the interim, the Noongar people continue to be involved in Native Title negotiations with the Government of Western Australia, and are represented by the South-West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council.

Justice Wilcox's judgment is noteworthy for several reasons. It highlights Perth's wealth of post-European settlement writings which provide an insight into Aboriginal life, including laws and customs, around the time of settlement in 1829 and also into the beginning of the last century. These documents enabled Justice Wilcox to find that laws and customs governing land throughout the whole Single Noongar Claim (taking in Perth, and many other towns in the greater South West) were those of a single community. The claimants shared a language and had extensive interaction with others in the claim area.

Importantly, Justice Wilcox found the Noongar community constituted a united society which had continued to exist despite the disruption resulting from mixed marriage and people being forced off their land and dispersed to other areas as a result of white settlement and later Government policies.

In April 2008 the Full Bench of the Federal Court upheld parts of the appeal by the Western Australian and Commonwealth governments against Justice Wilcox's judgment.

Other Native Title Claims on Noongar Lands include

• Gnaala Karla Booja: the headwaters of the Murray and Harvey Rivers to the Indian Ocean
• The Harris Family: The coasts of the area from Busselton to Augusta
• The South West Boojarah: Lower course of the Blackwood and adjacent coastal areas
• Southern Noongar Wagyl Kaip: The South Coast to the Blackwood Tributaries
• The Ballardong Lands: The interior Wheatbelt.