Aboriginal women, politics and land

In this chapter, the author gives a brief account of land rights, native title and site protection laws introduced and implemented since the 1960s, and consider how Aboriginal women’s interests have been accommodated, or overlooked, in these laws and procedures. This discussion gives the legal and administrative framework. Justice Blackburn found against the Aboriginal people of the Gove Peninsula having a proprietary interest in the land capable of recognition in common law. He argued that even if the Yolgnu had had any interests in the land they were extinguished when the Crown acquired radical title to that land. By 1979–80 in the claims to the Utopia and Willowra pastoral leases Aboriginal women’s knowledge and rights were recognised, both by their own researchers, legal representatives and land councils, and the land commissioner hearing the claims. The chapter investigates how Aboriginal women express and communicate their knowledge to gain a public voice and a recognition of their rights in land.