Rangiah J
In this matter, the Court made orders by consent recognising the native title rights and interests of the Kunakiji (Snake) and Lukkurnu (Star), Kurtinja (Turkey) and Kunapa East estate groups over an area of 4900 square kilometres in the Northern Territory of Australia that is subject to the Rockhampton Downs Pastoral Lease (Perpetual Pastoral Lease No. 927).
This application was considered as part of seven applications heard together because of their geographic proximity to one another and were dealt with as a group at the request of the pastoralists and with the consent of the Applicant and the Northern Territory.
Rights and interests
The non-exclusive native title rights and interests recognised include the right to:
travel over, move about on and have access to those areas;
hunt and fish on the land and waters of those areas;
gather and use natural resources;
take and use natural water;
live and camp, including to erect shelters and other structures;
light fires for domestic purposes, but not for the clearance of vegetation;
conduct and to participate in cultural activities and practices, ceremonies, meetings and teaching;
maintain and protect sites and places of significance under traditional laws and customs;
share or exchange subsistence and other traditional resources obtained on or from those areas; and
conduct activities necessary to give effect to the rights referred to above.
The native title rights and interests were declared as being for the personal or communal needs of the native title holders which are of a domestic or subsistence nature and not for any commercial or business purpose.
The native title is not to be held on trust.
Prescribed Body Corporate
An Aboriginal corporation, yet to be named, is to be the prescribed body corporate for the purposes of s 57(2) NTA.
Rangiah J stated, at paragraph 12, that:
The determination of native title rights and interests are important to the Applicant and to the Aboriginal estate groups because they are a recognition by the Court on behalf of the Australian community that their ancestors inhabited this country prior to European settlement. The orders that the Court is about to make today are a recognition that they enjoyed such rights as the traditional owners of the land, and have done so since that time.