White J
In this matter White J made orders that four deceased applicants, Phillip Davies, Marlene McArthur, Val Power and Timothy Williams, be removed as applicants in the Kaurna people’s native title claim. The application for a determination of native title was commenced on 25 October 2000 and since then four of the named applicants had died.
The respondents to the native title claim were the State of South Australia, various fishing and water licence holders, local government entities, South Australian Native Title Services, Epic Energy, the Corporation of the Town of Walkerville and the Commonwealth of Australia.
White J held that the remaining applicants could apply to remove the deceased persons as parties to the application under s 62A of the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) (NTA) and rule 9.08 of the Federal Court Rules 2011 (Cth).
His Honour followed Mansfield J’s reasoning in Lennon v State of Australia [2010] FCA 743 where it was found that the authority to bring such an application was implicit in the original authorisation and fresh authorisation under s 251B or s 66B of the NTA was not required.
None of the parties suggested that it was inappropriate for the Court to exercise its discretion and White J ordered that the named applicants be removed.