White J
This judgment concerns a dispute about the existence of a native title claim group which affected three proceedings in the Court.
an application for the determination of native title filed on 2 October 1998 on behalf of the Nyiyaparli People in respect of an area of approximately 40 square kms in the Pilbara district of Western Australia which includes the town of Newman (Action WAD 6280 of 1998);
an application filed on 25 January 2012 by Betty Peterson, Ernest William Coffin, Marjorie Drage, Ailsa Roy and Stephen Peterson on behalf of the 'Wunna Nyiyaparli People' (Action WAD 22 of 2012) for a determination of native title in respect of an area which coincides substantially with the area of the Roy Hill Pastoral Lease and is wholly within the area to which the Nyiyaparli People claim relates; and
an application on behalf of the Nyiyaparli People in respect of two separate areas which are contiguous with the south western boundary of the area which is the subject of the 1998 claim (Action WAD 196 of 2013).
Issues in dispute
The dispute had its origins in the exclusion of members of the Coffin family from the Nyiyaparli People claim group on the basis of an anthropological opinion concerning connection to country. This led to the filing of the Wunna Nyiyaparli Claim in 2012.
The Wunna Nyiyaparli Applicant claimed descent from Bill Coffin (born circa 1903) and asserted that he had obtained his “Nyiyaparli identity through his paternal grandmother ... ‘Maggie’”. This put Maggie’s status as a Nyiyaparli person at the heart of the Wunna Nyiyaparli Claim. The Wunna Nyiyaparli Applicant asserted in addition that Bill Coffin was generally identified within the Western Desert society as a Nyiyaparli man and that he had been accepted as Nyiyaparli by other Nyiyaparli.
White J ordered a separate question to be tried to determine whether the apical ancestor of the Wanna Nyiyaparli claim group was a Nyiyaparli person possessing rights and interests in area claimed at Roy Hill Station. The Wunna Nyiyaparli Applicant did not comply with any programming orders and was not permitted to lead evidence at the hearing and was confined to making submissions.
The Nyiyaparli Applicant relied on anthropological reports focused on the ancestry of Bill Coffin Senior and the question of whether Nyiyaparli laws and customs allow for people to become Nyiyaparli through pathways other than descent. The anthropological evidence led the Court to conclude that the Nyiyaparli people do not obtain interests in land in accordance with Western Desert society law and custom and the Coffin family’s apical ancestor was not a Nyiyaparli person by descent or incorporation.
The Court therefore answered the separate question in the negative and made orders dismissing the Wanna Nyiyaparli claimant application and removing three members of the Coffin family as respondents to the Nyiyaparli claim.