| Governments, Indigenous people and other parties to native title claims must set clear goals and develop creative agreement packages, rather than focus on claimants meeting tough legal requirements to resolve native title.
Today at the AIATSIS Native Title Conference in Perth, National Native Title Tribunal President Graeme Neate advised stakeholders that this approach was required to address the 500 or so native title claims currently in the system.
With native title claims being lodged at an average rate of 30 a year, the Tribunal has predicted it could take 30 years to resolve current and future claims, unless parties changed their approach.
“To produce a fundamental shift in the way native title claims are resolved, parties need to be clear about their objectives,” he said. “Governments are pivotal to producing faster and better outcomes. They need to build on examples of creative packages already negotiated rather than concentrate exclusively on whether claimants have met the legal requirements to prove native title.”
Governments and other parties often required native title claimants to provide proof of their connection to country before they commenced negotiations. Obtaining this proof was very expensive and there was limited expertise available in Australia to produce the required reports.
Most ‘connection reports’ took two to three years to research and state governments could take up to three years to assess them.
Mr Neate said disputes about overlapping claims also stalled the progress of native title and therefore had to be resolved. “About 45 per cent of current claims have areas that overlap with neighbouring claims. These issues can cause long delays because governments and some other parties will not participate in negotiation unless overlaps are resolved.”
He said that with a legal framework now in place, the courts were no longer the best forums for resolving native title issues. The best results could be achieved through negotiation and new approaches to the challenges ahead.
“Effective responses to the challenges require innovation, leadership and commitment to achieving results across the native title system,” Mr Neate said. |