Unfinished business: Truth-telling about Aboriginal land rights and native title in the ACT

Abstract

Successive ACT Governments have said they are committed to a respectful relationship with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples living in the ACT and to working closely with them. The Parliamentary Agreement between ACT Labor and the ACT Greens commits the ACT Government to embarking on treaty discussions and rescinding certain restrictive clauses in the 2001 Namadgi National Park Agreement during the term of the 10th Legislative Assembly for the ACT. If an ACT Government is to progress treaty discussions with the local Aboriginal peoples of the ACT, it cannot ignore the unfinished business of Aboriginal land rights and native title in the ACT. It is a matter of public record that they were dispossessed of their land. Taken from them without their free, prior and informed consent, without a treaty and without compensation for their losses. Therefore, a gaping void needs to be addressed in the truth about the ACT’s past. The ACT can no longer ignore nor deny these issues of sovereignty, land rights, self-determination and the need for a settlement in the ACT.