Native title compensation: historic and policy perspectives for an effective and fair regime

Abstract

The concept of paying Aboriginal people compensation based on royalties was first introduced in the early 1950s. Critical ambiguities now exist in this area of policy with respect to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (ALRA) and, more recently, to the future acts regime of the Native Title Act 1993 (NTA).

This paper aims to:

provide essential historical background to contemporary issues of compensation; explain the mining moneys and compensation regimes in the ALRA, providing illustrative examples from a number of agreements for major resource developments in the Northern Territory; briefly evaluate whether ALRA precedents have been incorporated in the right to negotiate processes in the NTA, using as an illustrative example the Century Mine Agreement; and discuss some principles that need to be incorporated in any framework that will provide effective and fair compensation for native title and to highlight some practical implementation issues for those providing expert input into the assessment of such compensation. Show more