AustLII Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback

Indigenous Law Bulletin

Indigenous Law Bulletin
You are here:  AustLII >> Databases >> Indigenous Law Bulletin >> 1999 >> [1999] IndigLawB 5

Database Search | Name Search | Recent Articles | Noteup | LawCite | Help

Finlayson, Julie --- "Anthropologists and the Registration Test" [1999] IndigLawB 5; (1999) 4(17) Indigenous Law Bulletin 13


Anthropologists and the Registration Test

by Julie Finlayson

The amended Native Title Act 1993 now requires that all claims be lodged in the Federal Court of Australia before being referred to the National Native Title Tribunal for administration of the registration test. All 700 currently lodged claims will at some time point face the registration test.

It is only by passing the registration test that claimants will access procedural rights; in particular:

1) the right to be notified of impending future permissible acts;
2) the right to become a ‘native title party’ in relation to the proposed future permissible acts;
3) the right to negotiate over action involved in permissible future acts;
4) statutory access rights, and
5) the opportunity to oppose non-claimant applications.

Anthropologists will need to be involved in the preparation for registration tests through the provision of information which, in many cases, had not been researched at the time of lodgement. There are four central issues for anthropologists assisting claimants with the registration test:

1) Identification of the most appropriate and accurate way to describe the native title rights and interests claimed, and the best way of demonstrating their prima facie existence. Ideally, the nature of the native title rights needs to be explained as a system, not just a ‘bundle of rights’. However, one difficulty with this approach is that the registrar is required to list all rights and interests in terms or specific rights not simply to accept general statements about an inclusive system; [1]

2) The claimant group must be clearly described so that its membership can be accurately ascertained;

3) The group must endorse the Native Title applicant where a traditional decision-making process is not available; and where a traditional decision-making process is not available, and

4) A traditional physical connection to the claim area must be demonstrated.

Julie Finlayson is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy and Research at the Australian National University.


[1] See NTA s 190B(6) Note, which states that if a claim is accepted for registration the registrar must ‘enter on the Register of Native Title Claims detail of only those claimed native title rights and interests that can, prima facie be established’. In other words, it is the individual rights and interests which must be entered on the Register.


AustLII: Copyright Policy | Disclaimers | Privacy Policy | Feedback
URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/IndigLawB/1999/5.html