News / Events

Hundreds of hectares of Crown land has been handed over to a New South Wales council and an Aboriginal land council in what's being described as the state's largest land transfer.

The NSW government has signed over 312 hectares of land to the Orange City Council while a further 86 hectares of land will be transferred to the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council.

The NSW Government will transfer management and ownership of the Menindee Lakes Caravan Park to the region’s traditional owners in a landmark agreement for the Far West.

The Department of Planning, Industry and Environment – Crown Lands will work with the Barkandji Registered Native Title Body Corporate to progressively transfer the caravan park over the next 12 months.

The Barkandji people were recognised as traditional owners of land in Far Western NSW when a native title determination was made by the Federal Court in 2015.

Former Geraldton deputy mayor Thomas Grahame Greenaway has been sentenced to prison for six-years after he “abused a position of trust” and stole almost $3million from a Native Title fund.

Greenaway was sentenced in Geraldton District Court on November 4. He will serve 6 years and 4 months for 33 counts of stealing and one count of fraud reported The Geraldton Guardian.

In August, the prosecution said that Greenaway had “abused a position of trust” by using the Yugunga-Nya People’s Trust as his “own personal ATM machine” between June 2013 and March 2017.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Les Turner, chief executive of the Central Land Council, has addressed Alice Springs News in a letter to the editor calling for the NT government to scrap the Singleton Station water license decision.

"The NT Government must scrap the Singleton Station water license decision following revelations by the ABC that the government may have bent the rules to give Fortune Agribusiness an unfair advantage over Aboriginal landowners and the public."

For Paul Kabai and Pabai Pabai, climate change is a daily reality creeping ever higher at their Torres Strait doorstep.

Rising sea waters on their islands have pushed them to take an extraordinary step: The pair has just launched legal action against the federal government, in a case never before seen in the Australian courts.

Robert Jampijinpa Robertson’s vision for a Yuendumu-owned and operated transport and vehicle recovery service is one step closer to reality. Xtra Mile, the social enterprise he started, began running chartered bus services in June.

A federal parliamentary inquiry is set to deliver its final report into Rio Tinto's destruction of the ancient Juukan Gorge rock shelters in Western Australia.

Rio blew up the 46,000-year-old caves on Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura country in May 2020, devastating the traditional owners.

The mining giant had legal permission to destroy the caves under WA's long-criticised Aboriginal Heritage Act but has since conceded it breached the PKKP's trust.

Held by the Western Australian department and the National Environmental Science Program, dozens of Indigenous ranger groups from across the Kimberley, Pilbara, and the Central Desert converged on the banks of the Fitzroy River last week to discuss how to better protect the tiny population of bilbies still living in the north-west.

Joombarn-buru Native Title claimants have had their unbreakable connection to Country recognised by the Federal Court, with their Native Title over a portion of land in the Kimberley being declared on Wednesday.

The recognition, delivered by Justice Neil McKerracher QC in a hearing in Perth, came after seven years of negotiations.

Those negotiations have not only been with the State of Western Australia but also with one another, as the Native Title Holder group is made up of multiple language groups.

Jabirr Jabirr–Ngumbarl, Yawuru, Nyikina, Nimanburr, Warrwa and Nyul Nyul Peoples worked together on the claim which covers land about 70 kilometres north-east of Broome and 55 kilometres west of Derby, within the Shire of Broome.