The Attorney General Christian Porter today announced the commencement of negotiations aimed at resolving Native Title over Perth and the South West. The announcement follows the signing of a Heads of Agreement document by the State Government and the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council (SWALSC).
The agreement sets out a two-year time frame for negotiation of a settlement package intended to resolve all current and future Native Title claims in the region. It is expected that the Noongar people, the traditional owners of the land in question, will receive a settlement package that will be a full and final settlement of their Native Title claims. At present there is one major claim, the Single Noongar Claim covering the entire South West, and several smaller claims in particular areas.
“What is important is the Government has taken the first step towards resolving Native Title in the region,” the Attorney General said.
“This will have enormous benefits for the Noongar people and all Western Australians. The Noongar people will receive their due recognition as the Traditional Owners of this land, and development in the Perth Metropolitan area and the South West will proceed unimpeded by complex and lengthy Native Title processes.”
The Noongar people have waited two hundred years for the overturn of the principle of Terra Nullius, which denied their very existence, so they can be forgiven for not being in any hurry to rush the negotiations simply to facilitate development. No settlement can reverse the harm to succeeding generations which arose from the failure to recognise Aboriginal Sovereignty before colonisation. In this context, “lengthy” is a relative term which contrasts the inconvenience of months to the suffering of tens of generations.