Explain the impact of the land rights movement into Aboriginal spirituality:.
- The land rights movement in the 1970's.
- Mabo.
- Wik.
- Howard's 10 point plan.
- Reconsiliation.
What did these judgements mean to the spirituality of Aboriginals?.
The phrase land rights did not appear until 1970's, but there has been many protests and demands by aborigines about what societies had taken away from them, and the demand for this to be recognised and rectified (Mudge 1997 52).
When the overwhelming "yes" vote received in the Referendum, it allowed Aboriginal people to be counted in the Census and the commonwealth was given power to make laws for them (Mudge 1997 52). .
In the bicentenary of Captain Cook's landing at Kurnell, the site that was previously home to the old Aborigines Protection Board at La Perouse a ceremony of mourning that called for "Land Rights - Nationally - Now" was held. Prime Minister McMahon thought that land rights would threaten the security of Australians, and that Aboriginal people were to be granted special purpose leases is they could demonstrate satisfactory economic or social use for them.
Aboriginal Land Rights Acts have been passed: in the Northern Territory (1976), South Australia (1981) and New South Wales (1983). Although these acts point towards the adoption of a policy of self determination, they do not provide the Aboriginal people the opportunity of self government (Lovatt 1993 139). Land rights are about land but for all indigenous people, and especially Australian Aborigines, it is more than this. It is everything that goes with the land (Mudge 1997 53).
The High Court's decision in the Mabo case on 3 June 1992 rewrote the Australian common law and gave a massive boost to the struggle for the recognition of Aboriginal land rights. It handed down a decision that dismissed the European myth of "terra nullius," an empty land. "Terra nullius" means a land without the ordered structure of society that meant 'civilisation' (Mudge 1997 54).