The Confessions of an Erstwhile Land Rights Advocate

23 June 2006

Father Frank Brennan, SJ, AO

Late in his term on the High Court, Justice McHugh, one of the majority in the Mabo decision and one of the dissentients in Wik, expressed criticism of the "costly and time-consuming" native title system. He thought it was unable to fairly evaluate the competing legal rights of landholders and native-title holders.

In this lecture presented by the National Centre for Indigenous Studies and the Centre for International and Public Law, Father Frank Brennan argues that the issue now is not the legitimacy of land rights but determining the cut-off point for recognising native-title rights when other parties also have rights over the same land. He also argues the importance of matching the remaining native-title rights with the real, rather than imagined, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander aspirations.

Broad Topics: Law

Sub-topics: Indigenous Studies, Law, Justice & Law Enforcement

Areas: ANU College of Law

Fr Frank Brennan is a Jesuit priest, an adjunct fellow in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at ANU, professor of law in the Institute of Legal Studies at the Australian Catholic University, and professor of human rights and social justice at the University of Notre Dame Australia. He was the founding director of Uniya, the Australian Jesuit Social Justice Centre.

He has written a number of books on Aboriginal issues, civil liberties, and asylum seekers. He wrote the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council’s paper The Timor Sea’s Oil and Gas: What’s Fair?. In November 2006, he will publish his latest book Acting On Conscience: When Personal Beliefs and Public Life Collide looking at the place of religion in Australian politics and law.

Part of the 2006 Toyota-ANU Public Lecture Series