Aborigines win ownership of Perth
The West Australian Government will appeal against a Federal Court ruling that granted native title of Perth and its surrounds to the indigenous Noongar people.
Eighty Noongar people, represented by the South-West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council, lodged the native title claim in September 2003.
The claim is one of the nation’s largest, covering 193,956 square kilometres, from Hopetoun to north of Jurien Bay – an area three times the size of Tasmania.
The Federal Court judge Murray Wilcox said yesterday that the Noongar people were the traditional owners of the whole claim area, excluding offshore islands such as Rottnest, and their society had been maintained since European settlement in 1829.
More than 100 Noongar people and their supporters cheered as Justice Wilcox ruled they still had native title of more than 6000 square kilometres of the area covering Perth and its surrounds.
Within hours of the judgement, the Treasurer and Deputy Premier, Eric Ripper, told Parliament in Perth that “the State Government does not accept today’s ruling”, which it would appeal against.
Mr Ripper said there had been too much disruption to Noongar society for it to have survived in any meaningful way, and so its native title claim was invalid.
Graham Muldoon
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