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de Plevitz, Loretta; Croft, Larry --- "Aboriginality Under the Microscope: The Biological Descent Test in Australian Law" [2003] QUTLawJJl 7; (2003) 3(1) Queensland University of Technology Law and Justice Journal 105

[*] LLB (Hons) BA PhD, Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.

[**] BSc PGrad Dip (Mol. Gen.), Research Scholar, Institute for Molecular Biosciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

[1] Liquor (Amendment) Act 1905 (NSW) s 8(4).

[2] The Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 (Qld) s 4.

[3] Aborigines Act Amendment Act 1936 (WA) s 2.

[4] By virtue for example of the Queensland Aboriginal Protection Acts which continued in force until 1984.

[5] Preamble and s 3 of both the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission Act 1989.

[6] Tasmania v Commonwealth (1984) 158 CLR 1, 273-4.

[7] Queensland v Wyvill [1989] FCA 485; (1989) 90 ALR 611, 615.

[8] Tasmania v Commonwealth (1984) 158 CLR 1.

[9] Section 51(xxvi) of the Australian Constitution provides that the Federal Parliament has power to make laws with respect to ‘The people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws’. The phrase ‘other than the aboriginal race in any State’ had been deleted as a result of the 1967 referendum.

[10] Tasmania v Commonwealth (1984) 158 CLR 1, 243.

[11] Ibid 244.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid 273-4.

[15] Shaw v Wolf (1999) 163 ALR 205, 217.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] L Ryan, The Aboriginal Tasmanians (2nd ed, 1996) extracts of which were tendered in evidence by the petitioners in Shaw v Wolf (1999) 163 ALR 205, 217 et seq.

[19] Evidence of the 8th respondent in Shaw v Wolf (1999) 163 ALR 205, 248.

[20] Evidence of the 3rd respondent in Shaw v Wolf (1999) 163 ALR 205, 232.

[21] Shaw v Wolf (1999) 163 ALR 205, 217.

[22] Ibid 210.

[23] Ibid; also Attorney General (Cth) v State of Queensland (1990) 94 ALR 515.

[24] (1992) 175 CLR 1, 16-20.

[25] According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics 1996 Census of Population and Housing Australia, <http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/d3310108.nsf/ASGC/415515B4E63DCBA64A25650600139F9C/> at 4 November 2002, 3% or 10,106 indigenous people identified as both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

[26] Shaw v Wolf (1999) 163 ALR 205, 246.

[27] S Bevilacqua, ‘Aboriginality under the microscope’, Sunday Tasmanian, 17 February 2002, 6-7.

[28] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission Act 1989 (Cth), ss 101,102.

[29] ABC Online, ‘DNA tests divide Aboriginal community’ Thursday 15 August 2002 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/australia/2002/08/item20020814143136_1.htm> at 4 November 2002.

[30] ABC Radio PM ‘Indigenous law resolved in Tasmania’, 18 October 2002.

[31] AAP Newsfeed ‘Tribunal backs oral history claim by Tassie Aborigines’, 18 October 2002.

[32] For example the 9th respondent in Shaw v Wolf (1999) 163 ALR 205, 250-1 did not appear and provided no evidence to rebut the petitioners’ claim that he was not Aboriginal.

[33] For example Article 9 Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 1994 <http://www.usask.ca/nativelaw/ddir.html> at 4 November 2002.

[34] Australia, Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody National Report (1991).

[35] Though 27% of Australia’s indigenous population.

[36] Australia, Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Individual Death Reports: Report of the Inquiry into the Death of Darren Steven Wouters (1991).

[37] Queensland v Wyvill [1989] FCA 485; (1989) 90 ALR 611.

[38] Ibid 620.

[39] Attorney General (Cth) v State of Queensland (1990) 94 ALR 515.

[40] Ibid 523 (Spender J), 536 (French J).

[41] Ibid 517-9 (Jenkinson J).

[42] Ibid 520 (Jenkinson J).

[43] As the majority of decisions which test Aboriginality fall within the civil law or as defences to criminal charges (eg Yanner v Eaton (1999) 201 CLR 351 where Murrandoo Yanner was charged with killing a protected animal) proof of descent is only required on the balance of probabilities.

[44] Attorney General (Cth) v State of Queensland (1990) 94 ALR 515, 518.

[45] Ibid 519.

[46] Ibid 523 (Spender J).

[47] Ibid 518 (Jenkinson J).

[48] Ibid 519 (Jenkinson J).

[49] Ibid 539.

[50] Gibbs v Capewell [1995] FCA 1048; (1995) 128 ALR 577.

[51] Ibid 579-580.

[52] Ibid 580.

[53] Ibid.

[54] Ibid.

[55] Ibid 584.

[56] Ibid 581.

[57] R and C Berndt, The World of the First Australians: Aboriginal Traditional Life: Past and Present (1992).

[58] On the debate of definition of Indigenous peoples see: E-I Daes, Standard Setting Activities: Evolution of Standards Concerning the Rights of Indigenous People E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.4/1996/2 10 June 1996

<http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/TestFrame/2b6e0fb1e9d7db0fc1256b3a003eb999?Opendocument> and

<http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/TestFrame/6e33127002ffb222c1256b3a00413db8?Opendocument> at 4 November 2002.

[59] J Martinez Cobo, Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Study of the Problem of Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations E/CN.4/Sub.2/1986/7/Add.4 United Nations Publication, Sales No. E.86.XIV.3, “The Cobo Report”, para 379.

[60] Article 9 Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 1994 <http://www.usask.ca/nativelaw/ddir.html> at 4 November 2002.

[61] R and C Berndt, The World of the First Australians: Aboriginal Traditional Life: Past and Present (1992), Chapters II and III.

[62] D Bell, Daughters of the dreaming (2nd ed, 1993).

[63] Ibid.

[64] Hayes v Northern Territory (1999) 97 FCR 32, 43-44.

[65] International Human Rights Instruments: Compilation of general comments and general recommendations adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies General Recommendation VIII on the interpretation and application of Article 1, paras 1 and 4 of Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination: (1990) HRI/GEN/1/Rev.5 26 April 2001, 180.

[66] Gibbs v Capewell [1995] FCA 1048; (1995) 128 ALR 577, 584.

[67] Shaw v Wolf (1999) 163 ALR 205, 268.

[68] Of the 352,970 indigenous Australians counted at the June 1996 census, Aborigines comprised approximately 88%, Torres Strait Islanders 8% and persons who identified as both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders 3%. Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 1996 Census of Population and Housing Australia

<http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/d3310108.nsf/ASGC/415515B4E63DCBA64A25650600139F9C/> at 4 November 2002.

[69] Tasmania v Commonwealth (1984) 158 CLR 1, 244.

[70] C Ronan, The Cambridge Illustrated History of the World’s Science (1984) 398-9.

[71] ‘Redcliffe police are looking for two men described as causasian.’[sic] Peninsula Post, Thursday March 12 1998, 2.

[72] These classifications are discussed in more detail in I Haney Lopez, White by Law: the Legal Construction of Race (1996) 76.

[73] Haney Lopez (ibid 96-98) writes that the most influential of these theories was set out in A H Keane’s comprehensively named The World’s People: a popular account of their bodily and mental characters, beliefs, traditions, political and social institutions (1908). This work was extensively referred to by the US judiciary in deciding migration cases.

[74] For an example see A Nason, Textbook of Modern Biology (1965) 770-1.

[75] W Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes towards the Negro 1550-1812 (1969) Chapter XIII.

[76] Ibid Chapter V.

[77] Ibid Chapter XVIII.

[78] See, eg, Sugar Bounty Act 1905 (Cth) s 2; Liquor (Amendment) Act 1905 (NSW) s 8(4).

[79] See, eg, The Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 (Qld) s 4.

[80] See, eg, Aborigines Act Amendment Act 1936 (WA) s 2 defined ‘quadroon’ as a person ‘who is one-fourth of the original full blood’.

[81] F Sanger and A R Coulson, ‘A rapid method for determining sequences in DNA by primed synthesis with DNA polymerase’ (1975) 94(3) Journal of Molecular Biology 441-8.

[82] See, eg, G Ruano and K K Kidd, ‘Genotyping and haplotyping of polymorphisms directly from genomic DNA via coupled amplification and sequencing (CAS)’ (1991) 19(24) Nucleic Acids Research 6877-82.

[83] See Bruce Alberts et al, Molecular Biology of the Cell (3rd ed, 1994).

[84] M Das et al, ‘Assessment of the total number of human transcription units’ (2001) 77(1/2) Genomics 71-8.

[85] J Graves and M Westerman, ‘Marsupial genetics and genomics’ (2002) 18(10) Trends in Genetics 517.

[86] J H Relethford, ‘Apportionment of global human genetic diversity based on craniometrics and skin color’ (2002) 118(4) American Journal of Physical Anthropology 393-8.

[87] J C Venter et al, ‘The sequence of the human genome’ (2001) 291(5507) Science 1304-51.

[88] International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium, ‘Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome’ (2001) 409(6822) Nature 860–921.

[89] W H Li and L A Sadler, ‘Low nucleotide diversity in man’ (1991) 129(2) Genetics 513-523.

[90] E Marshall, ‘DNA Studies Challenge the Meaning of Race’ (1998) 282 (5389) Science 654-655.

[91] C Romualdi et al, ‘Patterns of human diversity, within and among continents, inferred from biallelic DNA polymorphisms’ (2002) 12(4) Genome Research 602-12.

[92] Ibid.

[93] Queensland v Wyvill [1989] FCA 485; (1989) 90 ALR 611, 615 quoted with approval by Drummond J in Gibbs v Capewell [1995] FCA 1048; (1995) 128 ALR 577, 582.

[94] See S D Pena et al, ‘DNA diagnosis of human genetic individuality’ (1995) 73 Journal of Molecular Medicine 555-64.

[95] See, eg, K Crainic et al, ‘Skeletal remains presumed submerged in water for three years identified using PCR-STR analysis’ (2002) 47 Journal of Forensic Science 1025-7.

[96] See, eg, A J Redd and M Stoneking, ‘Peopling of Sahul: mtDNA variation in Aboriginal Australian and Papua New Guinean populations’ (1999) 65 The American Journal of Human Genetics 808-28.

[97] See, eg, O A Derbeneva et al, ‘Analysis of mitochondrial DNA diversity in the aleuts of the commander islands and its implications for the genetic history of beringia’ (2002) 71 The American Journal of Human Genetics 415-21.

[98] See, eg, A Sajantila et al, ‘Paternal and maternal DNA lineages reveal a bottleneck in the founding of the Finnish population’ (1996 ) 93 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America USA 12035-9.

[99] See, eg, Z H Rosser et al, ‘Y-chromosomal diversity in Europe is clinal and influenced primarily by geography, rather than by language’ (2000) 67 The American Journal of Human Genetics 1526-43.

[100] M Stoneking, ‘Alu insertion polymorphisms and human evolution: evidence for a larger population size in Africa’ (1997) 7 Genome Research 1061-71.

[101] Ibid.

[102] See, eg, A J Redd and M Stoneking, ‘Peopling of Sahul: mtDNA variation in aboriginal Australian and Papua New Guinean populations’ (1999) 65 The American Journal of Human Genetics 808-28.

[103] R M W Dixon, The Languages of Australia (1980).

[104] National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families (Australia) Bringing Them Home Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Sydney 1997, Ch. 2.

[105] Australian Bureau of Statistics Characteristics of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population, 1994 Family and Culture Catalogue 4190.0 AGPS Canberra 1997.

[106] King-Ansell v Police [1979] 2 NZLR 531, 542-543.

[107] Ibid 542.

[108] [1982] UKHL 7; [1983] 2 AC 548.

[109] Ibid 562.

[110] Shaw v Wolf (1999) 163 ALR 205.

[111] Ibid 250-1.

[112] Ibid 268.

[113] See, eg, S Bevilacqua, ‘Aboriginality under the microscope’, Sunday Tasmanian, 17 February 2002, 6-7; ABC TV 7.30 Report, Wednesday 21 August 2002.

[114] (1992) 175 CLR 1.

[115] Ibid 70 (Brennan J), italics added.

[116] [2000] FCA 191; (2000) 170 ALR 159, 218.

[117] Ibid.

[118] Ibid 218-220.

[119] Ibid 219 (Beaumont and von Doussa JJ).

[120] Western Australia v Ward; Attorney-General (NT) v Ward; Ningarmara v Northern Territory [2002] HCA 28 [Unreported, Gleeson CJ, Gaudron, McHugh, Gummow, Kirby, Hayne and Callinan JJ, 8 August 2002] <http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/2002/28.html> at 4 November 2002 (copy on file with authors).

[121] Ibid [670] per Callinan J.

[122] Rubibi Community v Western Australia [2001] FCA 607 [Unreported Merkel J, 29 May 2001] <http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/2001/607.html> at 4 November 2002 (copy on file with authors).

[123] (1999) 163 ALR 205, 268.


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