Commonwealth Numbered Acts

ABORIGINAL LAND RIGHTS (NORTHERN TERRITORY) AMENDMENT ACT 1987 No. 40 of 1987 - SECT 35

35. After section 77 of the Principal Act the following sections are inserted:
Consents of traditional Aboriginal owners

"77A. Where, for the purposes of sub-section 11A (3), 19 (5), 23 (3), 48 (1)
or 68 (2), the traditional Aboriginal owners of an area of land are required
to have consented, as a group, to a particular act or thing, the consent shall
be taken to have been given if -

   (a)  in a case where there is a particular process of decision making that,
        under the Aboriginal tradition of those traditional Aboriginal owners
        or of the group to which they belong, must be complied with in
        relation to decisions of that kind - the decision was made in
        accordance with that process; or

   (b)  in a case where there is no such process of decision making - the
        decision was made in accordance with a process of decision making
        agreed to and adopted by those traditional Aboriginal owners in
        relation to the decision or in relation to decisions of that kind.
        Conduct by director, servants or agents

"77B. (1) Where, in a proceeding under this Act in respect of conduct engaged
in by a body corporate, it is necessary to establish the state of mind of the
body corporate, it is sufficient to show that a director, servant or agent of
the body corporate, being a director, servant or agent by whom the conduct was
engaged in within the scope of the person's actual or apparent authority, had
that state of mind.

"(2) Any conduct engaged in on behalf of a body corporate -

   (a)  by a director, servant or agent of the body corporate within the scope
        of the person's actual or apparent authority; or

   (b)  by any other person at the direction or with the consent or agreement
        (whether express or implied) of a director, servant or agent of the
        body corporate, where the giving of the direction, consent or
        agreement is within the scope of the actual or apparent authority of
        the director, servant or agent, shall be deemed, for the purposes of
        this Act, to have been engaged in also by the body corporate.

"(3) A reference in this section to the state of mind of a person includes a
reference to the knowledge, intention, opinion, belief or purpose of the
person and the person's reasons for the person's intention, opinion, belief or
purpose.".