TRADITIONAL OWNER SETTLEMENT ACT 2010 - PREAMBLE

TRADITIONAL OWNER SETTLEMENT ACT 2010 - PREAMBLE

Preamble

Aboriginal peoples have lived for more than a thousand generations in this State. They maintained complex societies with many languages, kinship systems, laws, polities and spiritualities. They enjoyed a close spiritual connection with their country and developed sustainable economic practices for their lands, waters and natural resources. Land formed the basis of their existence and identity and was owned and managed according to traditional laws and customs. They had a special relationship with their lands, which held great meaning to them.

The arrival of Europeans in this State ruptured the spiritual, political and economic order of the Aboriginal peoples. They faced the loss of their ancestral land and grave threats to their culture, but the Aboriginal peoples have survived.

The Constitution Act 1975 now recognises the unique status of the Aboriginal peoples as descendants of Australia's first peoples. It recognises that Aboriginal peoples have made a unique and irreplaceable contribution to the identity and well-being of this State.

It is now expedient, as a means of reconciliation, to provide for agreements to be negotiated between the State and traditional owner groups to enable Aboriginal cultures to be recognised, in particular the recognition of the special relationship of Aboriginal peoples with their land, to recognise traditional owner rights and for rights to be conferred on identified traditional owner groups.

The Parliament of Victoria therefore enacts: