• Specific Year
    Any

Public Affairs Office of the Indigenous Land Corporation --- "Profile of the Indigenous Land Corporation" [2003] IndigLawB 26; (2003) 5(24) Indigenous Law Bulletin 11


Profile of the Indigenous Land Corporation

by the Public Affairs Office of the Indigenous Land Corporation

The Indigenous Land Corporation (‘ILC’) and the Indigenous Land Fund were established in 1995[1]as part of the Commonwealth's response to the High Court's Mabo[2] decision. The Government’s intention was to complement the native title regime.

In his second reading speech on the Land Fund and Indigenous Land Corporation (ATSIC Amendment) Bill, the then Prime Minister, Paul Keating stated that many Indigenous people ‘retain a strong attachment to their traditional country, but will be denied native title rights as a result of prior alienation of the land concerned’.[3] For that reason the ILC was intended as a mechanism to address dispossession and its legislation and policy are fundamentally about land, ‘that critical part of the Indigenous heritage which has been taken away from so many Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders’.[4]

The ILC has two functions: land acquisition for grant to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations, and land management. Both are to provide economic, environmental, cultural or social benefits to Indigenous peoples.

All policy and land acquisition decisions are made by the Board. The Board is a seven-member body appointed by the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs. The Chairperson and at least four other members must be Indigenous people. The Board is required to produce and revise from time to time national and regional Indigenous land strategies.[5] The Board has also produced guidelines. These provide Indigenous people and organisations with details of the policies and procedures that guide the land acquisition and management functions.

The national strategy is the major policy document and has gone through two revisions as the ILC has come to better understand its operating environment. The first national strategy operated from 1996 -2001. It set a priority on buying land of cultural significance, meaning land to which groups have traditional, historical or contemporary links. Proposals that did not have land as a central component, such as commercial proposals and accommodation for service organisations, were not given priority.[6]

Land management powers allow the ILC to carry on or arrange land management activities on Indigenous-held land. Land management is broadly outlined and the range of activities includes providing advisory and environmental management services, training in land or business management and providing information.

The first national strategy was revised to reflect Indigenous needs as expressed in the ILC’s consultations regarding its land needs planning and land management research. Notably, this revision provided for land purchases for reasons other than cultural significance.

In 2002 the national strategy was further revised, introducing four land acquisition programs, each tied to a category of benefit. Program statements were detailed in the guidelines. The cultural land acquisition program continues the policy of buying land of cultural significance. The social land acquisition policy assists with purchases for a range of aspirations, including recreational, health, welfare, educational or diversionary purposes. The environmental program involves primarily joint venture acquisitions with government or other agencies to provide Indigenous people with environmental benefits. The economic land acquisition program is a commercial program that assists with establishing and maintaining sustainable, land-based businesses on ILC acquired land. This is a response, within the ILC’s legislative parameters, that reflects a need, evident in ILC experience, for direct economic development support.

Land management policy was recast as five initiatives: support for group based planning, enterprise and regional development, coordinating services with other agencies, and conducting research that benefits Indigenous people through land management and enterprise opportunities.

To support the new strategy, more resources have been allocated to capacity development and business planning, in terms of additional staff, organisational structure and practice. The aim is to act more intensively to provide long term, sustainable benefits. In total[7] 160 properties have been purchased, 110 have been granted.

Further information about the Indigenous Land Corporation can be obtained from its website, www.ilc.gov.au.


[1] Land Fund and Indigenous Land Corporation (ATSIC Amendment) Act 1995 (Cth). The provisions were subsequently incorporated into the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission Act 1989 (Cth) ss191A-193T.

[2] Mabo v Queensland (No 2) [1992] HCA 23; (1992) 107 ALR 1

[3] Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 28 February 1995, 1106 (Paul Keating, Prime Minister).

[4] Ibid.

[5] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission Act 1989 (Cth) s191N, s191P.

[6] National Indigenous Land Strategy, 1996-2001, 5.

[7] As at 13 May 2003.

Download

No downloadable files available