Aboriginal land rights in Australia Research Proposal

Aboriginal land rights in Australia - Research Proposal Example o Aborigines, Diane Bell has boldly expressed it as a sign that there is a drastic alteration in the legal and administrative stance to the acknowledgment of Aboriginal rights in Australia. Bell further justified her claims through pronouncing these statements;"Nowhere are these changes as striking as in the struggle of the Aboriginal people to gain recognition of land rights. This struggle has involved both moral and legal re-examinations of the relationship between a settler population and the original inhabitants. The wording of the Land Rights Act Northern Territory (1976) and the reference to customary law both assume that Aborigines have rights and a system of law, and that these have existed for many thousands of years. Such propositions would have been unthinkable two hundred years ago, when Australia was settled as a British colony. Not only has the legal profession had to rethink its judgments and governments to legislate to recognize aspects of Aboriginal Rights, but th e Aborigines themselves have organized locally and nationally to bring the grievances and the injustices suffered by their people to the attention of other Australians and to people abroad."1 Nevertheless, there are alarming difficulties regarding the debate on land rights. The issue has branched out extensively to include political implications which made it extremely complicated to represent objectively and impartially. In a scholarly matter, it is rather inappropriate to provide an in-depth analysis of the causes of the land rights battle while it is still being fought. Neutrality of opinion regarding a politically charged state of affairs can be then argued as an indication of support to the conservative racist forces in Australia which combat the bestowing of land rights to the original inhabitants of Australia. Nonetheless, there is an urgent need to expose and investigate the issues revolving around the land rights movement since arguments and raison d''tre on both sides of the problem are dreadfully ambiguous. A tranquil and balanced evaluation of the diverse issues of the land rights movement can possibly generate a remedial and enlightening effect and conceivably guide those who are fervently faithful to the land rights proposal to come up with a persuasive way in presenting their case. Many Australians advocate the recognition of the Aborigine's traditional land rights which constitute the right to utilize and subsist on the land that they have previously occupied. The supporters of the land rights movement give their best hopes that a greater recognition of these customary rights, which is termed as the native title, would smooth the progress of compromise between Aborigines and white Australians. However, the land claims of the Aborigines demonstrate composite legal concerns, such as the problems that granting of native titles will cause to private welfare in the land that have existed in Australia over the past two decades. The complex issue over land rights necessitates the vitality of confronting the problem with the deep-seated legal principles regarding land rights of aboriginal people. The Land Rights Movement In the 1960s, the Aboriginal land rights movement inaugurated its emergence as a "movement", as such. The term "movement" is quite an inappropriate word to use since the