Land Rights at Risk: Pathways to reform in the Northern Territory

Abstract

In a companion and earlier paper, we traced fifty years of deferred reform in the financial architecture of the Aboriginals Benefit Account (ABA) under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (ALRA) and the recent statutory creation in 2021 of Aboriginal Investment NT (AINT). This paper turns from diagnosis to prognosis. It sets out the principal sources of uncertainty now facing ALRA—financial, political and governance-related—and considers three broad strategic responses available to government and First Nations interests: inaction, further commissioned or parliamentary review, or First Nations interests taking the initiative themselves. We examine the continuing coherence of the four policy logics underpinning ALRA and argue that while the land restoration and land council functions remain broadly fit for purpose, the compensatory and financial mechanisms are the least coherent element of the current settlement. We propose that the underlying financial model be reconceived as a perpetual endowment, controlled by Aboriginal Territorians, in place of the current volatile and ministerially controlled arrangements. Finally, we set out one possible model—a First Nations-led collaborative governance process—for building a reform agenda over the coming years. The paper does not offer definitive recommendations; rather, it aims to equip those who must ultimately decide on the future of ALRA with a clearer view of the choices before them, and to make the case that, if self-determination is to mean anything in practice, First Nations interests should not simply wait for government to set the agenda.