Editing Native title in Australia (section)

====1971 – Milirrpum====
{{main|Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd}}
Australia did not experience litigation involving Aboriginal native title until the 1970s, though several earlier cases tangentially involved issues of native title.<ref name="A-G v Brown">''Attorney-General v Brown'' [http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/nsw/NSWLeggeSC/1847/2.pdf (1847) 1 Legge 312]; 2 SCR (NSW) App 30.</ref><ref>{{cite CommonLII|litigants=Cooper v Stuart |year=1889 |court=UKLawRpAC |num=7 |parallelcite=(1889) 14 [[Appeal Cases Law Reports|App Cas]] 286 |date=3 April 1889 |courtname=[[Judicial Committee of the Privy Council|Privy Council]] (on appeal from NSW)}}.</ref><ref name="Williams v A-G">{{cite AustLII|HCA|33|1913|litigants=Williams v Attorney General (NSW) |parallelcite=[http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/Cth/HCA/1913/33.pdf (1913) 16 {{abbr|CLR|Commonwealth Law Reports}} 404] |courtname=auto}}.</ref><ref name="Randwick v Rutledge">{{cite AustLII|HCA|63|1959|litigants=Randwick Corporation v Rutledge |parallelcite=(1959) 102 [[Commonwealth Law Reports|CLR]] 54 |courtname=auto}}.</ref><ref name="Wade v NSW">{{cite AustLII|HCA|28|1969|litigants=Wade v New South Wales Rutile Mining Co Pty Ltd |parallelcite=(1969) 121 [[Commonwealth Law Reports|CLR]] 177 |courtname=auto}}.</ref> In 1835, John Batman purported to sign [[Batman's Treaty]] with Aboriginal elders in the [[Port Phillip District]]. Governor Bourke declared Batman's Treaty was "void and of no effect as against the rights of the Crown" and declared any person on "vacant land of the Crown" without authorization from the Crown to be trespassing.<ref name="foundingdocs.gov.au">National Archives of Australia, ''[http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item.asp?dID=42&aID=8&pID=73 Governor Bourke's Proclamation 1835 (UK)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080725170033/http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item.asp?dID=42&aID=8&pID=73 |date=25 July 2008 }}'' Accessed 3 November 2008</ref> The proclamation was approved by the Colonial Office. The official objection to the Treaty was that Batman had attempted to negotiate directly with the Aboriginal people, whom the British did not recognise as having any claim to any lands in Australia.

In 1971, in ''[[Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd]]'' (the "Gove land rights case") in the [[Supreme Court of the Northern Territory]], [[Richard Blackburn|Justice Richard Blackburn]] explicitly rejected the concept of native title, ruling against the claimants on a number of issues of law and fact.<ref name="Milirrpum">''Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd'' (1971) 17 [[Federal Law Reports|FLR]] 141 (27 April 1971) [[Supreme Court of the Northern Territory|Supreme Court]] (NT).</ref>