The snowclone title I owe to Mark Liberman’s LanguageLog post.
I’ve continued to track which communities are being targetted by the “Howard/Brough plan” (last update on 22 July). Last Tuesday we learnt which communities will get a 5-year lease to the Commonwealth. These are set out in the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007 and its Schedules, wherein s.2(1) specifies commencement dates of the leases.
The general commencement is “The day after this Act receives the Royal Assent.” There are two exceptions: the provisions covered by s.32, and by s.33, both of which commence on “A single day to be fixed by Proclamation. However, if any of the provision(s) do not commence within the period of 6 months beginning on the day on which this Act receives the Royal Assent, they commence on the first day after the end of that period.” Sections 32 and 33 determine the commencement date of 5-year leases to the Commonwealth on certain areas specified in s.31(2)(a)(ii) and s.31(2)(a)(iii) respectively.
Effectively this provides for staging of the commencement of the leases, into three main stages (with separate provisions for the balance of areas such as those tracked for 99-year leases). I haven’t seen any attention to this staging in commentary, nor any rationale as to why a community is in a grouping.
I have extracted the named communities according to these groupings (keeping the official spellings), and present them in the tables below along with my brief comments. In the following tables the first column shows the current tenure type: ALRA is under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (NT) 1976, CLA=Community Living Area, SPL=Special Purpose Lease, both under NT legislation. The second column is the identifying number used in the Schedules to the NT National Emergency Response Bill 2007.
(i) Leases commencing “The day after this Act receives the Royal Assent”. This grouping tends to include the larger centres of population, with exceptions: larger centres omitted from group (i) are Lajamanu, Wadeye, Maningrida, Milingimbi.
| type | no. | name |
|---|---|---|
| ALRA | 2 | Ali Curung |
| ALRA | 4 | Amoonguna |
| ALRA | 5 | Ampilatwatja |
| ALRA | 6 | Areyonga |
| ALRA | 11 | Daguragu [see below] |
| ALRA | 13 | Gapuwiyak |
| ALRA | 14 | Gunbalanya |
| ALRA | 15 | Gunyangara |
| ALRA | 17 | Hermannsburg |
| ALRA | 18 | Kaltukatjara |
| ALRA | 19 | Kintore |
| ALRA | 27 | Ngukurr |
| ALRA | 30 | Nyirripi |
| ALRA | 32 | Papunya |
| ALRA | 36 | Pmara Jutunta |
| ALRA | 37 | Ramingining |
| ALRA | 39 | Santa Teresa |
| ALRA | 41 | Wallace Rockhole |
| ALRA | 45 | Yirrkala |
| ALRA | 47 | Yuendumu |
| CLA | 48 | Alpurrurulam |
| CLA | 49 | Atitjere |
| CLA | 57 | Minyerri |
| CLA | 60 | Titjikala |
| CLA | 62 | Wutunugurra |
| CLA | 63 | Yarralin |
(ii) Leases commencing on a single day to be proclaimed and within 6 months of Royal Assent (these are all in the region of the NLC or the Tiwi Land Council):
| type | no. | name |
|---|---|---|
| ALRA | 1 | Acacia Larrakia |
| ALRA | 3 | Amanbidji |
| ALRA | 7 | Barunga |
| ALRA | 8 | Belyuen |
| ALRA | 9 | Beswick |
| ALRA | 10 | Bulman |
| ALRA | 12 | Galiwinku |
| ALRA | 21 | Maningrida |
| ALRA | 22 | Manyallaluk |
| ALRA | 23 | Milikapiti |
| ALRA | 24 | Milingimbi |
| ALRA | 25 | Minjilang |
| ALRA | 29 | Numbulwar |
| ALRA | 31 | Palumpa |
| ALRA | 33 | Peppimenarti |
| ALRA | 34 | Pigeon Hole |
| ALRA | 35 | Pirlangimpi |
| ALRA | 38 | RobinsonRiver |
| ALRA | 40 | Wadeye |
| ALRA | 42 | Warruwi |
| ALRA | 43 | Weemol |
| CLA | 50 | Binjari |
| CLA | 51 | Bulla |
| CLA | 55 | Jilkminggan |
| CLA | 58 | Rittarangu |
(iii) Leases commencing on a single day to be proclaimed and within 6 months of Royal Assent (these are all in the CLC region):
| type | no. | name |
|---|---|---|
| ALRA | 16 | Haasts Bluff |
| ALRA | 20 | Lajamanu |
| ALRA | 26 | Mt Liebig |
| ALRA | 28 | Nturiya |
| ALRA | 44 | Willowra |
| ALRA | 46 | Yuelamu |
| CLA | 52 | Engawala |
| CLA | 53 | Imangara |
| CLA | 54 | Imanpa |
| CLA | 56 | Laramba |
| CLA | 59 | Tara |
| CLA | 61 | Wilora |
| 65 | Canteen Creek |
The balance of communities named in the Bill have particularities in their current tenure and when the leases will commence is not simply specifiable. All the communities which have announced agreement to 99-year leases are among these.
| type | no. | name | |
|---|---|---|---|
| iv | 64 | Nauiyu (Daly River) | |
| SPL | 66 | Darwin: 5 town camps | |
| SPL | 67 | Katherine: 2 town camps | |
| SPL | 68 | Tennant Creek: 9 town camps | |
| SPL | 69 | Alice Springs: 17 town camps | |
| (a) | Angurugu | ||
| v | (b) | Finke or Aputula | |
| (c) | Kalkarindji or Wave Hill | ||
| (d) | Milyakburra | ||
| (e) | Mutitjulu | ||
| (f) | Nguiu | ||
| (g) | Umbakumba | ||
| v | Daguragu Community Government Council [also covered by 11 Daguragu in (i)] |
||
| v | Pine Creek Aboriginal Advancement Association Inc. [covers Kybrook Farm – thanks Jangari] |
The NT website tracking the intervention has hardly been updated for a few weeks now, but it still has the only official map of communities affected. Lots of smaller communities are not mentioned on this map and are now not in the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007, notably the Utopia communities, the town camps at Elliott and Borroloola, and communities in the
southern Barkly.
Follow
Dave
So what is the status of outstations on ALRA land, and on the stockroutes? i.e. outside the scheduled town areas.
Aren’t they affected by the Emergency provisions? e.g. in relation to the quarantining of residents’ welfare, and/or the bans on alcohol? or does the welfare quarantining apply to all residents on ALRA land, or to all people receiving their money in the scheduled communities?
Outside the scheduled township areas there is no change in land tenure (as far as I can tell Bob; insert here some obvious disclaimer about all this not being legal advice).
My post above was confined to areas about to undergo a change to their land tenure, namely being leased for 5 years to the Commonwealth.
The current Bills define and affect other kinds of areas in ways without affecting land tenure. I suppose we’ll get used to this new vocabulary. Someone could chart the interwoven definitions of the Bills in this “emergency response” package; I haven’t done this but here are some:
There are more: common areas to do with access permission, relevant Northern Territory areas (all prescribed areas plus Finke/ Aputula and Kalkarindji/ Wave Hill) to do with the income management regime, declared relevant Northern Territory areas (relevant areas specified by the Minister); declared primary school area and declared secondary school areas; and (if you’re still reading) construction areas and initial areas to do with “Statutory rights over buildings or infrastructure”. You can have your own go at reading the Bills, and the Explanatory Memoranda, and the Parliamentary Library’s digest.
The updated Bills Digest explained yesterday:
Here are the four digests from yesterday (well the last file is actually dated today — and today the Senate votes on the package):
21 Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (Northern Territory National Emergency Response and Other Measures) Bill 2007 [PDF 239KB]
24-25 Appropriation (Northern Territory National Emergency Response) Bill (Nos. 1 and 2) 2007-2008 [PDF 80KB]
27 Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform) Bill 2007 [PDF 152KB]
28 Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007 [PDF 339KB]
Will Owen’s American eye‘s latest post Stop the Land Grab! has more.