Hill on behalf of the Yirendali People Core Country Claim v State of Queensland [2017] FCA 273

Flinders Shire centred around the township of Hughenden

Schedule A (within the Extract from the Register of Indigenous Land Use Agreements) and Schedule B respectively provide a written description and map of the determination area (see attached documents).

The area is within the jurisdiction of the Barcaldine Regional and Charters Towers Regional Councils, and the Flinders, Richmond, and Winton Shire Councils.

Registered on the National Native Title Register

Between: James Hill, Martina Jacobs and Jeffrey Lammermoor on behalf of the Yirendal People (Applicant) and State of Queensland, Commonwealth of Australia, Charters Towers Regional Council and others named in the Schedule (Respondents)

Judge: Reeves J

Determination

The Yirendali People applied for this determination of native title in December 2006. There were 55 respondents, including the State of Queensland, local governments, pastoralists, and two mining companies.

The applicant was unable to fund the expense of the trial over the connection issue set for 29 June 2015 and sought leave with the Federal Court of Australia (FCA) to discontinue the proceedings.

The FCA dismissed the application and, after a case management hearing in June 2015, ordered that the trial would proceed if within 18 months (i) an Indigenous Land Use Agreement agreeing to the surrender of native title over the entire claim area was not registered on the Register of Indigenous Land Use Agreements and (ii) an agreement was not made, per s 87 of the NTA, that native title does not exist[8]-[10]. Consequently, the State and the applicant negotiated the Yirendali People Claim Resolution Indigenous Land Use Agreement to settle the matter, and the applicant filed a s 87 agreement with the Court in December 2016 [14]. The ILUA provided for the surrender of native title in exchange for benefits that included land exchange and revenue sharing [13].

Justice Reeves, on 20 March 2017, was satisfied that the requirements of s 87 of the NTA were met and found it appropriate to make this determination that native title does not exist. 

Full text of the determination is available via the URL link above.

Native title does not exist

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Documents

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